SLICE OF SEPTEMBER - UPDATE

Here it is, the last weekend of the month. It’s time for me to assess my month of ‘cash only’ grocery spending.

I did very well the first week, even having cash to carry forward into the next week. I was feeling like a cash cow going into the 3^rd week of the month.

Then, I met a 25 lb box of tomatoes that I couldn’t resist along with a bounty of summer squash and a half-peck of Granny Smith apples. My savings quickly evaporated that day at the farm, but I was still in good shape going into the last week of the month.

My “shopping with cash” self-imposed challenge was a success. Do I wish I had the $10 that I sliced off my September shopping? Yes. Do I need to have that $10 for grocery shopping? No.

Shopping with cash brought me back to my first lesson in food budgeting from my days as a nursing student. We were given $25 to buy groceries for the week.

It forces one to give careful thought to each transaction. Is this a “want” or a “need”?

I wrote up my grocery list each week and assigned a dollar amount to each item. Then I subtracted my coupons to get a final dollar amount of my purchases. When I reached the cashier, I had a pretty good notion of how many dollar bills were leaving my hands for the cashier’s.

What remained these last four days of the month was $8 in cash with a few items to purchase and $10 in my squirrel fund. My squirrel fund is now at $100 which I may need for the last quarter of the year.

Looking ahead to OCT and NOV, there is the potential for more month than money. With nearly 5 weeks of shopping in each month, it will require careful planning. I suspect there will be no future slicing of the budget. With cash in hand and lessons learned from these past 4 weeks, I’m ready for the next challenge!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: To make this challenge successful, I withdrew the full amount of my grocery money on the first of the month and divided the cash into four jars. Unspent cash from one week was moved to the next week’s jar. This allowed for the unexpected splurge of produce at the farm. The temptation to overspend is removed when using cash. It also reduces waste… and waist!

                                                       MY LAST $8 FOR THE MONTH