0-3 Month Clothes for Milly (I mean, Arya!)

So, I can't figure out how to get my Flickr photos to upload to Blogger, so you are getting a link instead.  Maybe someday I'll figure it out.  Go and check out the pictures and then come back to see how much I paid!

Clothes for Milly Arya


So, I'm proud to say that nothing in Milly's Arya's 0-3 month clothing stash was full price!  There are a few things, 2 fleece sleepers, 3 zippered sleepers, and a 4 pairs of pants that are new, but I paid about 1/3 of the original cost at Ross or TJMaxx.  Those two stores are awesome for baby clothes and baby accessories.  I would highly recommend them if you have to get something for a baby shower but don't have a lot of extra cash. Everything else, I got at thrift stores, resale stores or the semi-annual consignment sale, ranging from .50 cents to $3.00 a piece.  I believe the dress and the pram were $4.50 $3.00 a piece!


I had to put all the clothes in perspective when I kept coming home to Neil with more baby clothes.  First off, babies grow fast and not all the clothes I brought home were for one size.  I looked up the cost of a pram and a similar one was $33 new, so I saved about $28.50!  I got most (5 of out 7) of the short sleeve onesies at a recent thrift store purchase after going to the chiropractor for .59 cents a piece!!  The other two were .99 cents.


I'm kicking myself now for throwing away all my tags from the consignment sale, because it gave a description of what the item was as well as the cost.  I do remember I got 4 of the long sleeve onesies at the consignment sale wrapped in a ziploc bag and they went for $2.00 (.50 cents a piece!).


The pants were between .99 cents and $2.50 a piece.  The new ones came in sets of two and they were $4.99.  The tags from Carters, said they were originally between $17 and $20 for each set.  So I saved a bunch there too. I did got out the day after Thanksgiving to get me some more yoga pants, which I forgot, but I stopped by JCPenney to see if they were having any deals on baby things.  I found the exact sets of pants that I got at Ross and TJMaxx and to their credit, they were half off, but they were still $10.99 for the set. So, even on the biggest sale day of the year, it was still cheaper at Ross and TJMaxx.


I was pretty hung up about getting some zippered sleepers to make it easier to change her diaper in the middle of the night.  I've heard that the snaps are a nightmare in low light.  About half are new and half are thrifted.  The new ones ranged from $2.50-$6.99 a piece.  That pink fleece sleeper was a splurge at $6.99, but originally it was $20.00.  The others were originally $17 full price. 


The last really big find were 2 pairs of patterned pants from Gymboree.  I got 2 pairs for $4 at a consignment sale.  I had Neil look up how much those kind of pants were originally and they were $32.95 a piece!!  I paid $4 for something that cost almost $66 new!!  Babies aren't in 3 month sizes for two long, nor are they moving around or wearing down the fabric at the knees.  Practically brand new pants!

Time to fess up

So, you've noticed I haven't blogged in a bit. This whole grocery and eating out thing has kept me out of it.

We failed miserably. There, I said it.

I wanted to post celebrating our great achievement, not about sinking in to our (my) old habits! But, I was reading some minimalist blogs and one statement jumped out at me "accountability is a big part of goal setting." She failed too, so I wasn't the only one and it gave me courage to come on here and come clean. So, here we go.

Week 2

Groceries: $61.24 left
3 trips = $52.55
Left Over: $8.69

Eating out: $11.75 left
5 trips = $27.49
Left Over: $-15.74

Week 3

Groceries: $8.69 left
4 trips= $80.45
Left Over: $-71.76
Explanation: We had a grand re-opening of the Ralph's grocery store that is really close and they were having great deals. We got 3 packages of 6 sirloin steaks for $8! We knew we would go over budget, but we couldn't pass up the great deals for the week.

Eating out: $-15.74 left
4 trips = $51.08
Left Over = $-66.82

Week 4 (shortened to 4 days due to Thanksgiving)

Groceries: -71.76
5 trips = $59.74
Left Over = -131.50
Seriously, 5 trips in 4 days! Come on, Amanda.

Eating Out: -66.82
7 trips = 64.89
Left Over = -131.71
Seriously, a bad week for us. 7 trips in 4 days.....


So there it is. Nothing to be proud of, especially that last week. And to show for it, we have an overflowing fridge and freezer, not exactly what I call minimalist. Now, to throw a monkey wrench into it, I can't really eat anything that is in my freezer other than the meat and frozen veggies. However, I could make them for Neil and he could have leftovers for days. Hmm, that would probably work just fine.

Try Reverse Budgeting

I'm usually the one that keeps track of our finances. Every once in a while, Neil will get interested in it (usually because we've run out of money before the end of the month and gets worried I'm spending too much)<--mostly that's true. ;) But his response is usually the same. "WOW! We have a lot of money in X account or in our IRA or money market accounts. I wasn't expecting that." So, in a nutshell, our primary checking account flucuates a lot and is usually low at the end of the month, but all of our other accounts are growing.

