You may recall that along about the first of this month, I came up with the wacky-sounding idea of artificially forcing my American Express billing cycle, which runs from the 21st to the 20th, to coincide with my real-life monthly budget cycle, which runs from the 1st to the 31st. To accomplish this, I used savings to pay off the credit-card charges made during the last ten days of August and reset my personal charge-card budget to begin on the 1st of each month and end on the 20th, resolving to use cash to cover discretionary costs for the last ten days of the month.
This would insure that I never buy things with money that’s not already in the bank account. It would allow the same monthly amount for discretionary spending — $1100 — but simply reduce the portion of that amount allocated to put on the charge card. Instead of putting $1100 on the charge card each month, I would put $745 on the card and pay for the remaining grocery and other discretionary bills with $355 in cash. Or less, depending on how much remained in the budget when I got to the last day of the credit-card cycle.
Well, here we are at the 21st. How did the scheme work?
It actually seems to have packed a little surprise.
Wouldn’tcha know it, this month brought two big, unplanned expenses: the pool’s backwash valve handle snapped off — $192 to fix that damn thing — and I bought a new back-saving chair for the TV room, one whose design will force me to sit up straight and not fall asleep in it. The chair cost $600.
I’d figured to pay for the chair out of savings. The two hundred bucks for the pool repair, though, had to come out of the grocery budget, since savings has been raped once too often of late. Yesterday, finding the cupboard running toward bare and the piles of paper on the desk nearly touching the ceiling, I went through all the receipts and bills and entered them in the spreadsheets. Unless I’ve made a mistake (always a possibility), something weird has happened:
When all is said and done, if I can keep purchases over the next nine days down to $180, I should only have to raid about $150 out of savings to pay for everything, including the chair and the pool repair.
There’s enough money in the checking account to cover almost all those expenses, assuming I don’t go berserk in the next week & a half.
How to explain this? Normally outgo matches income each month, right to the penny. But this month, I come up with almost $640 in wriggle room. And yes, that is after projected expenses right up to the 30th.
Could changing the amount budgeted to spend on credit cards make that much difference?
That doesn’t seem to make sense. Thirty days is the same as thirty days, no matter what period the thirty days spans.
I spent about $110 less in Costco this month than over the previous 31-day cycle. Although that doesn’t account for a $640 windfall, it’s an interesting development.
On average, I spend $295 a month at Costco. That covers food, household supplies, personal items, clothing, wine, the annual purchase of chlorine tablets for the pool, and the occasional small appliance. In July/August, I spent $318 there; between August 21 and today, $207.
It occurs to me that shopping at Costco may run up monthly expenses, even though in theory buying in bulk should keep costs down over time. And that’s bizarre: not having to run to the grocery store every time you turn around to buy toilet paper, detergent, and paper towels at inflated prices should save money, not jack up costs.
WTF?
I think the problem may be that Costco is Impulse Buy Central. And it’s that way because of a specific merchandising strategy:
You know that anything you see in that place is likely to be gone the next time you visit. Even things they seem to carry as staples — those wonderful camis, for example, and the incredible Borghese mineral make-up — eventually disappear from the shelves. So if you spot something that you think you’re going to want sometime in the near future, you buy it now, even though you don’t need it now.
You buy things you don’t need immediately because you suspect that in two weeks or so, when you’ll be back, the store will no longer have it.
When you think about that, it’s a brilliant piece of marketing, eh?
Since the start of this budget rejiggering scheme (August 21), I’ve shopped in Costco three times. But between the first and today, I spent only $85 there, hoping to preserve as much cash as possible to cover the last, charge-free ten days of the month. That’s because I’ve restricted purchases to only those things I can’t find anywhere else. Otherwise, I shopped in grocery stores.
Not even Whole Foods has the vast array of impulse-buy temptations presented by Costco. Instead of buying for future needs and grabbing that pair of red Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and snatching the cool little highly portable handy-dandy shop vac, I’ve been buying only what I actually need at any given moment. Even if that costs more than buying staples and household goods in bulk, I spent fewer dollars because when I’m not exposed to things that I don’t really need right now, I don’t buy them.
