This week ended up being the highest cost week of the year, but that’s OK because my budget is set up to roll with the changes life brings.

The main issue was an 8-hour power outage mid-week which meant dumping most of the contents of my fridge, including my meal prep and most of my “backup” meals (*sob*) and a huge grocery shop to replace it all. After a previous experience with food poisoning I definitely err on the side of safety when it comes to things like this, and the CDC recommends that fridge contents other than condiments are unsafe after four hours. I keep thermometers in my fridge and both freezers to monitor the temps, and while the freezers held as expected, the fridge was up to 50F when the power came back on after 8 hours, which is well above the 40F recommendation. So that trashed my meal plan for the rest of the week, and the weekend, and meant a larger than normal grocery bill to replace a number of staples. Plus I added a small pot of daffodils to cheer myself up after dealing with all the food waste and replacement.

One thing that did go well this week was the “purchase” of some digital books on Monday. I hadn’t been keeping up with one of my favorite authors, and after checking her latest books out from the library I knew I would read them again and wanted to purchase them. After a bit of poking around in my budget, I decided to use up some credit on my Amazon account along with some credit card reward points, so I was able to buy four books without “paying” any money for them out of my budget.

I did pay real money for one other item this week, after careful consideration of my budget and my long-term spending goals. I’m a big fan of Tom Bihn bags, who are locally designed and made right here in Seattle. While the original designer sold the company a few years ago, the new owners have (mostly) maintained the local, quality, well-designed method of bag production. One of their more popular designs is a tote bag made for knitters but which I use as a general purpose bag, and it is rarely available and was even retired for a short period of time. This week they released a new batch and one of the color options was in my most favorite set of their purple tones (Aubergine/Wisteria) which was very, very tempting. I spent a few minutes thinking about it, and decided it would be worth spending the money to get the new version in the colors I love. While a second bag of the same style is not essential, it still fits within my spending goals of shopping small, locally made, and supporting small businesses. Plus I know I will love the new bag, and would have regretted missing this particular color option.

Regular spending this week also included a haircut and the annual subscription renewal for one set of security cameras.

Even with the higher grocery cost this week, ordering the new bag, and Pixie’s Solensia injection, I was still able to put some extra money into savings and continue adding to my budget goals.

Here are the final results for this week:

Food/Groceries/Dining Out:

  • Meal Plan – I did a big meal prep last weekend and made a small ham and mashed potatoes for the week, along with some hard boiled eggs. Unfortunately I had to throw the rest of it (2-3 meals worth) away on Thursday after the power outage Wednesday night, along with a number of my “backup” options like yogurt and eggs.
  • Groceries – due to the replacements needed, this week’s grocery bill was $150. Ouch, but with a little planning and some digital coupons I was able to save about $30 off the total.
  • Dining out – since my prepped meals had to be thrown out, I ended up picking up fast food on Friday on the way home from the grocery store, in order to have a quick meal available after all my errands were done. $14 for that because I got a soda with the meal.

General Spending:

  • Save instead of Spend – this week’s extra savings amount went to future vet bills, Pixie will have some dental work coming up and pet insurance will only cover about half of the total cost. It’s generally a fairly expensive procedure so I’ll be saving extra on top of my usual vet bill fund until that is done
  • Reduce Amazon orders – while I did order some Kindle books with credit this week, I didn’t place any physical Amazon orders. There are a few things waiting in my cart that I’ll order from them because the cost is lower than getting it locally, but first I need to finish measuring the space under the desk that needs to be secured to keep Finn from chewing on the computer cables
  • House projects – these are still on hold

Cats:

  • Food/litter/supplies – no supply orders this week, just an order for Pixie’s new transdermal Gabapentin to see if we can get her pain managed
  • Cat toys – no new cat toys, yay!
  • Vet bills – just a (relatively) small bill this week for Pixie’s Solensia injection to hopefully help with her arthritis pain. Pet insurance will cover 80% of the cost for that.