It's true. He is. His brother is close behind.
It's budget change time in the MoneyTree household.
Since DS1 started with his team, his eating has gone up exponentially. Lean proteins. Good carbs. And anything else he can get his hands on. He's working out (on ice, gym, dryland, yoga) about 4 hours a day. Some of it is very intense and some of it less so. Game days he is 'moving' even more, though in a lot of different ways.
Our schedules are not comingling a lot. I am gone in the morning before he gets up. He has 2 hours of practice then a fast lunch while he goes to his afternoon classes. Then he's hungry again right after school, then again at supper. Evenings is another work out. I usually see him at supper and then sometimes when he gets home in the evenings. With my going to bed early from fatigue, I am often asleep when he comes home.
As far as I can figure, I have been at $170 a week for grocery and household items since Sept of 2010. Before that I was $160 a week for a couple years. It's time for a big jump to match our inflated SK prices and the increased food consumption. Milk has gone up almost $1.50 /4L (gallon). With gas's rise, so has everything that has to be transported, which is almost everything. On the household side, TP and Kleenex have gone up. Very little is left in the jars anymore, if ever. I know for those in the US, your prices are sooooo much less than they are up here. When I see commercials for sales at your grocery stores like Kroger or even at Target, boy are the prices different.
The food often needs to be ready when they get home from school. Sometimes his window before he has to leave for a game is too tight to prepare a proper supper. The crock pot has been coming out again. It's a pity he is allergic to seafood and all his smelly fishy friends. So it's a lot of chicken breast and pasta with broccolli before games. It's a lot of prep of things like whole grain muffins for the road trip snacks.
So I sat for awhile with the budget yesterday and tinkered and tinkered. The planned savings will have to slow down a bit as will the LOC repayment. I am boosting my groceries/household jar money by $50 a week. I am also boosting gas money by $10 a week as we are nearing $1.30 a Liter. So much more gas is used in the winter.
I can't start it until end of October paycheque so I have a couple weeks to muddle through until then. I will try it for the month of November and then re-evaluate to see if I bumped it too much or too little, or if I am using the grocery money wisely.
The gas budget I haven't changed since I started doing the jars in 2009.
How often do you change your budget to adjust for life changes or inflation?
Tuesday, Nice weekend!
1 day ago
7 comments:
Since the beginning of my budget about 2 years ago, I am surprised I havent actually changed things. I've increased my gas money to $50 instead of $40 because of the sudden spikes and more hours at my part time job (that require me to be there more weekends). It's always good to re-re-re-evaluate budgets every so often.
You're so right on the U.S. food prices... I don't undestand how our prices are usually double! One small whole chicken here is usually $10-12, I was told in the U.S., you can buy 3/$10!!! Can you imagine?!?
My son being home from University during the summer really upped our grocery spending - he works out a lot and therefore eats a lot too.
I'm always moving our budget around as I'm determined to keep the essential expenses below a certain amount.
My food budget is all over the place. It hasn't changed, even though my kids are only here part time now. I need toget better at planning meals and using up food. I. Spend about $200 every couple of weeks.
I keep trying to keep our budget at $600, but it never happens. Just posted yesterday about the prices on produce, but it's nuts, that's for sure.
I work out a lot, both the kids play sports (although they are small) & we eat fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, & some healthy snacks. It's hard to cut back further while keeping the quality high.
LOL. It took me awhile til I realized what you meant by, "It's true. He is. His brother is close behind."
I was thinking, "Jolie has dogs now?"
LOL. Well, they are growing boys. I try to keep my budget as flexible as possible. I don't divvy it up as sections but one lump sum for me to play with.
These prices on food and gas are increasing too fast! It is hard to go back and adjust budgets after so many years of a routine.
My wife and I just started our journey to pay off debt. We are blogging about it at passingthroughdebt.blogspot.com. Feel free to stop by and check it out.
Post a Comment