Steph's Weekly Low Buy Spending Recap #14
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How are you doing, friend?
Welcome to March! I hope in advance that this is an amazing month for you. I have to share - mostly because I just discovered this as I came on here to write this letter to you - I have officially crossed 400 subscribers here on Substack! WHAT!? How exciting!
In a social media world where even if you have a lot of followers you can still feel like you’re screaming into the void a little bit… Substack somehow doesn’t really feel like that and I’m just so grateful for you for being here! Thank you for reading my words and leaving comments… It’s such a cliche but leaving comments really does help so much. And honestly, it’s not even that it helps algorithmically which of course it does, but more that it helps me as a person! I feel like I’m connecting with you guys better, it’s so nice to actually hear from other people and not just be creating your own echo chamber, and it helps me know what you guys actually like and enjoy and… I just feel like comments of the human part of social media you know?
It’s been such a gloomy week here and I AM LOVING IT! I know some people come alive in Summer, but I come alive in the cooler months. I mean come on, this is a vibe 👇🏻
I have to say, I am so incredibly proud of us this week, and specifically of myself as far as our finances go! Last week‘s grocery spend was quite high so I was convinced I was gonna go drastically over budget this week because there was some social related activities that I forgot to specifically budget for… But I only ended up just barely going over our grocery budget!
I also realised as I was tracking everything this morning for the Hobonichi Weeks spread that you’ll see above, that we didn’t spend anything in the non-essential category this week! Takeaway is in some ways non-essential, but it’s its own category. Other than that, no non-essentials! I’m so incredibly proud of us!
There’s definitely things that I still want, like a new iPad cover which I might get with my spending money this coming week, and clothes… Always clothes. I feel like I’ve been wearing the same clothes for the last 10 years and a lot of them are items I bought when I didn’t really know myself very well and when I was on a strict budget, so I find my wardrobe to be kind of uninspiring sometimes.
I want to find ways to bring more personality and colour to my wardrobe… And I think I did a good job of that last year when it came to thrifting with my colourful shirts, but I don’t just want to be wearing shirts and jeans constantly. I’d also really like to buy some better quality underwear and basics like socks. If you have any brands that you recommend for good quality cotton underwear and basics please let me know! At this point I’m willing to spend a little bit for the sake of good quality items that aren’t going to wear out in three months.
The other thing I really wanted to buy this week is a DSLR camera. I had a DSLR and I sold it so that I could buy my mirror camera which is much better for logging… Or it was meant to be. I personally don’t really love my current camera. It’s the Canon M50 and some say it’s a good camera, but it doesn’t do very well with lighting I’ve noticed. That could be a lens issue, and it’s probably worth me investigating whether a different lens would help… But as far as actually taking photos goes (which I did for some family friends on Sunday) I badly miss my DSLR. There’s something so much more satisfying about a DSLR for photo taking! The weight, the chunky feel, the sounds it makes.
But at the same time, I don’t feel bad about wanting that camera back, it might even be something that I pursue later in the year. I really miss taking photos and I think I’m going through a big period of change at the moment where I’m finally coming back to myself a bit.
It’s uncomfortable and weird and I’m trying to not let it mean that I spend a whole bunch of money, but it’s also so nice to actually be able to identify things that I want to do, hobbies that I have and enjoy doing, ways to have fun. There was a really really long time where I couldn’t even tell you what I would want to do for fun. To be able to actually answer that question now is a huge deal for me, now I’m just working on actually making time for fun instead of just being responsible and working all the time! And on making those things happen in a budget friendly, non-impulse-purchasing way.
Okay, let’s get onto the daily breakdown… I’ll be skipping over quite a few days though because honestly, a lot of our week didn’t actually involve much spending which is a great thing!
The funny thing is, I chose this week to film a ‘what I spent in a week’ vlog, which isn’t out yet because I haven’t had time to edit it, but I feel like it’s gonna be a really boring blog and I’m a bit nervous about editing it!
I suppose though that’s why filming a vlog is good though, because I can show you all the stuff that I did that wasn’t spending money this week. That’s a little bit harder to put into these posts here. I probably won’t remember to come back and put the link here when I’ve got it posted, so if you want to see it head to my YouTube channel and hit subscribe so you’ll see it when it goes up!
