Sunday, August 28, 2016

September Shopping Challenge: Essential Prep



So for those of you who are joining me in the September Shopping Challenge for the first time, here are a few tips for getting started.

The key to success in this challenge is prep prep prep. It's essential that you plan ahead, budget and keep track of your spending.

When it comes to meals, menu planning is a must. We have in our kitchen four planning boards - meals, kids' schedules, parents' schedules ... and a fourth that has yet to find a real use but was needed to make the space look right. Chore schedules would probably make sense, if I'd just get around to it. This month, though, I've made the fourth board a shopping challenge record board.

A photo posted by Lori McFarlane (@lorimcfarlane) on


Usually I only plan meals for the two weeks of the pay period, but this month I went ahead and planned for all month. I included eat-out days, so they could be budgeted as well.  Using my scheduling board, I made sure that the meals I planned corresponded with our schedules. For instance, Lolly has soccer practice two days a week; those days, the dinners I've planned are quick and simple, so she can eat and be back out the door in time for practice.  I have book club on the 3rd, so I planned out an extra dish to bring along to that. Don't forget to plan for Labor Day weekend too - will you be going out? Barbecuing? Menu planning around your schedules is important.

A photo posted by Lori McFarlane (@lorimcfarlane) on


Then you need to plan your grocery list around your menu. I made my shopping list in the kitchen, going through each day and writing down what was on the menu and what ingredients I'd need for each thing. I also made sure I checked the fridge and the pantry in case I already had some of the ingredients or in case I thought I had some but didn't.  I also checked my household lists for "other" items I needed to buy.

A photo posted by Lori McFarlane (@lorimcfarlane) on


Finally, it's useful, if you have the time, to make sure everything on your list will fit into your grocery budget. For our family of five, our budget is $300 a fortnight for groceries. I know from experience that my grocery list is almost always going to fit into that budget, so I no longer write down the numbers, but I still write down the actual costs as I'm shopping so I can tally up before check-out, and if I've overspent, I can put some things back.  For those of you new to budgeting though, I recommend playing your own version of the supermarket game, if you have the time. I did all of this on Saturday while the kids played on their iPads and computers, so I could have enough time to really plan all this out. However, I know we don't all have tons of spare time to be super meticulous. If you have the time, though, the supermarket game is a great way to keep yourself from overspending or buying extra items while at the store.  Follow the link to read in detail, but a quick summary of the game is this:

1. Next to each item on the list, write down what you suspect each item will cost. (I round up to the nearest $0.50 or $1.)

2. Total it up so you know what you think you will end up spending. (If that total is over your budget limit, go back through and see what you can cut out.)

3. While at the store, write down how much the item actually cost. You can even grade yourself on how well you guessed by giving yourself a point for each item you either got exactly right and two points for each you spent less on. Take away a point for each item you spent more than your estimate. Take away another point for each item you buy that wasn't on your list. Give yourself no points but do not take away if that unplanned for item was a true necessity. (We all forget sometimes that we need butter or have run out of baking soda.)  Each item on your list started out as a single point, so at the end of the game, how close to your original list did you get, point-wise?

(I also write down each extra item I buy with its cost, so I can keep track of what I'm buying and where the extra expenses came from.)

4. When you check out, if you stayed under your budget, you win! If you went over, you didn't "lose" you just know how to estimate better next time. Tally up your points too and see how well you did. Did you estimate everything well? Did you underspend more often than you overspent?

A photo posted by Lori McFarlane (@lorimcfarlane) on


This is how I keep myself on budget with meals and groceries. This month, I'm also keeping a record of what I've spent in groceries and in my personal spending allowance. Seeing it in black and white (rather than in a bank account) somehow makes the money seem more real to me. I know using a checkbook transaction log is good, and I should really start doing that again, but I tend to use that only for  my checks. If you are already using a log, that is great! If you aren't logging anything at all, I'd suggest you find an easy way to do it. My log is just a sticky pad I keep in my car with a pen. As soon as I get in the car, I record what's on the receipt (or a rounded-up estimate if I've already managed to lose the receipt.) Whatever works for you. But I highly recommend logging your spending somewhere, somehow.

