ooooo twice in a row!
So Brian and I are starting this month with tackling our budget. We have always kept an eye on it and always are within our means but we both feel we could tighten ourselves up a bit more and actually save more then we are. We have been using mint.com the past month as it makes it really easy for us to see where we spending our money and have come up with a plan for July. Who knows if it is feasible but we have a goal.
oops this got long
My biggest flaw is I will vote to eat out over cooking any day. I am often times too exhausted to even think after my days and spending the evening in the kitchen cooking and then cleaning is just sometimes too much. It also doesnt help that our grocery shopping isnt as tight as it should be. We used to be really good but completely fell off the wagon. We have half of everything and therefor scrounge around for what we can come up with. We also have never planned out meals which we are starting to do. I think that will really take a lot of effort out of dinner. Half the stress and unpleasantness with dinner is trying to figure out what we have that we can make into a meal. I have set our eating out budget to 200 per month (50 per week) and $60 for fast food ( this is for Brian on mornings he is running late) and $500 on groceries (this is probably really high but we have no idea what we will actually be spending. We know we will by more in groceries then before but no idea by how much). I plan on keeping $200 restaurant budget as this is the only thing we do but plan on lowering the other budgets. If I can wean Brian off fast food completely that would be awesome but especially for the school year it is sometimes hard for him to be able to bring from home enough food for the day. Grocery will take a couple months to figure out I think.
So Brian and I spent the morning planning out this week's menu. We have gone through all the recipes that we have printed out to try but never have. So exciting! I am also going to be doing the cooking so my arsenal of meals can grow. If that wasn't enough I am going to photograph them and post the recipes and review them. I am so excited! I have to pick up a few things on Monday (White wine, garlic, a shallot, and a lemon) and on Wednesday we are going grocery shopping as we are out of food. It will be interesting finding food for the weekend. We would have gone this morning but I dont get paid till Tuesday due to a clerical error.
Monday we are having Poached Halibut with Tomato and Basil. This is from a recipe I found YEARS ago and looks very easy. Tuesday we are eating out and seeing Avatar. It is also our three year anniversary. We arent celebrating it this week, probably later in July for the going out to dinner portion of the celebration. The other portion would be in September (we are going to go play with tigers and monkeys). Anyway on Wednesday we are having Irish Lamb Stew. We get our meats from Costco and every trip we get one fun thing. Last trip it was a boneless leg of lamb. This meal is in the crock pot so Tuesday after the movie I will cut everything up and have Brian put it in the crock pot before he goes to school or when he comes home on Wednesday. We will go grocery shopping and then eat. Thursday we are having Chicken breasts stuffed with Fontina, Artichokes and Sun dried tomatoes. Friday we are having Eggplant pasta. This is an Alton Brown (our favorite all time chef) recipe that I have been wanting to try for months. Brian isnt a huge eggplant fan but said he would be interested in trying this one. The recipe has us purging the eggplant so it is made completely differently then we have ever had it before so maybe he will like this? Saturday we are both working and it is only me for Sunday so I am making Spaghetti with Artichoke Hearts and tomatoes. All of these recipes should be very easy and hopefully yummy. The menu's may fluctuate due to work schedule. My schedule goes wednesday to wednesday so I dont really know when I am officially working from Wednesday on but from past scheduling I think this will work. So exciting!
Brian's biggest flaw is finding things we want and could use on sale and then buying them. He always consults me first but I always give in because i just hate saying no to him. If the item wasnt on sale he wouldnt think about it and we always use the items we end up getting but do we NEED them? No. So if we can curb that a bit we will be all set. He is also not used to xmas/bdays. He of course had them but his mom was a single mother raising four children. His xmas/bday experiences were a lot different then mine. I was spoiled..not spoiled rotten but spoiled. Within reason, everything we asked for we got. We also used those occasions to get things we want and could/would use but wouldnt necessarily buy ourselves because we dont need it. My brother has done the same thing. He had a much cuter time figuring all this out but we all use xmas/bdays to get the luxuries. We have also been known to ask for gifts and ask if it could be for both days if it was a really big thing that we wanted. I think my Italy/Greece trip counted for both xmas and bday when I was in High School. I guess thats why I find it easier to pass up on the specials and deals because for me it goes on my bday/xmas list. xmas/bday lists were huge in our family. We had grandparents and aunts and uncles who want to know what we want (as a whole we dont like to give money and they wanted to make sure we would like the gift we got) so we compiled lists of suggestions. Those lists were easier and longer when we were younger and have gotten harder to create as we get older as everything we want gets more and more expensive and we feel bad asking for things with high price tags. For Brian, if he didnt get it on sale then he probably wouldnt get it at all so to him he has to get it now or he wont get it ever. Sure somethings he waits for or decides not too but I think that is his general thought/feeling. Since being with me, I think he has realized that he doesnt necessarily have to get it then to have it. He has gotten more used to the idea of putting it on a list and actually getting it. Right now we want a pasta maker. We both love pasta and it would be something we could do together and just maybe it would save us some money. My reaction, put it on the xmas/bday list. His reaction: lets find it on sale and buy it. His idea of xmas/bday gifts is also different. I am the queen of gifts for everybody but Brian. The most successful gift (meaning he actually liked the gift for the gift not just because I got it for him) was a giftcard to the playstation network store. he always gets me amazing gifts that I hadnt even thought of. We have a list of all the things we want in our ideal kitchen so one year I picked two things that he wanted (rice cooker and meat grinder) and got him those. He still laughs at me about me taking the "easy" way out by going to the list and not coming up with something from scratch. But both of us are on the same page in terms of this budget so it should be easier for us to resist buying the items and put it on our xmas/bday list instead. In the past few years we have had very few things on our lists...that will probably change this year :)
oops this got long
My biggest flaw is I will vote to eat out over cooking any day. I am often times too exhausted to even think after my days and spending the evening in the kitchen cooking and then cleaning is just sometimes too much. It also doesnt help that our grocery shopping isnt as tight as it should be. We used to be really good but completely fell off the wagon. We have half of everything and therefor scrounge around for what we can come up with. We also have never planned out meals which we are starting to do. I think that will really take a lot of effort out of dinner. Half the stress and unpleasantness with dinner is trying to figure out what we have that we can make into a meal. I have set our eating out budget to 200 per month (50 per week) and $60 for fast food ( this is for Brian on mornings he is running late) and $500 on groceries (this is probably really high but we have no idea what we will actually be spending. We know we will by more in groceries then before but no idea by how much). I plan on keeping $200 restaurant budget as this is the only thing we do but plan on lowering the other budgets. If I can wean Brian off fast food completely that would be awesome but especially for the school year it is sometimes hard for him to be able to bring from home enough food for the day. Grocery will take a couple months to figure out I think.
