So, here we have results of December so far - I have a lot of receipts to process, and I think I have already lost a lot, so my attempts of budgeting and following through with my budget are not working out all that well. Here are some of the reasons for it:

• My husband does a lot of shopping on his own now as he is coming back from work. When he does it, he doesn’t bring back receipts EVER. I don’t know why, he stashes them away, loses them, and can never find them. It is always the same scenario - can I have the receipt? - I don’t have it. So, therefore, it is really difficult for me to follow through with the shopping he does. If I were to disregard all those shopping trips, I would be missing a lot of expenses, but at the same time there is no way for me to follow through those trips as I do not have access to credit card accounts as they are all online, and his accounts I just don’t follow. So, this has been a battle uphill, with no resolution in sight, and no way of getting this done properly as I am not able to get in my husband’s head and make him remember the receipts in any way.
• Sometimes it is my own fault that I misplace receipts. When I get home from shopping we have so many tasks we need to take care of at that very moment when you have a little baby in the house, and you have to feed everyone else, and get some work done at the same time. All of the deadlines for projects that I have been having these past few weeks have been more so on my mind than logging in my receipts and purchases. I will try to do my best to be more organized but this has also been difficult, and I have only myself to blame. So, December has not been followed through as yet fully, but I will try to attempt again to log in what I can anyway here, and go from there.

Here are some receipts from December that I have found: $61.52 spent on food (Fred Meyer), $92 on Klesick Farms organic baskets we got in December. We went to Costco, and spent $56.45 on cleaning supplies there, and $388.84 on food. More food receipts, some mixed (we’ll assume we ate those pencils we bought).The total of these is $627.12 for food, and $56.45 on cleaning supplies. So, taking into account what I already had accounted for from my previous post, I am over budget by $476.19 on food so far, but under on cleaning budget at $215.31 right now. So, total for December I have spent $260.88 more than I have planned, and that is not even all of the receipts, holy cow! We did have various celebrations and large meals in December, hopefully, it will not be as bad in the next month.

Here is what I still have in my pantry, fridge and freezer from those trips - frozen cod, some cheese of various sorts, some frozen shrimp.

Here is what we have done so far in January in terms of shopping trips and deliveries of food:

Our dairy purchases for the month of January are here: $55.04

Our organic vegetable/fruit boxes so far this January = $68 for two boxes Jan 5 and 12.

My budget this month, or what’s left of it so far - $195.77 for food, and $268.12 on cleaning supplies

We ate out last Friday so far only I think, we went to Red Lobster, and it was epic, as always. The rest of the time we have been able to eat exclusively at home to keep the costs down. We went to a restaurant for lunch yesterday - had great burgers and fries, we liked them!

We haven’t really shopped that much. We went to QFC for some supplies, and to Costco just a few days ago, that’s it.

Here is what produce I have on hand for now:

Apples - 5 for snacks

Bosc pears - 2 - to make some dessert

Oranges - probably about 8

Mandarins - probably about 1/2 a bag

Bananas - 2 bunches

Kiwi - 3

Yellow potatoes

Red onions

2 spaghetti squash

1 watermelon

yellow bell pepper - 1

mushrooms - 1 box, to make into mushroom risotto

Romaine lettuce - for Caesar

tomatoes - 1

green cabbage - will make cole slaw, possibly borscht

English cucumber - to eat fresh, and pickle

zucchini

assorted pears/apples

Vermouth

Pita bread

Eggo waffles

mushrooms

Tiramisu

blueberries

blackberries

chicken drumsticks

Nutri-grain snacks

Pretzel rolls

Dino chicken nuggets

Ritz crackers

Croissants

Pinto beans

Wheat thins

red onions

chicken patties

rice rollers

chips

sweet potatoes

peanut butter

tortilla bread

 

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