Here's what I spent in December. Remember that my husband pays a lot of the "big" bills, like the mortgage, electricity, and phone bill. I pay for groceries and keeping our dog and cat alive and that somehow evens out.
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Bills: $117.09 (4%) - Home and car insurance.
Cars: $86.70 (3%) - Gas three times.
Eating out: $19 (<1%) - Coffee once and eating out when I was driving to Michigan once.
Entertainment: $95 (3.2%) - I bought tickets for four to the Rotary Gardens light show and purchased a January sewing class.
Gifts: $780 (26.7%) - It was Christmas. LOL. Most of this was paid for with credit card rewards.
Groceries: $884.83 (30.3%) - High this month because we had to bring a salad to the family Christmas and I made a lot of cookies. Do you know the current price of butter?
Personal care: $80.13 (2.7%) - Two trips to Walgreen's to buy things like deodorant and lotion for me and my husband.
Pets: $519.54 (17.8%) - I don't want to talk about how Zelda is not doing well. This culminated in our vet coming to see us on a Friday night and me ending up sobbing. Maybe someday I'll write a post about this journey, but this is not that post.
Savings: $200 (6.8%)
Travel: $141.48 (4.8%) - I had to take an unexpected trip to Michigan and this was a hotel room.
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Do you know how much you spent on gifts this holiday season?
I have general budget allocations, but I don’t track specifically. As long as $ remain in my categories, I am happy enough.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I just track spending...don't actual budget. LOL.
DeleteI do know the current price of butter. At Costco the cheap kind is $5.49 for two cups, and the organic kind is $8.79. It's wild to me. Everything is so expensive.
ReplyDeleteButter and chocolate are very expensive right now. I'm going to have to switch to baking without those ingredients soon.
DeleteButter in France is about $6.00 a pound, and that is the "cheap" one but I think their cheap one is better than our cheap one.
DeleteI buy Christmas gifts for people all year long--so the true challenge is making sure I *find* all of them in time. Do you budget for gifts in December or annually?
ReplyDeleteAll of this assumes I have a budget. LOL. I mostly use credit card points I have earned throughout the year to pay for December gifts so that usually works out. I need to actually do a budget this year, though, instead of just tracking spending.
DeleteButter is crazy. What's even crazier is how cheap butter is in Denmark (where my brother lives) around Christmas. Apparently because people bake so much over the holidays they always slash the prices. It's like $1 USD (so he stockpiles it around Christmas). I should have asked him to bring some over with him. It is the opposite in Canada. When Christmas comes, butter goes up :(
ReplyDeleteI am so, so sorry to hear about Zelda. What a crummy year 2024 was in so many ways, my friend. *hugs*
I spent more than usual on gifts, I think, because my brother and SIL were visiting and we only exchange gifts when they're with us for Christmas so it was the first time in years that I purchased presents for them. I also feel as the kids get older, their presents tend to cost more. But I don't have an exact dollar amount. That said, I'm going to publish a year-end spending report on Thursday! Stay tuned.
I think I'll get my year-end spending report out next week. I need to really sit with it. There are some uncomfortable truths in there!
DeleteNooooooo.... Zelda! I thought the treatment worked? Now I'm very worried.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how much I spent on gifts... I think it was approximately a crap ton. But not as bad as some other years? Sigh.
The treatment DID work. Now it's something else. I'm actually quite worried about her, too.
DeleteThanks for the reminder that I need to put butter on the list for my next Costco run. You know it's December when you're pulling a couple of sticks of butter out of the fridge several times a week.
ReplyDeleteSending hugs to Ms Z <3
I wish we could buy butter at Costco. None of them are labelled gluten-free and they all have suspicious ingredients (natural flavors is generally the culprit - that's a catch all term and could be anything). So we have to buy it at the regular grocery store like people who like to spend $8 a pound on butter!
DeleteOh no! I was hoping that Zelda was doing well after her treatment! Gosh this makes me very sad. :(
ReplyDeleteI tracked how much I spent on gifts last year but didn't this year. The chunkiest outflow was for the many giftcards we bought for the after-school program teachers, Sunday school teachers, and specialists at Paul's school. I bought something like 16 gift cards and was glad the coffee shop was quiet when I did that.
Oh, wow! I have stopped giving gift cards and just put in cold, hard cash. LOL. It does mean there's a big withdrawal at the ATM, but I don't have nearly as many people to give to (student workers, janitorial staff, mail person is all I can think of!). Sixteen is so many!
