Last night we decided to run up to the farmers market (it’s in the library parking lot on thursdays). We picked up fresh basil, some cherry tomatoes, honey and jam. 20$

Then i decided i’d make fresh pesto sauce. Except we didn’t have any garlic. So we thought about bruschetta. Except we didn’t have the bread for it, it takes garlic, and it doesn’t actually appear to use any basil.

Eventually we ran out to grocery to get garlic and a couple things we needed for soup this weekend. 40$

then we made a random dish. broccoli, eggplant, green beans, shrimp, corn, artichoke hearts, mushrooms … maybe a couple other things. sauteed in olive oil and over pasta. we’ve decided to leave the eggplant out next time. needs something, not sure what yet.

Anyway, we’re taking out 200$/two-weeks for groceries, and basically that covers groceries.

100$/month for eating out (actually, i think we may have rolled that into the grocery budget for one big fat budget …)

The idea is that when we run out of grocery money, we quit buying groceries. We have pasta and I can MAKE pasta, so we won’t starve or anything, but this way we limit our expenditure. (K also has a budget for his camp ; the three are our big-ticket budgets that can be massaged some) The idea is that at the end of hte two weeks, whatever’s leftover goes into savings. Or we might set it up so that once a month the leftovers flush to savings, or when it reaches X$ (i think time based would be more better, since otehrwise we just go out and burn it off)

Idea being that this way we limit our spending on groceries/eating out (we initiated this idea on our way to cheesecake factory for dinner, we suck like that) and when we actually get spending DOWN, we can get savings (or credit payoffs) UP. win win!

oh, and who knows. maybe i’ll start COOKING in my “new” kitchen! it’s only been 18 months

non-kitchen: 15$
drinks: 15$
Lasagna-bits: 25$ (6 lasagnas )

so about 60$ on regular food bits an’ junk.

(we ate out a few more times than we should have, so we lost money on the deal )

cost: 99$
savings: 3.50$

about 20$ on non cooking bits (cooking mag and toilet paper)

~12$ on drinks
~40$ on fresh fruits & veggies

and about 20$ on miscellaeous bits. odds and sods.

Cost: 240$
Saved: 60$

So we spent 180$, and 35$ of that was for “stock” items (vitamins and some kitchen tools)

27$ was fresh produce (broccoli, asparagus, etc)

38$ for drinks (soda, juice, etc)

The other 80$ was for various lunch and dinner objects

Seems a little high, but some of this was stocking back since we’d let the fridge go bare at the holidays.

Saturday we spent 98.12 and saved 32.99

and Sunday we spent $60 and saved $25

So far this month in total we’ve spent $353 and saved $112

I don’t think we’re going to hit the $400 mark but we might be close, which won’t be too bad, especially since we are still stocking the freezer and perishable goods this month.

We spent $30 and saved $4.

Which brings the total to $195 and $54 saved.

Spent $40 saved $7.

So overall this month we’ve spent $165 and saved $50. I don’t think we are going to hit under the goal of $400 since it is still the first week of the month…

We spent $7.78 and saved $2.19

So in rounded totals so far this month we’ve spent: $125 and saved $43

Overall Spent $87 and saved $33 so decent trip.

That makes $117 spent so far this month and $41 saved. Too bad it is only the second day of the month…