I used to be one that loved working with numbers, I would have spreadsheets with very detailed entries about what we spent and worked with a debt paydown tool to reduce my school loans. As I've gotten more busy and have gotten other interests, I don't spend any time on this anymore, nor do I have any inclination to do so. This has been brought back to light after doing just one week of keeping track of food expenditures. I don't like doing it! So what I've been doing instead is figuring out where we want to be at the end of the year (with regards to IRAs, saving to pay for owed taxes, and baby needs). Split between 12 months (or actually 26 pay periods), I've channelled the amount of money we need out of Neil's pay check (because it's easier to do that with mine) and it's direct deposited either into a different savings account we don't have a lot of access to or to our IRA accounts at a bank in Chicago. So, we NEVER see that money and it makes our primary checking account look smaller than it should.

I didn't know there was a name for what I was doing, but I found it today while looking at a finance blog entry called the Fine Art of Reverse Budgeting. So, we've been Reverse Budgeting. We set predetermined savings goals and then with the leftover money we let the chips fall where they may. This explains why we sometimes run out of money at the end of the month.

I came to realize that even though we are saving a lot, we aren't saving enough or for the right stuff. We want to buy a house someday and right now we only have $7,000 saved for that. With 20% down, that would get us a house worth $35,000. As far as school loans go, I have paid off 2 of them and boy did that feel good! I still have 2 more to go and I shifted to just paying the minimums because we kept running out of the money at the end of the month. That has got to stop. We're saving enough to fill Neil's IRA, but not mine, so we need to bulk that up. And lastly, we're going to have a baby! We will need a 529 plan or something for her. I don't want her entire college career paid for, I think it was a REALLY GOOD life lesson to have to pay for that myself and be responsible for the debt it created.

So, how are we going to be able to bulk up our savings, with a new baby on the way, and running out of money all the time? One word: Minimalism.

More on that later.

Grocery Budget: Week 1 Recap

Well, overall, I've been pretty pleased with this last week. Remember, we said we would spend $100 on groceries for the month and $100 on eating out. One thing I didn't expect was going on so many dates. Neil and I hardly go out to eat together, as I said before, it's usually for lunches when we are both at work. But this last week was pretty stressful for me and without wine, I just had to get out of the condo and eat some good food. So with that, here is how we came out for the first week.

Groceries: $100

Week 1: $11.75+6.24+11.00+9.77= $38.76

Left Over: 61.24

Explanation: the first 2 charges were for the weeks food. The second 2 charges are for Week 2's food.

Eating Out: $100

Week 1: $19+$13+43.36+12.89= 88.25

Left Over: $11.75

Explanation: 2 of these outings were at night due to a stressful day. The other two were because we were away from the condo and not at work. Normally, these don't happened. Realistically, I doubt we will stay within budget, but we'll see.

So, I don't foresee eating out this next week while Neil is at his training, but I do think I may have an issue not going to the grocery store too much. I need to remember I have lots of food in the kitchen and to eat through that first.

Budget and other stuff

Neil and I are on a budget. Simply stated, we decided that we both get a weekly allowance. For the month of January that consisted of $20 a week for each of us. So far, it hasn't really worked. In our defense, January wasn't really fair because we still had credit card payments from December (they weren't overdue or anything). February will be the real deal and we will also have a little more to play with. So, hopefully I'll have good things to report eventually. We've got some big short term goals that we'd like to achieve, so we aren't going to give up on it.

So, I signed up for knitting and crocheting classes. Next Tuesday, I'll start the beginning knitting class and Wednesday I'll learn Crochet. That goes for 2 weeks and I'll learn to make 2 washcloths and 2 scarfs. In February, I'm going to learn how to knit fingerless gloves! and also how to crochet amigurami!! Those are those little Japanese animals with big heads. I'm super excited! I also requested some yarn on freecycle and got 2 responses. One lady gave me 2 big black garbage bags full of yarn!...for free! I asked for yarn for a library project, but there are a few that aren't suitable for the project, so I'll use them as practice yarn.

I'm loving Vanessa's blog. I don't watch much tv (actually I didn't watch any at all), but I really enjoy the food entries. I've got a whole chicken's worth of meat in the fridge, so I'm going to make stir fry and chicken pot pie, but I really want to make her Martha recipes that she posted. that will be next.

Neil starts school next Tuesday. We've been lucky and haven't had to get loans for his school. And now, its down to the last semester so we won't be having to be shelling out $2600 every few months. Luckily, at least one of the books he needs is in the library system, so I ordered that for him. He is so ready to be done and so ready to become permanent as a park ranger.