DeleteI'm sorry about Zelda. XO
ReplyDeleteButter here is about $3.50-$5.00 a pound at my store, depending upon sales promotions. That's not for Kerrygold or premium, but for LandOLakes or Amish or grocery store butter.
We all agreed to cut back on Christmas spending for each other and focus on our time together instead. Naturally, I ignored that when it came to Theo, but we still did really well and had it paid off before the bill even arrived.
Look at you being fiscally responsible during Christmas! You're the envy of all of us!
DeleteOh, no, poor Zelda and poor you! Pets are so important and yet can be so stressful!
ReplyDeleteSo much stress. Why is it so hard to know the right thing to do?
DeleteI do not know the current price of butter, because I fill my cart and just roll. But I would not be surprised by any of the high prices of anything at the current moment. Unfortunately. I think we are on the same eating out budget. Fortunately, Coach often gets gift cards from patients, so we use those when we want to eat out.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about Zelda.
Wow! I yearn to live the "fill my cart and just roll" life. Meanwhile, I'm debating over every orange to make sure it will get eaten! Butter may soon be too much of a luxury for us.
DeleteI'm so sorry to hear that Zelda has new problems. Poor little muffin just wants to feel good. Sending light her way, I hope she feels better SOON.
ReplyDeleteI buy butter when it is on sale. Land O Lakes and Challenge are the brands I typically buy, and they are generally about $9/lb. I can get them on sale for $3 or $4, so I buy a bunch and freeze it. Our issue right now is eggs. Bird flu has hit California hard, and often you go to the store and there are no eggs. We paid $13.49 the other day for a dozen, and were glad to have them.
We buy a Wisconsin brand called Crystal Farms. It's generally $5-6. Our eggs haven't really gone up in price (usually $5-6 a dozen for cage free with a certified humane label), but I noticed on Monday night that the regular eggs in the styrofoam cost MORE than our generally more expensive eggs. If eggs become too pricey, that's going to be a HUGE problem for us since we rely so heavily on them for protein.
DeleteOh, Engie. My heart breaks to hear Zelda is dealing with something new. Poor thing. And poor you. <3 Sending you lots of love!
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed this is fixable. I'm not going to lie - it's very concerning!
DeleteOh no - I am so sorry to hear that Zelda isn't doing well. That's so hard, Engie. Sending you love.
ReplyDeleteButter is SO expensive and I bought a lot of butter in December as well. You know what else is expensive? (Well, maybe you don't know because I'm not sure you buy it?) Cereal. My kid and husband both love cereal and it is RIDICULOUS. You used to be able to get a box of Wheat Chex for like $3.99, maybe $2.50 on sale. And now it's something like $5 or $6!
YES!! We only buy Chex, but it's crazy how much it is. Sheesh. We will all become farmers again soon enough, I wager.
DeleteI do know the price of butter, even on sale as I bought so many many pounds for Christmas baking. My mom's church held a bake sale and I suggested that the days bake sales being profitable might be behind us. She agreed.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry about Zelda. It's not fair when pets are unwell. They should all live a hundred years.
Oh, bake sales are never profitable for me. Ha! Non-wheat flours are so expensive! Also, I eat too much of the product.
DeleteThat is a lot for groceries, but as you mentioned, butter, and other things, have gone up a lot in price! Like I mentioned, butter in France is about $6.00 a pound, but it is pretty good quality, so I would call it somewhere above Land-O-Lakes, but maybe just below Kerrygold? I also am buying small quanities, but I think if you buy a kilo at a time, it would be more like $4 a pound.
ReplyDeleteActually that is one of my favorite things to do, go look at things at the grocery store. The thing that surprised me was that there are eggs here, and they don't cost a lot. When I left the US, there were no eggs on the shelf, or when there were, they were like $8 for a dozen. In France they are about $3.00 for a dozen and are plentiful!
Eggs are still pretty expensive here, but they are on the shelf. I'm a bit worried about the bird flu, but what can we do?!
DeleteI don't know how much I spent on gifts – I could though because I have it in an spreadsheet. However I know it wasn't that much.
ReplyDeleteButter is so expensive these days. I started buying when its on sale and put it in the freezer. That is how i prepared for christmas baking. Refusing to buy it when stores increase the prices even more.
Oh, well, gift giving is what I do. LOL. If I had to cut out in other places, I would do that before I cut out gifts.
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