Groceries €45
Drinks €35
Charity Shops €10
Lunch and Coffee €10
Phone Credit €20
Which is a not too crippling €120
We had already spent our full March Budget 3 weeks in...but in the last 10 days we managed not to do any extravagant spending, here is what it looked like:
Groceries €45 Drinks €35 Charity Shops €10 Lunch and Coffee €10 Phone Credit €20 Which is a not too crippling €120
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Between Skiing in January and a slightly more expensive than budgeted February we were 775 overspent going into March, we also have now spent our full March allowance with 10 days to go and booked our flights to Helsinki (€350) and accidentally prepaid some accommodation (€75) ...so we have really overspent by more than €1200 ...so that means to get back on track we would have to only spend €600 a month for the rest of the year....lets see how that goes!
Groceries: €33
Coffees and drinks: €40 Céilí: €20 Flea market and charity shops: €23 Lunch out: €5 A fairly modest week, but it brought us up to €750 for March, we are not going to make our ski trip back yet. This is mainly because I love pie charts....but I have looked at what we spent so far this year, and it works out at just under €40 a week on groceries, split up in the following way: (Actually C is the one who puts food in different categories, the Red section is for when he buys cheese (which I don´t eat) and wine (which I do drink))
We were volunteering and babysitting last weekend so I really thought we wouldn't spend a lot and maybe make up for last weeks spending, but we still had a dinner out, 2 nights in the pub, and some entertaining... So not really as cheap as I anticipated!
Dinner out €37 Drinks €40 Groceries €40 Entertaining €25 Light bulbs €18 Storage box €6 Total for the week: €166 Total for the month: €630 Technically we entered March having already spent over the month´s budget (-€775 so far this year), but I am not going to give up, I think we can get back under budget....just maybe not just yet as the first weekend of March was a weekend away:
Hotel: €208 Eating out over the weekend: €118.50 Petrol and Toll: €29 Cleaning supplies: €6.25 Bike tube: €5 Drinks: €9.70 Cinema: €10.40 Groceries: €57.50 Charity shop (hangers and bread board): €3 Kitchen stuff (new but made of sustainable materials and not packaged): €2 Total for the week: ~€450 (oops...but €360 of that was for the weekend away) Maybe we have no car because we can't afford one, but being environmentally conscious means we get to feel good about the fact that we have no car, so we don´t give into the convenience of having a car and end up being saddled with tax, insurance, parking and petrol!
I really didn't think we would over spend for February, especially since we didn't even get around to getting our Helsinki flights, I even thought we could take a big chunk off the overspend for our ski holiday, but end the end we were €65 over for February leaving us €775 over in total this year.
This is the breakdown for the last week: Groceries:€45 Leap Card top up (both of us): €50 Orienteering: €7 Bike Repair:€5 Charity Shops: €23 Total for the week: €130 We don´t get to do this very often, and I´m not even sure what we did even qualifies, but this morning when I was walking into a shop, I passed the cashier at the front door shoving yesterdays salads into the bin, when I stopped him and said I would take them, he told me there were 3 more inside he had to get rid of too, so in total we got 2 spicy bean salads, 3 carrot and seed salads, and mixed salad, all for free, so if we did rescue food like this more, we would end up saving quite a bit! (I am just not ready to take that step yet)
When you look at these in shops, they can seem expensive ...in tiny little packets or huge cost per kilo, but actually they work out quite reasonable (which is just as well as we have used them to replace most of the protein we used to get from animal products) Here is why they work out cheaper:
1. You don´t eat as much...where as before we would have put one full chicken breast (or similar) per person into a stirfry for example, now we just throw in a handful of sesame seeds or cashew nuts, so the cost of the meal ends up being less. 2. No more racing against best before dates, these foods are non perishable so you don´t end up eating more than you need, just because it is going out of date or won´t last until after the weekend. 3. Pulses are sold dry, and take in more than double their weight in water when you (soak and) cook them, so the price per kilo you see in the shop ends up as less when you look at your plate, which is the opposite of meat which shrivels and loses juices while cooking. 4. You can save money buy buying in bulk; due to the long shelf life and the fact that they are sold dry you can avail of discounts by buying larger quantities, not really an option with meat, unless you have a giant freezer! |
When I started this blog I was on quite a tight budget, I was on carers allowance and C was looking for work. Our monthly budget was €750 a month after rent. Archives
June 2018
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