Steph's Weekly Low Buy Spending Recap #12

A boring (but not bad) week and the surprising effects of a regulated nervous system

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Previous recaps: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11

Thanks for bearing with me in my absence last week, it seems like you really enjoyed my substitute post last week though! Some might even say it was enjoyed more than these spending recaps 🤣

it feels like it’s been a weird couple of weeks in our budget land! Things got a little bit… Not quite out of control, but mentally they felt like they were heading that way (you can read about that more in my last spending recap). It really was a blessing in disguise to not have any thrifting or spending money this week, it really goes to show how even one or two weeks of “no buy“ can really help to reset your spending habits!

The thing that’s surprising me the most at the moment though, is that I actually want a more detailed budgeting spreadsheet!

To some of you, that may not sound very remarkable, but if you’ve ever found yourself where I have been in the past, too scared to open your bank account and unable to bring yourself to really face your finances and make a budget… You might understand what a big deal this is!

The budgeting spreadsheet that I’ve been using for a few years now is a very simple one. It gets the job done seamlessly, and has served us so well! So well that I now actually feel safe and comfortable to know more about my finances… Having more data and seeing more of an overview of what we’ve spent versus what we’ve earned etc doesn’t scare me as much as it used to!

This is an insanely huge deal, and why I make all of this content that I make here and across my other social media channels, in the first place. If you take away anything from my content, I hope that it’s reassurance that baby steps really can make so much progress overtime. But also, slowly helping yourself feel more safe around money is one of the biggest power moves you can make! It doesn’t happen overnight, and it can be really uncomfortable sometimes, but you eventually get to a place (I suppose) like I am finding myself in now, where you feel so comfortable with your finances, even if the income totals or saved totals aren’t exactly what you would like them to be yet, that you actually want more data!

I’ll confess, I’m not very good at making spreadsheets, but I’m pushing through (and begging my husband for some help) because I’m yet to find a pre-made on that suits me just right. I’m currently working on a really big refresh of my current spreadsheet and I’m really looking forward to releasing that into the wild when it’s done. I think there’s something to be said from having beginner friendly budget tools out there though, I wouldn’t be where I am now, wanting a more detailed spreadsheet, without first starting with that simplest spreadsheet. I think that’s where so many people get lost, they try to start budgeting with a really big really intense spreadsheet… And find it so overwhelming that they give up after a week or two. That’s definitely been me, multiple times!

All that being said, there’s a chance that me tracking my purchases/our spending in my Hobonichi weeks might be coming to an end! We shall see! As always, I’ll keep you updated here.

I have to warn you now, spending wise this week has been a little bit of a boring one. If I’m not careful, it’s the kind of week I find a little bit embarrassing because in some ways it looks like we have no life… But then I remind myself that some weeks are just quiet as others and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!

I’ve been feeling a little bit weird physically for most of the week, and then Matt really wasn’t well over the weekend… And they went a week! Nonetheless, there was still some lessons to be learned and things that we enjoyed… So let’s dive in!

I hope you are able to learn from a mistake that I unintentionally made! It turns out when you move house and update your address with Amazon, it doesn’t automatically update all the subscriptions you have! I have a few products that I buy through subscribe and save on Amazon at the moment because they are by far the cheapest ways to get those items. Turns out, you have to go in and separate separately. Update the subscription address!

As such, we had two adventures this week back to our old house to pick up parcels that got delivered to our old house 🤦🏼‍♀️

We did both of those trips at night, because it saved us being stuck in traffic. We got some McDonald’s on the way home from this particular pick up, I have no regrets. I love McDonald’s fries!

Matt and I don’t usually do a whole lot for Valentine’s Day, I sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between ‘going all out because love is something to be celebrated’, and thinking that it is an overly consumeristic/capitalistically influenced day. This year, we were feeling the vibes so we did a very small gift exchange, but the one thing that I really felt like doing was making these cute little love heart jam drop cookies! They popped up on my Pinterest feed, and I just love cute cozy vibes like this! They were insanely easy to make, which in my opinion is the best thing when it comes to baking, and they were really delicious!

Matt works in a really great environment, and the bonus is that I can bake treats like this, we can have a few and then he takes the rest to work so we don’t end up eating them for the next few weeks 😅

This is also a lesson in making your own cozy vibes and romanticising your own life! Your life can feel more like your Pinterest board than you give it credit for. Yes, I bought some jam to make these jam drops, but most people probably already have a jam in the cupboard. There’s so many things that you can do with the stuff that you already have in your house, and while some people may think it’s lame to make love heart cookies, it really did make a week that little bit sweeter… Pun intended?

Today was a very exciting day for my husband, Matt. One of his absolute favourite bands came to Melbourne, and I got him a ticket as an early birthday present! He went and saw dream theatre and had an absolutely amazing time, which bike extension brings me a lot of joy too!

He went straight from work to the concert, so he had to buy dinner out which we accounted for. He happily discovered that you can get a personal sized pizza at Pizza Hut for only $5.95 – definitely filing that away for later!

As always, our groceries were delivered Friday morning! There’s something that is so comforting about the regularity of this routine.

We were running low on grocery budget this week, which meant that I couldn’t get everything that was originally in my cart. I don’t see this talked about a lot when it comes to budgeting content, I think often in this kind of situation most people would just spend a little bit over their budget and take note of that? Correct me if I’m wrong. But one thing we’re trying to be really strict with is sticking to our grocery budget. I find most of the categories relatively easy to stick to, but this is obviously the one that fluctuates the most, and I also love food (who doesn’t) so it’s easy to overspend if I’m not careful.

That said, the things that I removed from my cart weren’t things that we desperately needed this week, they’re just things that are about to run out and it doesn’t really matter if we get them next week. We have a freezer full of meat and lots of other ingredients, so I was able to get everything that we needed for this week very easily and that’s the main thing! We’re not missing out on anything, there’s still ice cream in the freezer, so all is well 🤣

I’ll pop the haul and screenshots below!

Grocery order screenshots

My poor husband! I mentioned last week that I’ve been sick, and I happened to pass it on to Matt… Which was novel, because normally it’s the other way around. Mostly we didn’t get that sick which was a relief, but for some reason, whatever illness we’ve had really flared up Matt’s asthma. We’ve been together 10 years and I’ve never seen his asthma this bad!

We went to the doctor this day to get some help and went past chemist warehouse to pick up the necessary bits. As I’m writing this, Monday, he’s thankfully doing a little bit better but his lungs still aren’t entirely happy! I’m extra glad for our health fund and being able to freely purchase medicine without concern, but I’m also equally glad that the Medicare rebate amounts have changed recently meaning that most doctors now are back to being bulk billing. Hooray for not needing to pay for a doctors appointment again!

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Seriously, even reflecting on our spending to write this post today is freshly driving home the fact that taking a break from spending really does help to reset your brain, even just for a week! It’s wild to compare how I was feeling when I wrote my recap two weeks ago to how I am feeling now!

If you’re over in doubt, just take a break! Your bank account and budget will thank you!

I’m going to end today’s post here because period cramps are starting to make me want to throw things, but I will be back as usual next week… But hopefully, maybe, with a new spreadsheet? And we can all learn out on it together if I manage it!

I hope you have an absolutely wonderful week!

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