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Home > July 2017

July 2017

August 3rd, 2017 at 03:04 am

July was a very good low spend month.

Total spending was $1,336.31

Groceries – Total for grocery bill this month was $293.33. We actually came under. DH did great doing the shopping on the weekend. He stuck to the list and came under $40.

We still have some odd items in the freezer that I’m trying to use up before stocking up on meat again. The other night I found a whole fish which we had to go with some leftovers and then last night I cooked a couple of gourmet sausages for dinner. There has been a lot of leftover bread that get shoved in the fridge before they go off, we have accumulated a bit of those, that DH on the weekend used some of them to make bread and butter pudding with frozen blueberries and chopped up dried dates. Another thing we tend to end up collecting in the freezer are odd ends of cheeses, last week I made macaroni and cheese out of those, I think I ended up using 5 different kinds of cheese. DH really liked it and we didn’t die from it so bonus!

So I probably won’t do a big shop for another 2 weeks. We tend to always start the month with big shopping trip but I think we can hold it off this month. We always then end up with a tight budget towards the end of the month; I want to try to delay that this month. Grocery is probably really the only item in the budget that I try to be as strict as possible (I guess entertainment/going out to eat is another category that I make sure to be tight as well) because it has a great possibility of getting out of hand if I don’t watch it closely. Most of the other categories in our budget are mostly just happen automatically these days.

Main reasons for the low spend month:
Property Rates – We pay for property rates (tax) every month for ten months in a year, July and August are the month we don’t have to pay.

No Restaurant – This wasn’t planned at all but I’m glad, BUT we did spend a lot on takeaway food and this has been the trend in the last 3 months. So we need to rein this in from now on.

Household Items – We only spend $80 in under this category this month, the electric blanket, new trolley and some LED light bulbs.


*****o00o*****


Decluttering – Did very well this month with the help of our annual rubbish collection.

Workout – I have been bad. The cold weather is kicking my butt and I’m struggling, just don’t have much motivation to do anything physical. Also my ankle has been sore last week (this is probably because I haven’t been working out regularly), it’s nothing too dramatic really but it was still bothering me so I had to make sure to give it a rest. I was able to do a couple sessions of Abs workout last week, 30 mins all up, that was it. Today was the first time I was able to do a full workout for over a week.


Reading – One book a week, although that Thomas Jefferson book took me 3 months to read.

28 Sycamore Row - John Grisham (6 Jul)
29 Soulless, The Girl in the Box - Robert J. Crane (11 Jul)
30 Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power - Jon Meacham (16 Jul)
31 Scaredy Cat - Mark Billingham (22 Jul)
32 Early Retirement Extreme - Jacob Lund Fisker (31 Jul)


That’s it for July 2017.
* Currently listening to Fleet Foxes, new discovery of mine… I know I’m like a decade or so late, I tend to be slow to these kinds of things. I’m trying to experience new things.
* So on that note – Song of the week for me is “Ragged Wood” by Fleet Foxes.

3 Responses to “July 2017”

  1. rob62521 Says:
    1501772913

    Is that Thomas Jefferson book a super thick one? If so, I think I read it in college and it took what seemed forever!

  2. Shiela Says:
    1501797942

    That book was first published in 2012 so it's fairly recent book. They all tend to be thick books. This one was around 750 pages but about 10% of it was just illustrations. Not as bad as the book that I read last year or so on George Washington, I think that one was 850 pages long, written by Ron Chernow the same guy that wrote about Alexander Hamilton that is now a famous play 'Hamilton' is based on.

  3. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1501987325

    Grocery spending can get out of hand quickly - I had that happen in July. I'm hoping to keep it tight this month.

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