February Financials

We sold our last two items today that were listed on Kijiji for $60 (pictured above one of the items-abdominal excersizer)giving a grand total of $1535 household items sold. Ironically we had planned to relist these items this weekend (originally listed on February 10th) and list a bunch more - we will still do that but it is surprising weeks after your original listing people still call you up.

Now for grocery results for March:

Budget $426.59 - January overage of .29 = $428.28
Actual $502.80 - Way over by $74.60 which will come off March Budget.

Of the $502.80 Spent:
Coupons used $11.25
Nonfood items $74.12
Meat $139.67

I spent a lot more on meat this month. I also miscalculated as now that hubby is self employed he is home more and we are eating out far less due to tightened budget. I may have to increase our food budget a bit to account for this as soon I will be home more as well. I will give it another month to see.

I started keeping track of non-food items, most of this being over the counter pain medication for my fibro-mialgia. I refuse to go on prescriptions as tried several and they only screwed up my blood pressure and made me gain weight. So far this is one of my most pain free winters to date and the self-medication seems to be working. I only take medication as needed and seem to be healthier for it.

Hair Budget for year is $400

Haircut in February - used $52 of budget = $348 to go.
I am going to push the time between dyes to stretch my budget. We dyed my hair a slightly darker shade of blond this time so roots take much longer to show, and later when I move I may still try home dye but for now will stick with my faithful hairdresser. If I go over on the hair budget the clothing budget may be to make it up as I seem to be doing better in that area.


Clothing Budget for $200

Spent so far ZERO!!!! Yay!!
Apparently it is not that hard to go a few months without spending any money on clothes. I did buy some undergarments for $19.93 (socks and a bra) but used a Gift Certificate that I won last year at Winners so am still counting it as Zero out of pocket.

I am buying more in bulk, family packs of meat, and definitely stocking up on sales even with the move (a month or two's worth).

Funny story heard today: at work discussing the Box O Wine waiting for me in the fridge at home a co-worker told of her Grandpa who used to save the plastic bags from the inside of the boxes of wine, wash them out, fold them up and save them for camping. When someone needed a pillow at the beach he whipped out the wine bag and filled it with water - Wa La - a pillow for suntanning. I love that story. No, I am not saving the bag to do that - it will be recycled. Still, long before mass recycling people were finding ways to re-use items.

Have a thrifty weekend!