A photo posted by Lori McFarlane (@lorimcfarlane) on


Get planning, folks! September starts Thursday!


Thursday, August 25, 2016

September Shopping Challenge 2016

Hello, my name is Lori, and I'm a shopaholic.

I love shopping, any kind, anywhere. Grocery stores, big box stores, boutiques, bookstores, malls, Amazon. My sister-in-law even took me into a tractor store once, where I discovered how badly I wanted to buy a chicken coop. When I have had a stressful day, my therapy is retail therapy. It's a weakness, a flaw, a sin, but I am hopeless. Every pay period I vow to do better, then a new pair of shoes calls to me or Terry Gross reviews an author of a new book or Facebook tries to sell me a Bernie Sanders action figure. (I have almost bought that so many times.)

In 2013, I started the September Shopping Challenge to help me learn to curb my spending and control my budget. We had just moved back to America, Scott had just started his new job, and we were at the start of trying to rebuild our lives. We had no furniture, no car, no books or toys, just the suitcases-worth of belongings we'd brought over from Scotland. I started the challenge to help me manage spending in those early, stressful days.

I did the challenge again in 2014 as a refresher course in budgeting but skipped 2015. This year - 2016 - I am going to attempt the challenge again, because my shopaholic tendencies of late have been getting the better of me.

Each year, I come up with new SCC rules to help guide me through the month and to outline areas I need help with my habits.  They usually involve only going shopping once a week and making lists and sticking to pre-planned menus, schedules and budgets. Then I add any other rules or exceptions that I feel are needed to make the month successful.

You can read about the origination of the September Shopping Challenge, the first year executive summary, and the second year's game plan for a little more background. Here are some helpful lists. If after reading this, you think you'd like to join me in this challenge, leave a comment (with your blog if you plan to blog about it!) and we'll keep each other motivated.  How does that sound?! (Ridiculously fun, y'all, for real. We could start a Facebook group and everything.)

This year, I have outlined the following rules.

1. Grocery shopping. We get paid every other Thursday, so the weekend is usually the best time to get the shopping done; however, usually by Wednesday, our kids (and my husband) have managed to eat everything in the house, so waiting until Saturday is almost always impossible. So in September, I will allow myself two grocery days a fortnight: Thursday (or Friday) after work and then Saturday or Sunday.  The in-between week will have one grocery day allowed for picking up any necessities we're running low on - milk, cereal, bread. Not brownies. No, Lori, brownies do not count.

2. Budgeting. We have a pretty well organized budget as it is, but we always try to leave a cushion which ends up being treated as free play money, not the cushion it ought to be. This September, that cushion will be filled with fluff and will remain fluffy. (Cushions, fluff, you get the metaphor. Give me a break. It's 9:30 pm, and I'm tired.) Regarding the budget, I will also make one other adjustment which I hope will become a permanent one. Knowing that we have that cushion money, every paycheck before I've had time to sit down and pay the bills and allocate the funds to the appropriate accounts (we have several actual accounts, like we're a family business or something), I have a bad habit of doing a little pre-budget spending. That might be getting pizza for dinner that night, ordering a book from Amazon I've been dying to read or buying something new for the kids.  My goal for this month is to do that little bit of spending AFTER paying bills and allocating funds.  That way I have a better method of tracking which fund or account that money came from. Was it from my personal spending money? Grocery fund? It needs to come out of something other than the cushion fluff.

3. Spending money.  Now that Scott and I are both working, we pay ourselves an "allowance" that is totally our own business. Scott does with his spending money whatever he likes and I do the same. The only problem is, I put the grocery money in the same account as my spending money, which often means the two get hopelessly intertwined. Some weeks I end up using my fun money on groceries or kids' needs, and others I end up taking a little out of the grocery fund to cover something for myself. This month, I'm going to keep a transaction record to keep the two separate.

