Living Paycheck to Paycheck

I totally caved.  Yesterday, I bought groceries for the first time in well over a month.  I really wanted to stick to the Pantry Diet, but, honestly, the only way I had left to do that was to have spaghetti or mashed potatos for every meal–including breakfast.  So, as I sat at my computer yesterday morning, eating leftover mashed potatos before getting ready for Mass, I made up a grocery list and went directly after church.

I’m just under the $100 limit I set for myself at the beginning of May for the May Grocery Challenge at Give Me Back My Five Bucks, though I’m running low on milk, but I don’t want to go over the $2.04 I have remaining.  On the other hand, I’ve never stayed this close to $100 with groceries and I’m pretty proud of myself.

I wasn’t expecting to have to buy Drain-O for my bathroom sink, but it didn’t cost too much.  I also had to buy things that I was out of (due to the pantry diet) that I like to have on hand: flour, baking powder, pancake mix.  Other non-monthly expenses were toilet paper and toothpaste.  The most “luxurious” item purchased was boxed wine.  My best friend and I (and sometimes her husband, sometimes my boyfriend) get together every Wednesday, usually at my place, for Boxed Wine Wednesdays.  It’s cheap and delicious, if unclassy.  One box will generally last 2 1/2-3 visits depending on how much we drink and how often I imbibe on other days of the week.  I wouldn’t be able to afford BWWs otherwise.  Two weeks ago, for example, my best friend and I killed two bottles of wine between us (I was given a few bottles for my birthday last month and haven’t bought boxed wine in a while), one of which she brought.  If we each bought a bottle of wine each week at $7 apiece, we’d spend approximately $672/year, for a total of $336 each.  Instead, I’m paying under $200 a year on the boxed wine and drinking tons of beer and wine at her house on most weekends, evening it out.

In the future, I think that I’ll try to keep my grocery budget to something slightly easier like $120/month, especially during allergy season when I live off of generic Claritin.

My Pantry Diet is still going, but it won’t last much longer.  I have approximately enough food to last into next week, but not much else.  My dad gave me two 2lb. bags of frozen ground venison (that he killed and butchered himself with my uncle and their pals); I used one bag with two boxes of Hamburger Helper and felt like I was committing sacrilege.  Venison is soooo good and I used it with Hamburger Helper.  I’m so ashamed.  So I’d rather save my other 2 lb. bag for something better, so I might not count it in with the rest of the pantry diet.

 My boyfriend is going to create a meal plan and exercise plan for me to start as soon as I’m off this crazy pantry diet even though he doesn’t want me to lose any weight.  He’s really into fitness, though we both suck at keeping to a healthy diet: me because I don’t know where to start and I’m bad at sticking to things, and him because it’s easier not to stick to it.  Translation: laziness.  I’m looking forward to what he puts together for me.

My take-home pay each month is $2,409.97.  Knowing that I have not been living within my means, I decided to make a “Bare Bones Budget”.  What always screws me up when keeping a budget is budgeting per expense, instead of grouping things together.  Each month when I pay my rent, I have to pay mandatory fees and my water bill together with it.  So that always varies between $1032-37.  I could choose a number within that range, but why not add my other utilities in?  And if I’m adding necessary utilities, why don’t I add in the unnecessary ones like cell phone and internet?

So I’ve broken my budget into a few categories:

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $1345
Category 2:  Savings — $250
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $70

The only problem with a bare bones budget is that it doesn’t leave room for surprises (unless you count Category 5’s “miscellaneous” option.  Already this month I paid my county car tax for $64.39…technically, that could go in either Category 4 or 5…or 2, “Savings”.  With my $250/month, I want to put $200 into the savings for paying my car loan, $25 into an “Emergency Fund” which I don’t really have yet, and another $25 into a Gift Fund.  It seems like every month, I have another gift to buy, and sometimes more than one.  In July, I have two weddings and my grandmother’s birthday.  I want to start putting money aside specifically for that.

To do that, I’m going to start splitting up my bank accounts.  I have two checking accounts, two savings accounts, and one Money Market account.  The Money Market has the most money in it and is the savings for paying off my car.  My most often used checking account will stay the same pretty much; it’ll be used for Categories 1, 3, and 4.  One savings account will be the Emergency fund, one will be the Gift fund, and the lesser used checking account will just hold whatever money is leftover at the end.

If this is too hard, I may I have to fiddle with the numbers as I go.  For example, $250 is more than 10% of my take home income, and I already have 3% of my salary before taxes going into a 401K (with 50% match), so it might be best to put more into travel as this summer approaches and gas gets higher.

In other news, this weekend my boyfriend went grocery shopping for Saturday night’s dinner so that he could cook for me.  I told him that I didn’t want him to buy food so that I could stick to the pantry diet, but apparently he disapproves and didn’t want to stick to it himself.  So he bought me a package of lunch meat and bread for this week’s lunch while he was there.  I’m so used to not having that kind of food that I cooked lunch and came to work before remembering.  That’s the best part of this diet-that’s-not-really-a-diet:  I’m finally learning how quick cooking can really be.  This gives me hope that in the future, when I’m a parent, my children won’t starve to death.

I’m loving what I call my Pantry Diet.  In the last 2 1/2 weeks I’ve probably only lost a pound or so, but that’s not the real goal anyway.  The goal is to use up everything usable in my pantry / refridgerator.  I’m still doing well.

I signed up for the May Grocery Challenge at Give Me Back My Five Bucks and made my goal $100.  Since I usually spend MUCH more than that, I figured that it was a good goal.  Also, when I run out of food, I’m going to have to go to the grocery store and stock up on everything I’m missing which I’m guessing will be around the middle of May.  And since I’m still letting myself buy milk, eggs, and vegetable oil, I’ll definitely  have to shop before the week is out.

I considered myself to be “out of food” two and a half weeks ago when I decided to go on the Pantry Diet, but I still have plenty to last me.  How often do we let things sit around because we’re not in the mood to eat it, and then go drop $150 at the grocery store getting more appetizing things that are gone before we know it?

I have one bag of potato chips (given to me by my parents / left over from my party) and one or two bags of kettle corn left as ready made snack food.  Everything else in my pantry is stuff that needs to be cooked or baked or something else that takes more steps than just opening a bag.  I’m not eating as much because I’m often too lazy to cook something.  Yesterday, I baked some gingersnaps with a box mix I had (also from my parents) and ate a few (delicious).  I didn’t feel like cooking a real meal, so I had ramen noodles.  This morning before work I cooked up spaghetti, half of which I brought to work with me and the other half I refridgerated for tonight or tomorrow’s lunch.  And I have TONS more spaghetti where that came from.  I’m counting on being well under my $100 goal, and I hope to keep it under that limit for the foreseeable future as well.