Let’s talk budget. Yes I have been harping a lot on savings on social media, because I discovered some cool shizzle (Mr. Money Mustache if you haven’t read it yet) and now my crazy goal is help my hubs retire early. You may notice that I said “help my hubby” but see I am really already “retired.”
Ready for my bragging montage? I only work when I want, on the projects I want, because they are things I like to do…not because I have to but because I want to. I don’t say it to brag, I really am full of gratitude. And all of this freedom for me, because of our lifestyle, comes at a cost for my hubby. He works really hard, and commutes really far, in a really stressful job and still makes time to be awesome dad and hubby.
What do I mean by lifestyle? Well…we have a brand new luxurious house. He drives a 2016 luxury sedan on a 60 mile roundtrip commute every day. My car is older and paid for but gets 11 MPG and I usually drive it alone and empty. We have a new fancy boat. We travel a lot. We buy things we don’t need, spend pretty frivolously, and have historically been kinda wasteful. And we tell ourselves that we need this and that, but we don’t, we don’t really even want it. These things and shiny gadgets and latest greatest things don’t really add to our happiness (or yours either). We have a $200 a month cable bill, TWO-HUNDRED DOLLARS! The TV is on maybe 5 hours a week? Do we need 900 channels? (Yeah, stupid I know. By the way, over 10 years versus saving that money… that adds up to $35,400. Even dumber!) And tons of other things that need more than just the fat trimmed off.
In short, things are changing around here. I know, I know, things have been FULL of change here lately. Losing over 40lbs, quit drinking (more on that soon), and our grocery bill is going down by at least half if not more. Why? Because when you know better you do better, right? Instead of spending $1200+ in a month to feed a family of 4, we are trying to get our spending into the $500-600 range for groceries, the lower the better.
This way, we will have more money that we can spend on anything we want to. Or if we are sensible, we may think about saving it. Either way, it will be nice to know that we have some extra money in the bank should we need it. I’ve always loved the idea of being able to invest some money into different things. Take my friend, for example. She’s an avid investor in crypto, and has recently decided to look into something like these Syncrobit Helium Miner in stock options to see how she can take part in the art of crypto mining. I don’t know anything about this, but she’s told me that it’s a great way to earn some extra cash that she can do with what she pleases. If we did this, we wouldn’t need to spend less on groceries, as we’d be able to spend more. Unfortunately though, this is the hand that we’ve been dealt.
If you’ve been around here long, you know I love a good steak, and organic fruits and veggies. Even my dogs and cats eat grain free, in that $500-600 a month that DOES include our fur-family too. And sometimes fancy chocolate things too. So how in the hell and I am going to get food for 4 people on what amounts to $125-ish a week? Turns out, its not so hard.
For a long time I thought that in order to eat healthy, feed my family healthy stuff, and certainly to lose weight, meant spending BIG bucks at the store. Guess what? It totally doesn’t.
Here was our menu this week for 2 busy kids and parents:
Sunday: Steak, Salad, Faux-Tatoes
Monday: Grilled burgers, side salad, carrots and celery
Tuesday: Chicken Cordon Bleu, roasted veggies
Wednesday: Salmon Cakes, Roasted Radishes, Side Salad
Thursday: Tacos (Meat, Cheese, Chips, Corn Tortillas, Lettuce, Beans)
Friday: Make our own pizza (gluten free of course!)
Saturday: Salmon Rice Bowls
Lunches: I stay home, so I usually eat left-overs or eggs. For the kids and hubby we made “mexi-chicken” batched on the grill on Sunday and divided it up for the weeks worth of lunches. With various sides.
Breakfast: Kids eat eggs, chia bowls, gluten free toast, protein shakes, yogurt. Hubs eats eggs + avocados. I rarely eat in the morning, but when I do its generally some sort of eggs.
Plus assorted snacks. Good coffee. Good creamer too!
Ready for the total for this exact menu….. $112. BOOM! Meat was grass fed —> organic depending on availability. Veggies and fruits and dairy all organic.
Totally doable. In the coming months my goal is to get that budget down even further while keeping the quality up.
Questions?