It still doesn’t account for a $640 windfall — there must have been more money in the account at the end of last month than I realized. However…it’s telling.
I’m thinking that a great deal of money could be saved, month-to-month, simply by staying out of Costco. The store does carry some things I can’t find easily anywhere else, certainly not for the price:
• tomatoes with flavor (those Campari-brand tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes, and they cost a lot less at Costco than cocktail tomatoes at other stores; their flavor is better, too)
• Glorias (jeans that fit grown women)
• chicken and pork for the dog
• dog veggies (frozen vegetable mix with no corn, onions, or artificial flavorings)
• chlorine tablets (vast savings!)
• toilet paper in lifetime supplies
• paper towels in lifetime supplies
• walnuts, pecans, and pine nuts
• cheap wine
• hard liquor in lifetime supplies
Really…that’s not very much stuff.
Maybe buying everything else in smaller quantities at other stores would push monthly costs down, even if the amount paid for certain things (meat and fresh produce, for example) would be higher.
Geez. If I could recover even $200 or $300 a month out of the budget — to say nothing of $640! — my life would be so much better! I could actually DO some things, rather than just getting by from day to day. Imagine being able to afford to go to shows, buy some decent clothes (new, not second-hand!), and go out to a restaurant without feeling guilty. Maybe afford the gas to drive up to Prescott or over to Bisbee now and again.
Imagine that.
I stopped shopping at Costco for the same reason: I was spending more money there than I would if I shopped sales and shopped at my local grocery store.
I only go to Costco or Sams about twice a year–maybe thrice. I buy a lot of what’s really cheap there–for me, converted rice, feta, padded envelopes, almonds, dried fruit and a few other things.
Otherwise, I stock up at local groceries. Loss leader and sale prices are generally less than prices at the warehouse stores. I spend a lot less than you do on groceries and I’m buying for two humans (no pets) and also an extra human–my son–if I see a good price on something.
Now if I had a Sprouts….I would be in grocery heaven.
Mmm-hmmmm. I think that staying out of stores in general tends to save a lot of money, without much sense of deprivation. No question that we tend to spend a lot more if we make more trips to stores, even if we think we’re following a list or a budget. But if we don’t go into the stores, we don’t miss all the junk we buy because we don’t think about it.
And personally, I do tend to be profligate with groceries. Truly, I dislike grocery stores and grocery shopping — I just want to get in and get out. As a result, I don’t devote the time required to shop intelligently for bargains. If I see something I need on sale, I’ll buy it, but not usually in quantity, and I don’t usually go into the store in search of sale prices.
But come to think of it…I wonder if the diet could explain some of the apparent savings here. As a practical matter, I’m buying a lot less food, and in particular, I’m hardly buying any meat — the most expensive item on my routine list. Almost everything I’ve been buying has been fresh produce or yogurt, except for cheap chicken and pork for Cassie.
I find that the longer I can stay out of a store…any store…the better. Costco and Sams Club are just like “crack” to shoppers/bargain hunters…and my favorite Home Depot, the store that has “toys for big boys” , is always tempting with a new tool or gadget….IMHO. I have watched my DD’s in-laws preach the “values” at Costco and Sams Club and have also noticed the large amount of stuff they throw away that has spoiled. And it seems, in our household anyway, that if you have a large quantity of an item…laundry detergent…shampoo…soap….cat food…you name it…. the user becomes …shall we say “liberal” with their usage. On the other hand if the container / quantity is smaller the user seems to be more…”conservative”. DW and I have lately been making an effort to use up what we have and avoid things going bad. Congrats on your success…MAN a $300 savings would be welcomed in any budget!
LOL! Mercifully, I don’t have much waste problem thanks to…ta DAAAA!!! a freezer from Costco! Most of my produce, except for the wonderful tomatoes, comes from grocery stores in smaller quantities.
