What Now?

I have reigned in grocery and "shopping" so far this month so that neither is a big player. This, however, is what my spending looks like:

My home expenses include space rent, mortgage payment, and insurance. The insurance payment is due every quarter, so is not a monthly expense. The bills and utilities include cable (internet, television, home phone), gas, electricity, and trash. My cell phone bill has not arrived yet.  Taxes is property tax, a twice-yearly payment.

Health & Fitness so far includes a payment on a bill owed to my periodontal dentist for tissue grafting (I do not carry dental insurance; it doesn't work out for me), AARP supplement medical insurance, and a bottle of iron supplements required for upcoming surgery.

Gifts and Donations include donations to various groups, a gift for my daughter's birthday, and money into savings and college funds for one of my grandsons.

So far I have spent just $59 on groceries (less on coffee and restaurants). So I have stayed well within my goal of $18 per day, in large part because I have been eating what's in the cupboard. I have what I call a "scarcity complex" - I like to have food set aside for "emergencies" or just tough times. But lately I have enjoyed using up a lot of the canned beans and other things because I want to reorganize my cupboards and use my pressure cooker more.

In any case, there are a couple of glaring items: the cable bill, which is about $230. It creeps up all the time. I have been weaning myself off the premium channels so it is time to let them go. Gradually I will let go of the rest of the channels as well. And if it makes sense financially I'll get rid of the home phone.

My goal for this week is to reduce the cable bill, spend for groceries at $15 per day max, and spend on shopping no more than $25 for the week.

Shopping

"Shopping" is a big catch-all. It includes shopping for clothing, hobbies (sewing and photography), kitchen equipment, even furniture. This heading does not include household equipment and supplies, things like that. Can I make any goals that make sense of it? I think I can.

Others have pledged to have a shopping-free week or month or whatever. I think this could work. Most of the shopping I do is online. I am drawn to the discounts. Not as much as others, I suspect, but I still get caught up in the promise of saving a few dollars. I would save a lot more if I skipped the purchase altogether.

So I am going to start small. A shopping-free week. Starting yesterday, the first of March.

Let's look at my record for last year:

I bought some big-ticket items last year because I had a little extra money. I bought an expensive camera, a few lenses, some extra equipment. So that does skew things. I won't be doing that kind of shopping this year. Nevertheless, here is what the numbers say:

Last year: I spent $10, 333 on "shopping". That's an average of $199 per week or $861 per month.

Last two months:  $487.56  Way under last year's average. $55 a week.  Some of that could go into savings or into paying off credit cards.

The goal for this week is 0.