My goal for 2011 is to keep my monthly flexible spending (i.e. what I charge on my credit card & includes: groceries, dining out, gifts, clothes, lessons for the kids, etc) to $1750/month. This nets out to around $58/day, which is pretty eye opening. I am regularly overspending the $1750/month, so I need to start keeping a close eye on this figure. Keeping the monthly spending in check is a critical part of paying off my 401K loan in 2011.
Monday - No spend day
Tuesday - No spend day
Wednesday - No spend day.
Thursday - $4.25 smoothie at Panera, but it was free with my rewards card. There smoothies are really yummy, but filling. I wish they came in a smaller size. And, $73.40 at Costco. All groceries with the exception of $10 worth of dishwashing soap. Mostly produce + milk, cheese, cottage cheese & Pirates Booty for the kids lunches.
Total spend for Thursday = $73.40
Friday - No spend day. +$2.75 found in my office stuff when unpacking.
Total spend for Friday = +$2.75
Saturday
- Spent about $600 booking two hotel rooms for my youngest son's birthday (we're combining a vacation to a water park with his birthday, per his request). I'll be getting reimbursed about $400 of this. We normally spend about $350 on parties, so the water park trip will be roughly the same as the cost of a birthday party once I add in the food we will spend at the hotel + the cost of the room, etc. Technically, I think I will fund this expense out of our vacation budget, not my variable monthly expenses. That said, if I can cash flow it & keep the rest of my expenses down for the month, I will try & leave the vacation budget untouched. We want to take the kids to Disneyland this year, so we need to save up!
-$119.79 at Crate & Barrel for a wedding present, cloth napkins (ditching paper), a replacement white wine glass & champagne glass that were broken over the holidays.
-$48.87 at the grocery store. I had to pick up two kind of coffee, and I also stocked up on treats I don't normally buy for the "picnics" I'm putting together. My son & I have ski lessons on Sundays for the next 8 weeks, & I want to avoid buying lunches & snacks at the lodge.
+$520 at the casino on date night - M won big :-)
Total spend for Saturday = +$151.34
Sunday -
-$5.48 at the grocery store. I picked up a few lunch essentials for the week (bread, grapefruit, apples).
-$38.50 at Rite Aid. I will be getting a $5 rebate & bought 2 years worth of iron supplements for a ridiculously low price. (I checked that the expiration works). I also found a fantastic price on 7 gift items for treat bags for my son's birthday - Bakugan Silly Bandz. :-) They were regularly $6.99 & I got them for $.69 each.
-$11.17 at Fred Meyere picking up items for birthday party goodie bags. We're having two parties, so items for each.
-$21.24 at Target for more goodie bag items + a binder & dividers for the home notebook project I'm working on.
Total spent on Sunday = $76.39
Total spend for the week = Net positive of $4.30 - always a good sign to end on a positive note. :-)
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