our budget – Page 3 – little money bee

frugal, goals, meal plan, military life, our budget, our life, recipes I love

reducing expenses – groceries

March 19, 2017 No Comments

Good morning, moneybees! I received a message from a friend that stated that she loved the blog, but she was having a hard time keeping her grocery expenses low. As I’ve mentioned, the Bee family grocery budget is about $400/month, occasionally over that, and she stated hers was about $600 per month (or $300 every pay period). She asked how we keep our grocery expenses low and if I could share some tips. I’d love to! Some of the biggest influences in my success in sticking to a grocery budget: Shop weekly and meal plan. I’ve been using Plan to […]

goals, our budget, our life

mid-month budget update

March 15, 2017 No Comments

I don’t plan to do this all the time, but I just wanted to give a quick update as to where we are in our budget in the middle of the month. I use YNAB (You Need A Budget), which is really great, but when looking back at past months, it’s hard to see how I was doing in the middle of the month. Am I living like a prince in the first half of the month and like a pauper the rest of the month because my categories are empty? So here’s how we’re doing in the middle of […]

goals, meal plan, our budget, our life, recipes I love

weekly goals + meal plan

March 12, 2017 No Comments

Oh my goodness, another week come and gone. And this one was a doozy. Anyways, last weeks goals were to stick to the meal plan, reconcile daily, and sell the highchair. I did… None of those. In fact, on the day I wrote that post, we ended up going to Moe’s for dinner because I was just too exhausted after work. This week’s goals are along the same lines: Stick to the meal plan or at least eat food at home. Sell the high chair (maybe, depending on the Nor’Easter we’re expecting). Reconcile 3x this week. I don’t make a […]

goals, meal plan, our budget, our life, recipes I love

weekly goals + meal plan

March 6, 2017 No Comments

Good morning & happy Monday! In the future, I plan to write this post on Sundays, as I always meal plan on Sundays and grocery shop right after, but I had family in town this weekend, so here’s a Monday post for you. This week’s financial goals are: Eat the food on the meal plan. Seriously. You bought it, don’t be lazy and order Domino’s. Reconcile the budget daily. This is an easy habit to get into, and an equally easy habit to get out of. Stick with it. Sell the highchair on Facebook; Eric has wanted it out of […]

goals, our budget, our life, retirement accounts, taxes

February Recap / March Goals

March 1, 2017 No Comments

Oh man, I know February is the shortest month, but it flew by! Since this is my first month sharing budget categories, I am going to share my goals for March and go over some things we struggled with in February. At the end of March, I will post our spending in every category and highlight places we can work on. What happened in February? One of the reasons I’m hesitant to outlay all of our spending in February is because it was a very unusual month in terms of budgeting for us. In December, I had an ileostomy for […]