I know that I have not posted since my introductory post in August. We moved into our apartment on September 1st, and settling into the new groove of things has been challenging.

Prior to moving in, we had to pay first month and security (which we were only able to do because my husband’s car was totaled, and we got an insurance check from which we were able to use half as a down payment on a newer car and half toward moving expenses). I went into September with grand aspirations of being able to put the $1,900 that we did not need to spend on rent for the month into savings so that we would be, for all intents and purposes, a month ahead on rent.

This did not pan out. In fact, despite my efforts, we ended the month with only about $500 to put toward October’s rent payment. This has left me incredibly stressed about where we will be come November 1st, because if spending continues as it did in September, we will not have the money to buffer the rent payment at all next month, and the expenses that come out on the first of the month are more than the amount of the VA check my husband gets on the first of the month. I am doing my absolute best to buckle down; however, we just learned that my car is not safe to drive and needs about a $1,000 of work to get there. I need my car. As I’ve mentioned before, we are in a rural area. My job requires about 120 miles of traveling a week, outside of my office. My husband’s round-trip mileage to work is 60 miles a day.

We still have a little in savings from the insurance check, and I have added a few small deposits to that account as well, using my checks from my side-hustle facilitating an online class at my alma mater. I am thankful that we have that as a buffer, but also deeply discouraged that we will have to drain the savings account to cover this cost and be back at square one with no buffer at all.

Still, I had some wins in September. I set goals for myself, including tracking every single purchase made and starting with a “trial budget”.

I tracked everything by hand in a really cool, affordable budget notebook I found online. It was around $8.00 and I have found it very helpful in the past month and a half. I am not a “spread sheet person”, and getting hands-on and reviewing finances every day really helped me feel like I was keeping on top of things. While clearly the end result was not what I hoped for, I was able to identify several charges I did not even know we were paying. To see our biggest financial drains in real time was an eye-opener. For my family, I learned that our primary culprit is quick runs to gas stations/ convenience stores. $3.50 here for an iced tea, $2.50 there for a candy bar… it is truly surprising how quickly those purchases stack up! Additional unexpected/ abnormal expenses included renting a U-Haul to move, a few nights of take out in the midst of the move, and the fact that we had to pay our old internet bill and the new internet bill for the month of September, among other things. These expenses do not quite make up the “missing” rent payment, but they certainly contributed.

I also spent the month of September scouring the internet for budget meal ideas. I have never been big on cooking. Certainly not anything complex, anyway. I did not have much of a pantry built up. I had never really tried to “build meals” around staple ingredients. In all honesty, we were on a solid rotation of chicken fajitas, tacos, BBQ chicken, pasta, and pizza. In September, I pushed myself way out of my comfort zone.

I learned to make Naan from scratch, cookies from scratch, and tried many recipes that I had never even heard of before. I meal planned every week and, as a family, we would decide if the dinner for that night was something to move into the “master recipe book” or to never cook again. We had far more duds than successes, but the meals that turned out well were good, and even the ones that weren’t, were healthier than what we’d been eating before. Over the course of this exploration, I also found myself getting more confident in learning what ingredients and seasonings could make pretty much any meal stretch and be flavorful at the same time.

So, overall for September, I am giving myself a solid C+. I did some really great, new things and I came up short in the end.

I am excited to apply what I learned to October, to keep doing the things that are working and to continue to work on stopping the things that are not.

Moving Forward: I will aim to post on this blog at least once a week. You can count on new posts on Saturdays of that week’s meal planning and grocery list (with prices). Now that I am in the groove of thinking in terms of ingredients, I will not be relying nearly as much on other recipes from the internet and will be making things that are my own. If I do use a direct recipe from someone else, I will, of course, link to the original.

I will also be doing some research into actual personal finance and, while I am clearly no expert, I believe that I am skilled in breaking down information, and I will share what I learn here in the event that you, like me, have never really heard this stuff before.

Thank you for reading! I am sincerely looking forward to taking this journey with you!