The sun! It has been shining! I have had so much more energy, I feel like I am constantly rushing from one activity to the next. In quick digestible bites, this is what has been going on
The House Situation: We still haven’t found a house. I am probably going to feel the need to report that each month until we get back from our Big China Trip ™ sometime in 2011 when I will begin knocking on doors and bribing people to move out so I can have their houses. I am antsy for a new house. I am tired of the brown living room in this rental house. I am tired of the annoying housing market in our town which has a lot of houses <$250,000 and >$400,000 but absolutely NONE in our desired neighborhood in our price range which is currently $250,000-$350,000.
Is that too much financial information for polite company? Honestly, I don’t care if you know how much we spend on our house. All of you on the coasts are currently shaking your heads at the insanely low cost of living here, I know. People around here who know how cheap new big fancy houses cost are wondering why the heck anyone would spend half a million dollars on a house. If we wanted to leave our lovely little walkable suburb, we could have a house tomorrow. Alas, we don’t want to leave it so we will wait here in this small house with very BROWN walls in the living room. I am so over those brown walls.
The Money Situation: We finally started trying to use only cash for groceries and weekend eating out the last two weeks. It was much harder than I had anticipated. We budgeted $120 for groceries and $60 for eating out and we spent every last dime. Actually, Mr. A spent about $2.00 more on groceries because he forgot about the cash and bought himself a bag of tortilla chips when he went to buy his weekend 2 liter of Coke Zero. (Seriously, if you cut him open, I think instead of blood he has coke zero in his veins). He got a big lecture from me.
I think this week was especially hard because our grocery stockpile was especially low and I had to visit the regular grocery, the Chinese grocery (because horror of horrors we were almost out of rice!!), and Trader Joe’s (to stock up on soy milk for L). The budget meant I was severely restricted on buying unnecessary convenience items like frozen steamed buns and the ridiculously overpriced grapes L loves. (Seriously, why are grapes $.89 one week and $1.99 the next? Can’t we meet in the middle so L can have her grape fix every week??) By the end of the week, the pickings were slim and undesirable. We were so low on other fresh fruit and easy snack items so I had to resort to feeding L croutons for a snack. I also think we ate rice and egg three times in three days (breakfast, lunch or dinner on different days). We all really love rice and egg, but some variety would be nice. Don’t get me wrong, we had food in the house, it just wasn’t anything that sounded very appetizing or that we wanted to take the time to prepare.
This week, I found myself shopping more like I did during my Food Challenge of 2009. I went for items where we could get more for the money like buy one get one free bags of apples $3.49 for 6 pounds). Normally, I would have wanted to mix and match several different kinds of apples but the unbagged kind cost $1.49 a pound and that sounded very expensive when I actually had to pay attention to what I was spending.
One more thing I learned is I don’t have a problem adding up the groceries in my head as I go through the store, but it is almost impossible for me to remember the total for more than 30 seconds. I don’t know what that says about my brain, but the next time I am going to have to bring some paper.
I was going to update on some other stuff, but this ended up longer than I expected. Who knew I had so much to say about groceries?
I can understand your frustrations with some of the meals as I have the same problem at the end of the month when the money is gone so I have to eat out of the pantry. At the end of last month I went to play bridge and had to pay with coins as that was all the cash I had left. Yes, I could have taken some money out of the bank but I am really trying to live within my budget. So sometimes I’m eating omelets for breakfast, lunch and dinner and digging into my change dish for fun and games – lol.
The grapes probably came from Chile, and prices rose as a result of the earthquake, as the supply decreased.
I take it you’re not allowed to paint the walls?
I saw your tweet and immediately got all excited thinking you might have a house in sight, but no
I’m really sorry you’re stuck with the brown walls. I admire your fortitude in trying to limit your budget spending. I do that informally, I think I’d go crazeee if I had to put it on paper. We just might have to do this next year, though. Help!!
I wish we could cut down on our grocery budget… and we probably could *a bit,* but my food allergies make so much so expensive. Since L is drinking soy milk, I suspect you understand. I can’t have any sulfites, most food preservatives and some dyes. It’s very, very frustrating. But hey… at least it cuts down on the seafood budget – we don’t eat any, since they sprinkle sulfites on everything now!
And I am seriously thinking of somehow finding you (literally) some rose-colored glasses so that those ugly brown walls don’t look so gross.
Too much financial information? No way! I love your budgeting blogs, it’s inspiring. If you’re staying in the house a while it might be worth asking if you can paint the walls? It worked in my old rental – it was so worth it to escape the ‘cloud effect’ blue and white living room!
Hopefully a bunch of new house will come on the market soon. March is the “tradtional” time to put houses up for sale in anticipation of selling over the summer and moving before school starts.
Your food budget – is that $120 per week or for two weeks? My “food” budget (grocery store and eating our combined) is $200 per week. I don’t always use it all and then it’s free for other fun stuff.
We are moving TOMORROW to our cute new (smaller) house that is in a great walkable neighborhood. Now we just have to sell our bigger fancy schmancy house. Too bad nobody is buying in the higher price range. Ugh. Light a candle for us.
I like hearing about the ins and outs of your budget strategies. Since the baby was born, we’ve realized we have to do something about our finances, and reading your stories encourages me that it’s possible, if not easy.
I’m trying really hard to keep track and stay within limits but I’m finding it pretty hard. I think part of the issue is that I don’t really know what we spend. I probably need to first just track for a few months but that just seems so boring and I can never stick to it! Yeah, I have a mental block when it comes to dealing with money. As far as discussing money, my impression from the last few years on the good old Net is that people are open to it unless you have TOO much money, then it gets mean. I can’t believe the comments readers have made when bloggers are just sharing their lives and they happen to have fancier than average lifestyles!