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Evan and Robin's Journey:
Back to Basics
Over the last few weeks, we have been working to refocus, and get back to some of the basics as we start to head into the end of year holiday season.
One of the focus areas that we have been working towards is reducing the frequency we dine out, often out of convenience. Robin has been diligently working on meal prep to help us avoid the temptation. On a weekly basis she is planning for our family’s meals, taking into account the frequency of meals needed for that week (i.e., if one of us is traveling for work it may mean less meals needed for that week). This is helpful when it comes time to “allocate” the food. I say allocate, since we have been mindful of using the food, we currently have in our freezer and pantry to minimize any waste. Armed with our list and any coupons we received from being members of our grocery’s rewards program, the remaining items we get at the grocery store – again, sticking to our meal plan and list. With anything we’ve had good weeks and weeks where we have fell of the wagon a bit, but overall, we have made positive strides in reducing our dining out expenses.
Another that we have been working on is tightening up our entertainment expenses. When meeting up with friends or scheduling a play date for the kids, we have been scheduling those at each other’s houses rather than going to an event of some sort. Outside of the obvious savings of whatever the event cost would have been, we found that there was some additional savings from some of the ancillary costs associated with the event that we may not have initially anticipated (i.e., paying for parking or a quick coffee or snack bought on the way to for from the event).
As we had mentioned in a few of our previous posts, we hadn’t really had a household budget in a traditional sense prior to becoming part of Project Money. This journey has served as the catalyst for us invest our time into reflecting on our purchases, understanding what was typical for our family, and then using that information to develop a plan of action that we are able to work towards. It has also been a helpful reminder for us to take a more critical look at our purchases, to help reduce those made solely out of convenience. Going into the holidays with a better understanding of our expenses so we can budget in advance is something we are looking forward to – knowing what our target expenses should be so we can manage the process, rather than the process managing us.