by Ashley
I just returned from a quick trip to Wisconsin for a few days to visit an old grad school buddy. It was such a lovely trip, full of outdoor adventuring! We visited state parks, went East to Lake Michigan (my first time to any of the Great Lakes), went West to the Mississippi River (much nicer than the parts I’ve previously seen down in Louisiana), and went on lots of hikes and nature walks locally.
What’s amazing is the price tag of this trip! For the entire 4 days, I spent under $400! Woohoo! All of our outdoor activities were free, so the money spent was split between costs for food, airport parking, and pet-sitting. I didn’t have to pay for lodging since I stayed with my friend. And I was able to get my flights for free through rewards miles I had with my CapitalOne travel credit card (side note: they’re having a deal right now where people can get $250 travel credit + 75k miles! If anyone is interested, you could use my referral link and I’d earn a few miles too. This seems like a really good deal, as typically the sign-on bonus is between 50-75k miles with no travel credit).
The not-so-amazing part was how I came back feeling. In a word…bloated. While we cooked some at home, we also had some greasy midwestern food when dining out at restaurants. And we may or may not have overindulged in some adult libations as well. Now that I’m back at home and kids are back at school and we’re all getting back into a more normal routine, I really want to start a diet. But not just a food diet, a money diet too!
Tightening the Budget Belt
For the food diet, I am planning to do a modified Whole 30-type diet. All whole foods – meat, vegetables, and fruit. No sugar or fake sweeteners. I’m planning to do a modified Whole-30 because typically Whole 30 requires banning dairy. I’m going to allow cheese in moderation and a splash of milk in my coffee. Otherwise, I’ll be sticking mostly to the Whole 30 plan. The biggest changes to my diet will be the ban on grains (we often have bread or rice with meals) and no sweet treats for dessert! Only fruit to satisfy that after-dinner sweet tooth! And of course, no alcohol or processed foods.
For the money diet, I want to get away from buying pre-packaged or convenience foods. A huge chunk of our monthly budget goes to food. Between Costco and the local grocery store, eating out as a family or with friends, we spend typically over $1,000 a month just on food! That’s wild to me! I’d like to try to cut back by at least 25%, spending closer to $750 for the month OR LESS. Given our focus on eating only whole foods during our food diet, I think our money will go further at the grocery store. We’ll be buying meat and veggies and not indulging in any of the other grocery store items that might otherwise cause our bill to climb.
Also, I have some stuff laying around the house (or, actually, in a pile in the garage) that I’m going to try to sell. As we did our typical summer purge and cleaning of the house, I set aside a bunch of stuff with the intention of one day having a garage sale. While our neighborhood hosts a big community yard sale in November, I think I’m going to try to get a head start by selling items on Facebook Marketplace and to our local community Buy/Sale Facebook site. It’s stuff we no longer use or need, so it’d be nice to earn a little bit of money on the side.
Money Plans
My plan is to take any money earned and put it into my Emergency Fund savings account. Recently, I opened up a high yield (5% APR) CD for my $3,000 Emergency Fund, and I’d slowly like to start adding money back to the EF savings account so I’ve got liquid money on hand outside the CD. (Side note: I do have other savings outside the EF savings account, so if there were a true emergency, I do have liquid money at my disposal. But I wiped out the dedicated EF savings when I opened the CD, so I’d like to sloooowly start building it back up, if that makes sense).
Speaking of – what is everyone’s thoughts on CDs? In the past I was a bit opposed. I felt like money should either be in savings/checking OR invested in something that would earn a higher return. For instance, a money market or mutual fund. But with the volatility of the market, I quite like having a safe, secure CD earning a guaranteed 5% return on investment. I like the idea of diversifying my savings and adding a CD or two to my portfolio feels like a wise move right now.
Anyway, I’m doing all my meal planning for the month of September now. Once the new month hits, it’s on! I think the “diet” of both money and food at the same time will be nice compliments to each other. And it’s a great time for both, as it will be harder to stick to a diet when the holidays roll around. I’d love if anyone wants to join me! We can be accountability buddies! 🙂
Who wants to join me in a September “diet”? Feel free to join in the food diet, the money diet, or both!
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
I like CDs for mid-term savings. When we were saving to buy a house we put money in CDs so we could get a decent interest rate while making it easy to convert back to cash in a year.
$1,000/ month for food for four people doesn’t sound that bad, especially if that includes all eating out. I’m sure it could be lower but if you are eating healthy I wouldn’t worry about it. Your kids will be eating a lot more as they enter their teenage years.
Good luck on your double diet! I have been trying to track my spending – I spend a LOT on outside food. I am trying to cut back on that and non essential spending, and forward any extra money to my savings – it worked out well, so I am keeping it up. I also will try and cut down on small spends like outside food and hopefully get back into prepping it all at home.
if you want “safe” savings that are giving you better rates than savings accounts you can invest in something like SXVXX or VMFXX. They are technically money market funds you buy in a brokerage account which pay dividends monthly and they trend around the rates of CDs. But you can trade and take your money out whenever. They have been paying around 5-5.5% for the last year. I have my emergency fund and potential down payment in these funds. And invest the excess in sp500 funds