Money Well Spent

For more than a year now I have been keeping an eye on what we are spending for food and stuff every week. I keep all the receipts. Now finally, after 50 weeks of buying food in bf-nowhere I can present results:

In 50 weeks we have spent $7443.12 for groceries and other things, such als bus tickets or the occasional computer desk. This amount includes only money spent related to living in bf-nowhere: mainly food, cleaning, fishing supplies, but for example also gas money for the occasional drive to visit places with a little more civilizisation.

I have calculated an average spending of $148.86 per week. This includes all the necessities for comfortable living for two people, without restricting too harshly. The weekly goal is usually not to spend more that 150 bucks, which seems to have worked out so far.

As you can see we spend about 380 bucks for bread each year, which comes to almost 8 bucks per week. The rather high value of other is caused by two reasons: a) it includes everything that doesn't fit in any of the other categories, and b) we spent about 300 bucks last year in stamps for sending out Christmas presents overseas. By the way, the no rec category is for stuff with missing receipts, so I just estimated/remembered the amounts.

What I have noticed from buying with a budget in mind: It is so very easy to spend twice as much money for what seems to be the same stuff; it is even easier to forget where your cash has gone over the course of a week; and buying big packs/on sale items usually saves money: for example 15 lbs potatoes for 8.95 instead of 5lbs poatoes for 6.50, or 2 containers of laundry soap for 25 instead of 1 for 14.95 etc. That means: Even if you hate it when discounts order you to buy stuff, sometimes being obedient is the right thing to do.

You can see we spend most of our money for fresh fruit and vegetables, closely followed by fresh meat. These things are a little bit more expensive here in bf, as is everything. When we still lived in civilization we could usually make do with an average of less then 100 bucks per week.

Luckily all these statistics and calculations only apply to living in bf. I think we have already spent more than a hundred bucks since we got to the city this afternoon, for sushi, movies, cab rides, books. The cash just runs through our fingers. But that is why they call it holiday.