4. No spend days.  This is the hardest part for me. I like to spend money. I like to shop. If I need to get away from life, I like to go to the book store and wander the aisles for hours. (And it's humanly impossible to leave a book store without a book or four.)  Online shopping has made this even worse. Why, just today, I was at a Women In Networking luncheon where the speaker, Emily Reeves Dean, was talking about her book that she self-published, and me being a big supporter of local authors and self-publishers, ordered her book from Amazon. Just sitting there, sipping my iced tea, I spent $11.99. So through the month of September, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be firm No Spend Days.  Thursday or Friday and Saturday or Sunday will be grocery days, but only two of them, not three or four. The other two remaining days will be No Spend Days too.  If I want to spend my fun money, I will wait until one of the shopping days. The benefit of this is that I do not make tiny little purchases throughout the week that add up. If it's something I want badly, I'll still want it at the end of the week. If by the end of the week I don't want it anymore, then it wasn't worth buying to start with.

5. Exceptions. There will be one exception to all of this. Scott and I allow ourselves one evening a week to eat out unplanned.  This is usually on a day where work was exceptionally draining and neither of us want to cook. Lolly's soccer season starts back up in September too, so it might come on a night when we have soccer practice and did not get dinner beforehand. I will continue having this exception. It's needed for my well-being. It may fall on a No Spend Day, but that is okay, because this is the exception and comes out of one of our personal spending allowances. Either Scott will treat me or I'll treat him (and the kids, of course.)

So that's this year's September Shopping Challenge plan. Create your own plan or budget for the month and see what kind of savings you can make or good habits you can form! It'll be fun, I promise! (And by fun, I mean torture-but-worth-it-in-the-end.)


Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Last First First Day of School

Last week, all three of my kids started school. Fifi went into fourth grade, Lolly into second, and little Baby Jaguar - not a baby anymore - started Pre-K.


All three kids went into the same school building at the same time for the first time. For two years they will all be in the same building for the only time in their lives. Fifi will head off to Middle School, and from then on they'll all be off doing different things for the rest of their childhoods.

I remember Fifi's first day of P1 (the equivalent of first grade). It was different than when she went into Nursery (two years equivalent to Pre-K and Kindergarten). She was starting all-day school in a uniform like a real pupil. I cried a little. It was a big deal.



I remember Lolly's first day of Kindergarten. She did NOT want to go to Kindergarten, but I managed to convince her to try at least one day of it. And of course she loved it. I didn't cry. I was happy to see her excited and willing to stay.


Last Monday, Jaguar started Pre-K. It is like Nursery but much more formal. He doesn't wear a uniform, but it's all day and we pack his lunch and he gets a folder that we have to sign each night. Because it's not Kindergarten I didn't think I'd be that emotional about it. But then he went into class the first day. There were tables and chairs and backpack hooks and a place to put his signed folder every morning, and I realized, this was it. This was Jaguar starting school. This was the beginning of the routine he'll follow for the next fourteen years. 


He was so grown up. He wasn't shy. He was impressed by the toys and the alphabet rug and the other kids. He hastily gave me a hug and a kiss, and then I was extraneous. I said a feeble goodbye to the teacher, and Scott put his arm around me, seeing the tears spring in my eyes.


It was my last very first first-day-of-school. From now on, this is our family's routine. Kids to school each morning until Fifi graduates high school. No extra daycare stops. For this year and next we'll drop them off at the same school each morning, but the following year, they will all split up again. Lolly and Jaguar will be in school together, until Lolly catches up with Fifi, just in time for Fifi to head off to Junior High. They will chase each other through the school system until college.

All three of my kids are in school now. Jaguar was only a baby yesterday. Come to think of it, they all were just babies.



"Nothing is as far away as one minute ago."

Time passes too fast.