Sometimes, I can’t afford to buy asparagus, or I refuse to buy cherry tomatoes at $2.49 a pound when I can get Roma (tomatoes) for 99 cents a pound. Yes, we buy fruits and vegetables by price per pound. What’s your budget way of thinking?
All bills are paid, food is bought, and we still have money left.
It’s not what you make it’s what you save! Great job!
When I don’t have to pull from my savings account constantly just to buy food. I can finally start to see my savings grow, and it feels good 
I just started budgeting seriously, and I’m still trying to get the hang of it. But so far, I didn’t have to pull from my savings once!
Once you get the hang of it you start saying what did we spend so much money on before today?! We live about the same with way more money left over.
Oh, definitely! I had no savings before because I never took the time to set money aside for different categories, it was just a broad savings which I put money, but take it out right after lol. Every bill and annual payments took me by surprise, and I felt like I was just head above water. But now, I have categories for everything. From annual payments, to school, gifts, socializing, beauty/entertainment, emergency fund, car maintenance, etc. I stopped spending money on random Amazon purchases and stopped eating out and learned how to cook. I’m Definitely a lot more cognizant on where my money actually goes. It’s helped a lot with my anxiety. I still have a long way to go, but I think I’ve got the basics down, and found something that has been working for me! I set a certain amounts for daily spending/gas/groceries after I put away money for bills/sinking funds. I only spend what I have leftover from that, and if it means I can’t buy certain grocery items for the week before my next paycheck, then I’ll make do with what I have. I don’t set a strict amount for gas or groceries, but kind of lump it in one general spending fund. I tend to underestimate how I spend, so that has always bit me in the butt before lol. So I just have a general spending account which hold my grocery/gas budget. This works for me cuz I don’t feel like I’m holding back and I don’t have to move money around (like with the envelope system). I have a money tracker app that has been showing me a pie chart of where the bulk of my spending goes, so it’s nice to see where I spend the most on, and it helps me adjust my budget accordingly.
Congratulation! One thing that I heard that was awesome is with Amazon maybe put things on the cart and order once every 2-3 weeks. Easy to buy small items for 5 or 20 bucks but when your cart is $150 in three weeks and you look at all the items maybe you don’t need some of them.
Great job! Cooking at home saves money. We had sushi yesterday. Lower cost than going to a sushi place and spending $150. Eating at home saves a lot. We try not to eat out except when the kids really want to. Groceries we try to limit what we buy. We try to buy the same items every week. We go to big box stores and local supermarkets for different items. We don’t shop at Albertsons or Smiths. Whole Foods or the expensive local grocery stores. We make do with what we can. Sometimes 2-3 fruit choices a week is enough. We rarely throw away food. We rather live wanting some items for next grocery shopping than buying a lot and throwing away stuff because we ate more with our eyes and not our stomachs.
I have the money for my child to go to university because I budgeted a sinking funds bucket for it.
Hopefully they appreciate it! No student loans!!
As long as I’m hitting my savings goals, paying all bills on time, & have some money left - I’m killing it!!
100%. Some people don’t even have a savings account and live month to month hoping social security will save them one day.
When you aren’t stressed about getting payments paid on time and have some left over for wants+/retirement
My budget includes shopping around. You mention the 99 cent Roma tomatoes, one store’s 99 cents a pound is $2.49 a pound around the corner but the latter store seems to have grapes for $1.49/lb while the cheap tomato stores are priced at $2.99/lb.
It’s a crazy game these stores play.
If you don’t play the game you won’t have any credits to play the game later.