Now that we caught up on Friday with the last three months of spending - I'd like to update you on our year -over year tracking. Below is our average monthly spending from July 2010-July 2011 then July 2011 to July 2012 and the difference thereof.
It looks like our battle to eat out less is winning - however our grocery bill has more then ate up what we were saving - this is a really interesting trend.
With regards to alcohol - that went up a bit - but I'm satisfied that this is reasonable considering how often we buy wine as gifts but I often track it here rather then in the gift category where it belongs.
We're spending more on home maintenance, but this really doesn't surprise me. Now that we're settling in to the new space - and slowing buying furniture and what not - I expect that this will continue to be a top line item in our budget for a while.
I'm pleased that we're not spending as much on emergencies however; this unfortunately doesn't mean that we've had less of them - just that they've been closer to home this year.
I believe that we still have a bit of work to do when it comes to managing how much goes in our mouths - but perhaps we take a cue from one of my aunts and look at how much we buy in terms of groceries and how much gets wasted and/or thrown out. We often buy way more then we need and then in spoils...there used to be some once a week photo captures of the weekly food toss people were doing - I might see if anyone still does that and join in - maybe the visual would help.
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We waste WAY too much food too. Ugh, sometimes it's so frustrating. Since we've got a kid on the way, we're trying to really figure out where we can save a little money and we're looking at our food budget to see what we can do. So far, the only real change we're going to make is buying less FRESH veggies and trying out more FROZEN organic veggies. A lot of our waste comes from the produce department.
ReplyDeleteCheck out www.thefrugalgirl.com Every Friday her post is Food Waste Fridays, she posts her own, and other bloggers link up with their own post and photo. She has years' worth of Food Waste Friday posts that you can review, with ways on how to reduce waste. It's worth checking out.
ReplyDeleteI love that you have the money details of this to do a year to year comparison. You two are so young and so ahead of the game money knowledge wise.
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