February Challenge: Tracking Food Costs

I like 30 day challenges for many things: writing, exercising, eating. So here's a 30 day financial challenge (or less as February is a short month) I'm going to give a shot.

The idea here is that as I talked a little about before I'm expecting to drop down to a single income here in 2012. In preparation for that I've been doing a whole lot of things. But one of those is refining my budget, and especially as it pertains to one particular cost: food. Right now I eat out. A lot. Maybe not a lot for the typical American, but a lot for someone who's trying to pay off debt and save money.

So for January I had two food budget items: out to eat and groceries. Come single income days, my out to eat will be drastically reduced. And the grocery bill will have to take a bit of a hit too. But it will be all the harder since I won't have the out to eat money I'm spending now helping me stretch my grocery dollars. My future grocery spending needs to be about $400 to feed two people for all but one meal a week. So that's about $13 per day, or $6.50 per person per day.

This is not wholly unreasonable. Many folks don't spend anywhere near this. I do live in a higher cost of living area where (inexplicably) groceries seem to cost a little more, as does everything else. For January I just kept a grocery budget and we stuck with it just fine. But for February I'm challenging myself to break out my daily food costs. I'm going to look my grocery and figure out how much each item I ate that day cost me. Should help me to eliminate the unnecessarily expensive foods in favor of tasty but affordable options. Here's to cheaper eating!

(Photo from Shorts and Longs)

Let go of the financial guilt

There's something that can happen to you if you read a lot of personal finance blogs: you can start to feel incredibly inadequate. Whatever your goals may be, there's plenty of people out there who are doing it better. There's the person who's making thousands of dollars of their blog ads when you aren't even making ten dollars. There are people who are managing to save 40% or 50% of their income to retirement. Other folks have budgets so clean and no unnecessary expenses you marvel at their self control. And lastly you keep reading about the people taking European trips you really envy or maybe buying a home when you realize they are decades younger than you and you still don't own a home.

Well I'm giving you permission to let go of the guilt. You've set your budget. You're trying to pay off that debt or save up for that goal. Then you realize you forgot it was your niece's birthday this month so you have to buy her a gift. Then maybe you didn't pay a bill on time and now owe a late fee. Don't sweat it. Stuff happens unexpectedly. We all make mistakes. And none of us are superheroes.

If you've got your plan in place on how you are going to get to your goal (or even are just thinking about the early stages of your plan) you are so far ahead doing nothing. It's sort of like wondering whether marathoners look down on those who don't run but just walk. Of course not! By getting out there and walking you're doing better than people who aren't even trying. And making the effort to try means you're admitting you can't keep going on as you have been. That's sort of like admitting a little fault. Like maybe you really want to travel, but you haven't been saving a dime for it. Opening your new travel savings account and trying to figure out how you're going to save more money going forward is such a big step.

You can't get all caught up in the competition. Keeping up with the Jones's is what got us all into this mess to begin with. So don't make the same mistake with frugality or savings or retirement planning. Just do what you can, what you are personally capable of. And don't berate yourself so hard when you slip up. It's a journey not a multiple choice test. So let go of the guilt and take hold of taking some pride in the fact that you're moving forward.

(Photo from aLindquist)

Both frugal and cute

In the whole year of 2011 I spent approximately $189 on my cat. That includes food, litter, any special treats that might have been purchased for her. I don't go over the top for the cat. Let's face it, she appreciates an empty cardboard box or a plastic bag more than a fancy cat toy. And most days she's satisfied to eat dried food. Only every now and then does she get wet food as a "treat" and turns out, comparatively, that's not very expensive either.

I think I've spent more in all my other categories: food, housing, insurance, savings, entertainment, utilities, gas and auto repairs. The cat remains, to date, my cheapest yearly expense. Probably get a lot more enjoyable hours spent with her as well than with certain things.