Weekly update 12/18/11

How am I doing with growing out my Money Mustache? It's time for a retrospective on last week. I think retrospection will be quite valuable so this may turn into a recurring thing. We'll see.

Grocery shopping

If you recall, my girlfriend and I have an $85/week budget for groceries. We've been consistently under budget and this week is no different. We made stops at Harris Teeter ($52) and Giant ($21).

Big-ticket items at Harris Teeter were buy-one get-one chicken breast ($10 for ~4lb), frozen berries ($4.5), shredded cheese ($5 for 3), sliced cheese for sandwiches ($5), and flour ($5 for 5lb packages, one each of bread flour and all-purpose). "Savings" at HT was nearly $30. Giant was mostly Gatorade ($4 for two half-gallons), cold cuts ($8), and dry beans ($3).

Last week I made chili in the crock pot and it was a big hit. I'm planning on doing it again this week, this time with dry beans instead of canned. I figure the crock pot mitigates the fact that you have to cook beans for >30min even after they're soaked overnight. That and it's more cost-effective to use dry beans. I'd like to post my recipe once it gets better after a couple of iterations.

Also last week I didn't make tuna casserole like I originally planned, so that's on the docket this week. That, chili, and sandwiches will probably comprise most of our meals. We've been doing sandwiches a lot since getting our bread maker — I can't wait to blog about it soon because it is fantastic (thanks MMM). I am really enjoying the sandwiches.

Selling stuff on the internet

I listed just a few books on Amazon this weekend. Sold one already, a text book from grad school, for $60. After commission, shipping, and buying some bulk bubble mailers, I should have around $30. Not a bad start.

I'm shipping it tomorrow. This was my first Amazon sale in a few years and they've streamlined their processes. I like that you can buy shipping directly through their site, they fill out the addresses for you and debit your Amazon account automatically. Easy peasy.

Now I just need to list the rest of my stuff.

Christmas shopping


This one is burning my Money Mustache off. I didn't have a plan going in, which in retrospect was a weak move. Luckily my family instituted a kids-only policy for gift purchases so Christmas doesn't completely wreck our collective budgets.

By my count I'm at around $220 including stuff I'm going halfsies on with my sister and girlfriend. I think I'll drop another $100 at least by time I'm done with the holidays, maybe more.

Luckily our overall spending (my stuff and joint stuff) is about in line with last month. I'm winning some and losing some but at least I'm still moving in the right direction.