The plan went well September-November...with a minor hiccup due to buying a couple friends dinner. But for the most I stayed within my food budget. What was interesting though is that after a couple months I found myself craving food from the supermarket, so I gradually began to buy more groceries and eat out less frequently. The general principle of spending $15 a day, however, remained intact.
December went...not so well. Which is to say that I spent almost my entire food budget in the first ten days of the month (I blame the cookie decorating party) and then had to live off of cans of soup and whatever else I could scrounge up until I went to my mom's for the holidays, where, fortunately, I ate for free right up until payday came around again.
In late December I started seeing a Naturopathic Doctor. All of a sudden I'm supposed to eat breakfast, take flax seed oil, take a daily vitamin, and eat red meat twice a week. Seriously?? My whole $15 a day thing pretty much hinged on only having coffee for breakfast. And have you seen how expensive flax seed oil is?!? Outrageous.
Oddly enough, though, I came in significantly under budget in January ($11.90/day) and only slightly over budget in February ($15.89/day). Could this actually be working??
It appears so. Hurrah! Here are a few tricks that I think have contributed to success:
- Chunking my budget. Instead of thinking I have $450 this month for food, I'm thinking I have $15 today, or $100 this week.
- Offsetting "splurge." I spent too much in early December, and the trade-off was cheap meals the rest of the month. If I go grocery shopping, I have to subtract what I spend at the store from my weekly allowance. The added expenses of breakfast, flax seed oil and red meat are offset by eating cheaper meals a few times a week. And if I decide to treat myself to sushi at Miyamoto, I know that means a few nights of very cheap dinners--black beans and rice, for example. Or a can of tomato soup.
- Dealing in cash. Whether I take $100 out of the ATM at the beginning of the week and use it to pay for groceries as well as meals out or whether I get $40 cash back when paying for groceries with a debit card, I've found it enormously helpful to deal in cash as a way of tracking my spending each week. There's an immediate, tangible consequence to spending cash: once it's gone, I'm done spending money on food that week. End of story.
Interesting. I keep thinking of two things:
ReplyDelete1. The IRS sets a limit of approximately $200/mth as a reasonable food expenditure for a single person facing bankruptcy.
2. Food stamps cover about $200/mth for a single adult.
Not even $10/day. Wow. I don't believe it's possible, unless one were to eat nothing but Totino's pizzas.
Great point. I have several friends on food assistance, and the unemployed ones do get around $200/month. As you point out, it makes it really hard to eat a balanced, healthy diet.
DeleteI like these ideas. Learning to outgrow the 'magical thinking' that the money will be in the bank to cover purchases is a good way to get down to earth about finances. One thing I'm learning is that abundance can be attained through limiting spending as easily, or more easily, than making more money. And that approach also limits worry and creates more time!
ReplyDelete"abundance can be attained through limiting spending as easily, or more easily, than making more money." Exactly! However, in order to achieve my goals, I'm going to have to come at it from both ends: both make more money and spend less on a monthly basis. Sigh.
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