Let’s talk groceries! Last week I did quite a large grocery shop cost wise and was a bit nervous about how I was going to fit in our groceries this week, especially as we did get a little bit of takeaway over last weekend (which has to come from our grocery budget).
However, as is the way, I think sometimes everything runs out all at once and then the next week you don’t really find that you need a lot! I ended up having most of what I needed for our meals for the week, and we also had a bunch of leftovers that needed to be eaten up from the freezer so we didn’t need to buy anything for lunches this week.
I thought that buying everything that I needed for girls night, which I’ll talk about in a second, was going to push me drastically over my grocery budget… Turns out I actually needed those items in my grocery order to be able to get my order delivered and cross the $75 minimum threshold! I think I’ll still be over our grocery budget, but only by about $5-10 which is about $30 less than I thought it would be which is a massive win!
You can check out these screenshots from the order as well as my grocery haul below.
Also don’t forget - I use a discounted gift card when I purchase groceries, so the total we pay is always a little less than the listed total in the screenshots.
Yay girls night! My friends and I are trying to do a better job of doing this more regularly and scheduling the next girls night at the current girls night which I think it’s such a great thing, it’s also giving us stuff to look forward to which makes me feel really good!
I hosted this evening and we decided to do girl dinner. We combined forces to get everything we needed for a really good platter, as well as some good picky bits from the freezer, arancini and mini quiches… that sort of thing! We were planning to watch a movie… but we ended up just talking for the entire three hours catching up, which was so much fun!
It also goes to show that hanging out with your friends doesn’t have to be super expensive. I bought the crackers, dips, fruit and a couple of little sweets for the night and made chocolate cupboard strawberries, I think I may be spent about $15? And then another friend bought the cheese and meat for the platter, and then the other one bought the freezer bits, so we all ended up spending roughly around the same amount! And I really love just hanging at home with my friends, I feel like we have much better conversations that way!
The other thing I love about having platters, and it’s something I always forget until right after I’ve had one, is the leftovers! There’s always a little bit of leftover cheese some leftover crackers and fruit… it just makes snack life so much nicer over the next few days!
We packed up a bunch of snack bits when we went out in the afternoon. I once had dreams of being a photographer, so far (never say never… you never know what the future will hold!) that hasn’t really been a reality, but I do take photos for friends and I absolutely love it.
So we went out to do that in the afternoon and took snacks with us so we didn’t need to get anything out. While we were in the car I happen to check Amazon and usually I find the homepage of the Amazon app to be useless, it’s not something that I find ever gives me any inspiration or entices me to spend (I count this as a very good thing) because all the suggestions are usually quite useless… however!
Today was the exception, the item that it showed me was a heating pad specifically designed for pain! So it’s essentially like the back half of a vest, it’s got flaps that fold over your shoulders, and then it covers your entire back and has weighted sides so it hangs properly. It essentially covers all of the areas that I get the most pain in which I think is going to be an absolute game changer! So I very quickly ordered that from the health fund and it should arrive today (Monday).
We were both having a bit of a down day mental wise, so we went for a nice rainy walk and then we went to McDonald’s while we were out topping up fuel and got a McFlurry and two Biscoff mcpops. There’s always room for some mental health ice cream!
And that’s our spending for the week! Lots of just enjoying life at home, anticipating the fun plans we had for the weekend, I think having things to look forward to really is an important aspect of enjoying life. It doesn’t have to be super fancy, like I said we spent most of the time just sitting on my living room floor talking, but having something to look forward to really helps you get through the week!
And I think I still find it a bit shocking that I have friends that want to come over and spend time with me at my house. More than one! Especially as someone who’s really struggled to make healthy friendships in the past, it’s still wild to me.
So tell me, have you got any plans coming up that you’re looking forward to? I’m also looking forward to our plans this coming weekend as well! Including the first episode of the last season of Outlander! I can’t believe it’s finally coming to an end! Are you an Outlander fan?
And with that I will bid you farewell, I hope you have a wonderful week!
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PACT for quality and ethically sourced/made cotton staples!
I'm a big fan of socks, bras and undies from boody, they have a pretty good size range and ive found them to be pretty durable so far. I actually love the socks so much that I'm often grabbing them off the clothes line the second they are dry because I'm so excited to wear them again hahaha