That’s an interesting phenomenon you’ve observed, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised that buying stuff in lifetime supplies has the effect of making the consumer feel things are so abundant we can use them with gay abandon. I don’t think I do that…at least not with everything. Shampoo and laundry detergent, for example, have been known to get weirdly thick over time as their water content evaporates. I’ve started buying laundry detergent in grocery stores for that reason — a half-cap per load uses the stuff up so slowly that there’s no reason for a one-person, one-dawg household to buy it in vast quantities. But…y’know, I do tend to use paper towels at breakneck speed…hmmmmm…..
It’s very hard to go into one of those huge souk-like marketplaces and come out with only what you went there to buy. The things are death on shopping lists.
I stopped shopping at Costco for this reason, as well as the fact that it became a burden to me to shop there. Costco locations in my area are not very convenient, so I had to make time in my weekends/evenings to driver there as a special trip. I found find myself getting annoyed when I needed more toilet paper or paper towels because it meant I “needed” to plan a trip to Costco. Once there my ex-husband invariably found some stupid items (a kitchen torch? sleeping bags?) he wanted to add to the cart that drove up our bill.
These days I buy most of my toilet paper, facial tissues, dish soap, and laundry detergent at CVS. CVS always has coupons that make it worth my while to buy these items there, and while the bottles of detergent are smaller I find them easier to handle. (Unfortunately, that means more plastic bottles to go in the recycling bin, but as long as I’m recycling I feel that’s OK.)
For cleaning, I try to use rags instead of paper towels, but when it’s a really icky thing to clean, a paper towel is handy. I also get those paper towels that can be made into half-sheets so I don’t use a roll as fast.
Gloria Vanderbilt jeans — they have these at Kohl’s, too. Do you have those stores in your area?
Nuts — I buy most of my nuts in bulk at one of the local international markets or from the bins at Whole Foods. I store them in the freezer so they last longer.
Wine — I like the “Big House” or “Black Box” boxed wines and can find them in most local grocery stores. Boxed wine stays fresh for a long time, although we usually end up buying a box a week since both of us drink about one glass night (OK, maybe I have two sometimes!)
If I end up paying slightly more for some of these products over time, I also end up saving money on gas as well as my own personal time. The reduced stress from struggling with the crowds at Costco is a priceless bonus.
All of those are excellent points. I don’t think I’d drive way across the city to go to a Costco…the things are practically on every corner around here! Also…I’d probably throttle The Man if he kept turning every reprovisioning expedition into an excuse to buy some new indulgence.
You can get Glorias on Amazon, too. The convenience of being able to take them back — one thing that Costco really excels at — may override the joy of being able to buy the things in every color of the rainbow, at will.
We used to have a Kohl’s on the westside, but as I recall the mall was pretty moribund…I think they closed that store. hmmmmmmmm…w00t! What have we here but one at Desert View! That’s just up the road from the college. Gosh. I could go by there and check it out. 🙂 Thanks for the clue!!
Sprouts also carries nuts, although I don’t know if they have pine nuts, which I throw into everything in sight. But will look the next time I’m there. That’s a good thought…I’ve gotten so much in the habit of buying at CC I don’t even think of alternatives.
Nuts of all kinds do keep forever in the freezer, BTW, for those who’d like to try this scheme.
I am so, sooooo finicky about both wine and coffee! And it’s tricky to find wine in the under $10 category that’s even faintly drinkable. However, speaking of alternatives, we do have a Bevmo here. I tend to get overwhelmed with the vast offerings, but the prices are good and they have a large stock of cheap booze. Some wines at Trader Joe’s are OK…I’ve never been able to pretend that Two-Buck Chuck is wonderful (or even potable), but they do carry some drinkable cheap table wines.
Sometimes Costco crowds can be aggravating, that’s for sure. The trick is to go during the dinner hour — after about 6 p.m., the place is practically empty.