My biggest expenditures in January are usually deposits or full payment (if required) for vacation plans for later in the year. Yes, the money is spent but I get to research the destination and anticipate enjoying the purchase for 3-9 months depending upon when we go. I love having something to look forward to during the long, gray winter. I really get my money’s worth!
I’m still doing pretty good. Trying to really think through my purchases and trying to shrink my footprint.
I’ll never be a minimalist, not who I am. Fortunately or unfortunately.
I did buy a new hat. I like to spend some money at a local place, so I did. And I donated to a charity for a friends birthday. I don’t find these bad. They are things I want to spend my money on.
How’s everyone else doing?
Sadly, we will be blowing away about $1000 at HD today. A new toilet for the basement bathroom and retaining wall blocks. The incentive is the 15% off welcome new home owner coupon that HD sent us after our names went on the public records as the “new” homeowners.
But I have held off buying any shoes! 
I’ve been doing well, also. Partly because it’s a fairly new challenge. I think February will be harder. I find that I have to stay out of the stores, as I weaken there. We are also doing well staying home on the weekends. I find that easier in the winter, though.
Now that you can buy anything on the internet, that’s hard too! But staying out of the stores is good.
We’ve only gone out to dinner once this month and that was because my il’s came into town. And everyone fought over who paid, my H won! 
I’m sure I will weaken in a March and April when all the bloggers start showing summer clothing! Right now I’m finding most of them fairly repetitive.
I started tracking all of our expenses on January 1. So far I’m appalled at how much we spend on groceries. We’re only two people! DH likes to buy the fresh squeezed OJ at our fancy market nearby. It might put us in the poor house.
$418 on groceries, and we still have 10 days of January to go.
I would probably be shocked what I spend on groceries. I’m picky about my chicken and I only like it from one of our markets. I hate running around town to save a few dollars so often buy everything at that higher end grocery. We don’t spend a lot eating out. I cook most meals at home and we bring lunch from home.
I find I do a lot less random shopping as the number of stores has dwindled. I don’t just go to the mall to browse. I also have found that as I’ve increased my exercise I spend more time at the gym. Better for my health and for my wallet.
Where I do find I spend more easily is on Amazon. If my D needs something or I come across an item I think she might find useful I just pull up Amazon and in seconds it’s ordered.
Yes, Amazon is SO easy…!
I have been watching to try and balance off some of the Christmas expenses which always end up being more than I think they are going to be.
I have a list of home improvements/decor that is a goal for now until spring - some refresh of rooms in our house so I am allowing those expenses as they are towards a goal not mindless spending. I am being thoughtful about each of those purposes and making them worthwhile.
I did buy something today that was sort of “mindless” - a local artist who I just love had posted an item she was working on on her Instagram yesterday - I loved it so much I told her that I would 100% buy something like that if she put it in her Etsy shop. I really did love it - it just made me feel happy! Well, today she posted on her Instagram that she now has them for sale in her shop. While I DID want it, I certainly didn’t NEED to have it…but I sort of felt like I should support her and what I said - so I bought it - only $25 but still…a little mindless!!
True, we spend a bundle on groceries but we rarely eat out and I always bring my lunch for work. I guess that makes me feel better. I guess.
Things like buying something you really want while supporting a local artist does not sound mindless to me.
I think we should not feel guilty when we do spend money.
Mindless to me is going to bath and body works and buying more stuff from there. Or buying all kinds of crap at target when I have ketchup on my list. 2 things I’ve done.
I don’t feel guilty about groceries. I shop a lot at Aldis. But I am buying good meat and good produce. We make enough money that we don’t have to scrimp on groceries.
I have enough things to feel guilty about. 
I agree that there’s a big difference between mindless spending where you just buy “because” and have no particular affection for or use of the item vs buying an item you really love (and presumably can use) from an artist you live and want to support.
Mindful spending imho is nothing that needs apologies. Mindless spending on the other hand is the one many are trying to rein in, especially so they can use the resources for other things like remodels, trips, savings, etc.
We can all be guided by our own resources and needs to figure out what is mindful vs mindless spending.
My daughter makes her boyfriend buy his own OJ because he likes the expensive kind. She buys most of their groceries but OJ and some kind of protein bar he must buy with his own money. I’m not sure if she’d buy him oranges to make his own.
VeryHappy, Just wow! If I count all of our groceries including every item I will bet we top close to 1,000 a month. This includes toilet paper and wine and such. And I know I am a crazy person as to where I buy our proteins…
There are only two of us and the occasional dinner and leaving ALL of the leftovers ($$$) at D’s house.
Food is one of our largest expenses and always has been (but then, I am an amazing home cook ; and I love to feed people). I have begun to understand how this “feeding others” has figured into our budget just lately.
It’s going to be interesting to see how large this grocery number gets. I’m tracking wine separately (I drink a glass practically every night, and it does add up). I’m including anything I buy at Costco (well, probably not if I buy a TV!) and the three or four other markets we shop at for food. So it might include Kleenex, toilet paper, and the like. I’ve never scrimped on food either, but DH likes to buy prepared things to heat for lunch, and that pesky fresh squeezed OJ.
I’d bet that eating at home and bringing sack meals for work will give you better value for your meals vs eating out every time.
One of my rants over the last few years has been the rising cost of food and non-grocery pantry items.
The rant (which I’m sure everyone in the family is sick of hearing) usually goes like, “I CAN’T BELIEVE how expensive groceries are! WHY isn’t this front page news! HOW do people afford to feed their families!”
So this morning I spent another $189 at our regular grocery store!! BUT, I realize, I bought – as one example – four cans of coconut milk. I use one can everytime I make chicken curry, which is probably about every six weeks. So those four cans should last me half the year. And I bought two beef briskets, totalling ~$47, because I’m going to make one of them for a friend whose 19-year-old son is battling lymphoma. (Should I have put that in the category of “Gifts”? Or leave it in “Groceries”?) And I bought three little primroses, because they were $2 each. And four cartons of Coke, because they were on sale for $11 for four (instead of the $25 or so it would be otherwise). So it’s looking like January will be expensive for groceries, but I"m hoping it levels out over the entire year.
DH is more than annoyed that I"m doing this expense tracking, especially when I ask him every night, Did you spend anything today? But I think we’re going to learn a lot from it.
I walked into a Gap yesterday and found a dress on clearance for $7.50 (from what original price I don’t know but there were like 4 price stickers on it). I now have a client-meeting-ready outfit with me (I have been traveling this year as I sublet my own home). I bought two $15-on-sale pairs of jeans just after Christmas. I needed the jeans, I’ve lost a lot of weight and my old ones didn’t fit. That’s actually an usually high clothing spend for me, I am more in the mode of getting rid of clothes than acquiring them, but there it is.
Also, it’s still January - I don’'t think I need any in February
VH, my numbers include everything purchased such as Kleenex and wine. H makes his lunch from our dinner the night before. He freezes containers so he can just grab and heat at work.