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Whew. What a budget busting month this was! Our spending plan goes from the 23rd of the month to the 22nd of the following month so today is the end of my July Budget. I had planned on spending $415 for the month on food divided between Azure Standard, Cow share, Beef CSA, grocery store purchases and dining out. When I posted our budget plans for the month I had already spent $216.86 toward the $415. The rest of the month kind of went down hill budget wise. I made one good size trip to the grocery store and spent about $65 (I’ve misplaced the receipt) and we made a few smaller trips that probably totaled another $65. Plus the week that Joe was on vacation we ate out three times for a total of around $85 and we took my daughter and her BF out to dinner after they got here from Oregon for $45. And I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff. So let’s just call July done and move on to August. I’ll put up a post in a few days with my August spending plan and I’ll try to do a better job of tracking and sharing.
>Wow. Makes me feel better. We had extra people staying with us for a week, birthdays, BBQs, and a lot of eating out and I was trying to figure out how this month got so out of hand. Glad I'm not the only one.
I finally reached the point where I can make the menu plan for the whole month and figure out how much of pricier items (like meat) I can really buy in a month. Whew! I'm trying to keep it to $300 a month while doing GAPS.
>Jen,
Isn't it amazing how deviating from the norm can change the budget so much?
I love doing a month long menu plan. With summer here I haven't been taking the time to plan for the month but when I do I really just plan the main dishes (like the meat) and then fill in the rest week by week. It really does help with figuring out the big expenses.
$300 a month while doing GAPS sounds like quite a challenge.