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January Budget Recap

I don't know about you but January felt like the LONGEST month! I have a feeling it had to do with budgeting and trying so hard to not eat out. At the beginning of the month I talked about cutting my family's eating out budget in half and bringing my clothing budget down to $200 for the month. Let's see how my family and I did!


You can read all about why I set these 6 month goals and what they are specifically here.

EATING OUT:
My goal was to go from $750 a month to $375 (cutting our budget in half). We did not start off the month good because we went on a 5 day trip to New Mexico (sans twins) and we could eat out ALL we wanted without having to worry about toddlers at the table. We spent a total of $488 on food and road trip snacks. We treated our vacation meals as a wash (we had saved up enough for the trip), so if we deduct our total amount spent eating out for the month ($751) minus our vacation it would equal $263 which isn't bad. We also had a big round of the flu hit so instead of cooking I was just trying to keep everyone healthy and happy. Our grocery spending did increase by $100.

Most weekdays we ate at home. It's the weekends that hurt us. I did a much better job about taking my lunch to work, and we utilized a few gift cards for meals. I went to an event last week and was gifted a $200 gift card to DoorDash which is a meal delivery service so that's going to help out a ton in February. I also received a gift card for a month of smoothies and soups from Splendid Spoon which I'll be using for my breakfast and lunches at work in February.

We didn't utilize a grocery delivery service as Alex does enjoy going to the grocery store. My second least favorite thing to do is shop for groceries (#1 least favorite thing to do is wash dishes).


SHOPPING:
January 1 is one of the biggest shopping days for our family AKA Dillard's New Years Day Sale. If you've been you know how good of a sale it is. It took EVERYTHING within me to not step foot in a store. Alex and Turner went and spent $130 on work dress shirts for Alex and a few athletic tees for the kids. Then a day later I spent $60 on ski gear for Turner. Boom...our $200 clothing budget was gone in 2 days. Also included in my $200 budget is home decor and makeup/skincare. I didn't buy any home decor or makeup during January.

Our $200 budget was intended to be $100 for myself and $100 for the rest of the family because Alex rarely buys things. My kids pretty much wear the same thing every day even though I have a dresser full of clothes.

A few weeks later I attended an event at Madewell hosted by my friend Jules, and I fell in love with a pair of black overalls and high waisted jeans. The overalls weren't a spur of the moment purchase as I'd been eyeing them for quite a while. I had brought a pair of old jeans to donate and saved $30, but my total was still over $200...yikes! I knew I was about to sale a ton of stuff on Poshmark so that was in the back of my mind when I was checking out. I felt bad, but also knew I could make up for it. I'm a sucker for jeans y'all! I have a new blog post about how to style my overalls six different ways.

When I went home and dropped the bomb to Alex he wasn't happy, but I told him I was determined to make the money back via Poshmark. The next day I took all my photos and started listing, and sure enough I started making sales. I can thank most of my sales (over $250) to my Instagram readers who saw me post about it. You can find my Poshmark closet here!

I do understand for those reading who aren't bloggers it can be annoying/frustrating to see me get clothes for free which is why I want to be transparent about the items I'm gifted.

Gifted Items: 
- 4 tops and 2 dresses from Jane.com for a future collaboration
- Elizabeth Arden PREVAGE Progressive Renewal Treatment
- Heladerm Pro Vitamin C Serum

Photos by Madeline Harper



I have the same budget for eating out ($375) and clothing ($200) going in to February. I don't have any big trips planned and no major events, so we'll see if I can stick to it. If you're joining me on this budget challenge, how did you do? I know some of you were giving up Starbucks, Target and more. Good luck in February, and if you mess up don't give up. No one is perfect!

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