All month, I’ve been putting off quite a few things that I needed to purchase. There was the flight to March Madness Games in New Mexico, Shares from the CSA for H and I (We’ve expanded to fruit and vegetables this year), Race entry fee for my marathon, as well as a couples race that H and I will be running in February, as well as a few other odds and ends. All in all, I ended up spending a boatload of money – thankfully, most of it will be split in half with H, and should abate bills down the road, specifically with the food shares (though that may not be the case). It could invite a challenge for the last 6 months of the year (and the first 6 months of married life!) that H and I only buy milk from the store! At any rate, I’m hoping that this could be all of our food money, but we will have to see.
Here are the best links for the week:
J Money over at Budgets are Sexy is talking about living off of 50% of your pay. I think this is a good idea and if I wasnt trying to pay down debt or planning a wedding, I know that I can do this (though I would only make minimum payments on my debt. H and I have talked about this extensively, and I think we will probably live off of one person’s salary after we get married.
Tim Sullivan at Get Rich Slowly has some thoughts on wedding registries. In the process of wedding planning, I know exactly what he means. H and I have been talking over the past few days about what to register for, or whether or not to register at all. We’ve been living together for 3 years and we are both adults with jobs – so when we need something, we go out and buy it. We’ve already got just about everything we need (or want) so I’m not sure what the point would be, except to fill our house with even more stuff!
Million Ways to Save presents 5 Free Gifts for Valentines Day. Great stuff here – dont get caught up in the chocolates, jewelry and cheap card fad – give someone an experience or something they will remember. Put some thought into it, you’ll surprise yourself.
Thank you for including my post in this post! It means quite a lot to me. Buying only milk at the grocery store is a great thing – you’ve reminded me about how committed I should be to my own finances.
No Problem emily! Great work. I’ve got another post detailing what I hope to be buying at the store this summer
Don’t you just hate months like that?! We have had those too. Speaking of food, we are always amazed at what things cost sometimes. I guess because we try to eat organic and healthy it does cost more. For me though it is worth the money.
Hope you have a great weekend.
I dont always pay attention when I’m shopping, but I’m thinking I should start paying a bit more attention. I feel like it would just make me angry if I do pay attention though because if the price of a sack of beans goes up by a quarter, i’m still going to need the beans.
How about honeymoon registries? (I actually wrote a big post on them a few months back – http://www.wellheeledblog.com/2011/09/20/honeymoon-registry-brilliant-or-tacky/). Like you and H, my fiance and I have been together for years and we don’t need or even have space for cookery or the like. We are going to set up a honeymoon registry for the folks who don’t mind that, and a traditional registry for the folks who prefer that.
I thought about that too, but the honeymoon has already been paid for – I’ve found something else that could be interesting, and I’ll see if I can get a post out about it.
Only milk at the store! That would be quite a challenge but a fun one probably.
Love that you posted the living off 50% of your income. I found it very interesting and had to immediately pull out the budget and do the math. It turns out we live off of 63% of our income. When I succeed in refinancing the mortgage this year we would be able to live off of 50%.
The more I poke around the kitchen, the more I realize it cant be “just” milk, but hopefully it wont be too many things!
Glad you enjoyed the post! It would be a good dream indeed living off 1 income like that and saving/using the other for debt. You’ll be there soon enough!
lets hope so!
I have to look into a CSA for us. Thanks for reminding me!
I’m heading over now to read the wedding registry post. I have seen mentions of it on several blogs.