So Brian and I spent the morning planning out this week's menu. We have gone through all the recipes that we have printed out to try but never have. So exciting! I am also going to be doing the cooking so my arsenal of meals can grow. If that wasn't enough I am going to photograph them and post the recipes and review them. I am so excited! I have to pick up a few things on Monday (White wine, garlic, a shallot, and a lemon) and on Wednesday we are going grocery shopping as we are out of food. It will be interesting finding food for the weekend. We would have gone this morning but I dont get paid till Tuesday due to a clerical error.
Monday we are having Poached Halibut with Tomato and Basil. This is from a recipe I found YEARS ago and looks very easy. Tuesday we are eating out and seeing Avatar. It is also our three year anniversary. We arent celebrating it this week, probably later in July for the going out to dinner portion of the celebration. The other portion would be in September (we are going to go play with tigers and monkeys). Anyway on Wednesday we are having Irish Lamb Stew. We get our meats from Costco and every trip we get one fun thing. Last trip it was a boneless leg of lamb. This meal is in the crock pot so Tuesday after the movie I will cut everything up and have Brian put it in the crock pot before he goes to school or when he comes home on Wednesday. We will go grocery shopping and then eat. Thursday we are having Chicken breasts stuffed with Fontina, Artichokes and Sun dried tomatoes. Friday we are having Eggplant pasta. This is an Alton Brown (our favorite all time chef) recipe that I have been wanting to try for months. Brian isnt a huge eggplant fan but said he would be interested in trying this one. The recipe has us purging the eggplant so it is made completely differently then we have ever had it before so maybe he will like this? Saturday we are both working and it is only me for Sunday so I am making Spaghetti with Artichoke Hearts and tomatoes. All of these recipes should be very easy and hopefully yummy. The menu's may fluctuate due to work schedule. My schedule goes wednesday to wednesday so I dont really know when I am officially working from Wednesday on but from past scheduling I think this will work. So exciting!
Brian's biggest flaw is finding things we want and could use on sale and then buying them. He always consults me first but I always give in because i just hate saying no to him. If the item wasnt on sale he wouldnt think about it and we always use the items we end up getting but do we NEED them? No. So if we can curb that a bit we will be all set. He is also not used to xmas/bdays. He of course had them but his mom was a single mother raising four children. His xmas/bday experiences were a lot different then mine. I was spoiled..not spoiled rotten but spoiled. Within reason, everything we asked for we got. We also used those occasions to get things we want and could/would use but wouldnt necessarily buy ourselves because we dont need it. My brother has done the same thing. He had a much cuter time figuring all this out but we all use xmas/bdays to get the luxuries. We have also been known to ask for gifts and ask if it could be for both days if it was a really big thing that we wanted. I think my Italy/Greece trip counted for both xmas and bday when I was in High School. I guess thats why I find it easier to pass up on the specials and deals because for me it goes on my bday/xmas list. xmas/bday lists were huge in our family. We had grandparents and aunts and uncles who want to know what we want (as a whole we dont like to give money and they wanted to make sure we would like the gift we got) so we compiled lists of suggestions. Those lists were easier and longer when we were younger and have gotten harder to create as we get older as everything we want gets more and more expensive and we feel bad asking for things with high price tags. For Brian, if he didnt get it on sale then he probably wouldnt get it at all so to him he has to get it now or he wont get it ever. Sure somethings he waits for or decides not too but I think that is his general thought/feeling. Since being with me, I think he has realized that he doesnt necessarily have to get it then to have it. He has gotten more used to the idea of putting it on a list and actually getting it. Right now we want a pasta maker. We both love pasta and it would be something we could do together and just maybe it would save us some money. My reaction, put it on the xmas/bday list. His reaction: lets find it on sale and buy it. His idea of xmas/bday gifts is also different. I am the queen of gifts for everybody but Brian. The most successful gift (meaning he actually liked the gift for the gift not just because I got it for him) was a giftcard to the playstation network store. he always gets me amazing gifts that I hadnt even thought of. We have a list of all the things we want in our ideal kitchen so one year I picked two things that he wanted (rice cooker and meat grinder) and got him those. He still laughs at me about me taking the "easy" way out by going to the list and not coming up with something from scratch. But both of us are on the same page in terms of this budget so it should be easier for us to resist buying the items and put it on our xmas/bday list instead. In the past few years we have had very few things on our lists...that will probably change this year :)