Hellobee

I have written several posts about my financial goals for 2017, which I broke down with specific goals for each month of the year. Overall, the goal is to give myself a healthier relationship to money, and to reduce our spending and consumption as a family.

In order to keep myself accountable, I’m recapping how I’ve done when it comes to accomplishing my goals that I set back at the beginning of the year.

If only meal planning and budgeting were as easy as going to the pretend farmer’s market at the children’s museum.

April: Meal Planning

The goal for this month was to budget carefully for groceries and use meal planning in order to save money on our grocery bill.

How did I do?

Not bad. I did end up saving almost $100 off our “usual” monthly grocery spending, though it wasn’t easy with my pregnancy food aversions still happening. Unfortunately, life got in the way, I got really busy and stressed, and I haven’t been doing the best job of keeping up with my new meal-planning skills through the whole quarter. But now that July is beginning, I’m determined to start fresh and do a better job with grocery spending this month.

Side note: In comparing our grocery spending to that of others, I couldn’t figure out why ours seemed so much higher. Then I figured out at least part of it: we have been putting alcohol spending, whether it’s from the grocery store or our corner liquor store, on our grocery budget, whereas many people separate that spending out. We don’t drink a ton, and since I’m pregnant I’m not drinking at all (aside from the occasional, doctor-approved glass of wine), but Mr. Cotton Candy loves craft beer and enjoys a few every week. Those purchases are not cheap, and they do add up, so we have decided our new approach is to move that spending to another category in our budget so we can keep closer track of it and hopefully rein it in a bit.

Want a specific number? In April we spend $91 less than our average month of grocery spending. It helped that we didn’t host any family dinners or book club gatherings this month.

(Image via The Marathon Mom)

May: Use Up and Inventory Household Goods

I planned to use the month of May to take an inventory of everything we have in the way of cleaning products, makeup, toiletries, pantry staples, and miscellaneous household items. The goal was to write everything down, organize it, and buy in bulk the things that we are lacking.

How did I do?

Okay. I took an inventory of cleaning products, makeup, and toiletries, but didn’t get around to the food staples. It just seemed overwhelming, and since we are in the middle of selling our house, I didn’t want to buy a ton of things to take up space in our pantry, as I’m trying to keep it looking spare for staging purposes. (Great excuse, right?)

When it came to cleaning products, I needed to re-buy a couple of things (toilet boil cleaner, vinegar, baking soda, sponges), and I also made a DIY glass cleaner. As I run out of more products, I plan on making more of my own cleaners. It’s fun and saves money!

As for toiletries, I discovered I was low on cotton balls, moisturizer, floss, toothpaste, lotion, body wash, and hand soap. I purchased cotton balls, moisturizer (Trader Joe’s currently has 100% organic argan oil for just $6.99!), toothpaste, and body wash. I noted that I need to re-buy floss soon. I purchased a bulk bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap from Amazon, and looked up the dilution ratio for making hand wash (one part soap to three parts water), then proceeded to fill up all my empty hand soaps with this. It was just $16, and I still have an almost-full bottle of castile soap waiting for next time. Finally, I decided to make my own lotion. I used this recipe, and it turned out pretty good! Luckily, I already had cocoa butter, coconut oil, almond oil, and some essential oils in stock, so the cost to me was free! I highly recommend making your own lotions if you’re on a budget.

June: Renegotiate Bills

My goal this month was to go through our insurance, including car, house, personal items, and life, and decide whether to increase or decrease certain policies. I planned to take a close look at cell phone and internet bills to see if we could make any cuts. Finally, I planned to look at any monthly subscriptions we have, if applicable, and decide whether any can be cut.

How did I do?

Not amazing. June went by in a blur of family travels, breaks from preschool, and lots and lots of stress over the house and Mr. Cotton Candy’s new job. Luckily, I had already tackled some of the above tasks earlier this year: I looked closely at all of our monthly subscriptions and cancelled everything except Netflix and Sling TV (a total of $38/month). Some things on the chopping block? Honest Company (I can find cheaper and in some cases better quality products elsewhere), Blue Apron (we love it, but it is just not fitting into our budget), The New Yorker (not that I really have time to read it anyway!), and a couple paid podcasts.

As for insurance, I had already reassessed my life insurance earlier this year and increased my policy accordingly based on the fact that we are having a second child and I currently provide the majority of the child care for our household. I also got rid of the personal item policy on my engagement ring. My feeling is that if I lost it, I wouldn’t want to replace it with an equally expensive ring, so it felt like a waste of money to keep forking over every year to insure the ring. Up to $1,000 would be covered under our homeowner’s policy anyway, so I am happy with that.

When it comes to cell phone and internet, I admit I have been slacking. I should put in calls to our internet and cell phone providers to see if I can negotiate any price changes. I also want to put some serious research into finding a new cell phone provider—my only stumbling block is that we do not want to buy new phones, so I have to find a provider who is cool with us keeping our current phones. We currently use AT&T Wireless but are not locked into any contracts, and we purchased our cell phones independently of AT&T and are not on any kind of payment plan for those.

Up next: July is buy local month, August is no restaurants/bars, and September is savings month. For September, I plan on reassessing our income, our spending, and our savings targets, among a few other financial tasks.