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Rick
03-16-2009, 01:34 PM
A good way to keep track of what you spend is to keep a daily diary of everything you purchase over the course of a month. You'll be surprised at what you spend your money on and may find a way to divert some funds from impulse purchases to something you really want or need.

Likewise, keeping track of everything you use over the course of a month will provide you needed insight into those items you will want to store for that rainy day. You might even discover items that you use daily or weekly that you have not provided for in your stored items.

It won't do any good to stockpile a year's worth of food only to find out you forgot to stockpile toilet paper. :noway:

Ken
03-16-2009, 01:54 PM
My name is Ken, and I'm afraid to keep track of how much I $pend eating away from home. I know approximately how much it i$, but I don't want to admit it to myself. :whistling: I don't eat more than 4 meals at home on any given week. That includes lunch and dinner, weekdays and weekends. Is coffee considered a meal, too? I hope not. :sad:

Yes, I should change my eating habits. I'm guilty. :hang:

I'm gonna' give this matter great consideration at dinner tonight. :innocent: I'm not sure where that will be, but I've got it narrowed down to a seafood restaurant on the water or a little Greek place nearby.

There's hope, though. I'm making the Corned Beef and Cabbage tomorrow. :tongue_smilie:

Happy St. Patrick's Day :clover: to all of my Irish friends here, and to everyone else as well!

RunsWithDeer
03-16-2009, 04:31 PM
Great suggestion, I have kept all my expenses recorded for some time, I know where every dollar is spent. It drives my wife crazy, but it does help you to manage spending.

Rick
03-16-2009, 05:42 PM
I just thought that same effort might be a good tool to keep track of what you and your family really use. What did you use in condiments last month? How many pounds of potatoes did you use? Did you know how many loaves of bread your family went through? Answer to those questions might better help you plan the type and quantity of food you store.

(Not you specifically, RWD)

crashdive123
03-16-2009, 06:09 PM
I think it is an excellent idea. A while back we talked about how do you know how much food to store (for a specified amount of time). While the LDS tables were helpful, IMO the best advice came from Wild Woman. Keep track of everything you eat for a month. Then if you want a years worth, multiply by 12 and add maybe 10% to be safe. The same goes for $$$. Keeping track will help you decide more easily where you can make cuts if you need to do so. Stopping at the convenience store on the way to work and the way home for coffee (instead of carrying a thermos) could be costing you as much as $50 a month. Sometimes we spend money without thinking about it, and then wonder where our money went.

Rick
03-16-2009, 06:11 PM
Hmmm. Wild Woman, huh? Maybe that's where I came up with it. And here I thought I finally had an original idea.

Runs With Beer
03-16-2009, 09:21 PM
:chair::chair::chair:That is a great idea Rick, I can understand what you mean, I quit smoking and drinking at the first of the year. I was spending MIN. 20.00 a day, Imagine all the money I wasted

endurance
03-17-2009, 08:39 PM
I couldn't agree with this thread more. I know that there's a lot of places I'm spending money where I could be saving. Going out to lunch at work has to be costing me $45-60/week. Parking adds another $15/week. I could save on gas and parking by taking advantage of some of our work public transportation reimbursements and riding the bus during the winter and riding my bike during the summer.

More importantly, I know that some of my prepping money is going toward the wrong places. What I really need to do is bite the bullet and get a couple solar panels and a battery charger so I can insure my Sundanzer has 24/7 power no matter what happens. Instead, I'm constantly catching myself picking up little bits and bobs that add up. Stuff like fishing tackle, a new .22 handgun, books, and electronics rather than saving the cash I should be spending on solar.

I just had an enlightening conversation with a coworker who grew up in Argentina and still has family there. Pretty scary stuff to hear what can happen to a country if the financial markets truly melt down. She short version is that everyone should figure out how to live on less than half what they make. The combination of hyperinflation, loss of available credit, and loss of savings means finding ways to cut every possible expense just to get by. It has me wondering what to do for where I live. While the GF and I were thinking of getting a new horse property with room for a large garden, if that means living further from work, will the transportation expenses exceed what we could save on food by growing some of our own? Would the premium cost of convenient horse property equal a mortgage that couldn't be paid if one of us was out of work? Certainly things to be considered in these interesting times. Between that and reading on Peak Oil, it makes sense to plan for both acute disasters, like severe weather, etc., and the possibility of a long emergency that could span decades rather than weeks or months.

Rick
03-17-2009, 09:25 PM
The second part of the post was my real subject. You hit in it very well when you said you were spending money on things other than what you really needed. If we sit down and write out what the items we truly want then write out a plan to acquire it we can generally make the item a reality. All it takes is some decent planning and some self disciple. The more expensive the item, the more important it is to plan for it.