remodeling this life

I guess each Sunday I’ll do a post about how the week went staying within budget and working on the house and hopefully most weeks adding to savings.

The biggest hair pulling moments were when I left the house twice with dollar amounts I thought I’d be spending and spent twice as much as expected. The first was Target where I went to get diapers, pullups and wipes. I expected to pay $30. This is mostly because wipes always cost more than I think they do. Just because I *think* something should be $2 doesn’t mean it isn’t $7. So, I got a case of diapers and for the first time since Monkey was born, I went with the Baby Dry instead of the Cruisers because for the same price, I get 20 more diapers. I remember really disliking the Baby Dry diapers when Bug was a baby but they seem to not have the same vomit inducing smell once peed in that they had 3 years ago. The last time I bought pullups was August of ‘06. I expect the $9 I spent on them this week to go pretty far. So, my calculation going into Target was $20 for Monkey’s diapers. $8 for Bug’s pullups and $2 for wipes. Yes, you can laugh now. Once I had diapers, wipes and pullups in my cart, I was already up to $36. Then hubby called and reminded me he needs more prepaid minutes for his phone. $20 more later and I’m at the magic $60 at Target. Oh well, we needed everything. I didn’t get anything impulse.

Then I took Monkey to his well baby visit and expected a $20 copay. While there, since I had Bug with me too, I thought I’d get their flu shots. That 2 1/2 seconds to stab my 3 year old and make her scream cost me another $20. So $40. Fine, they needed the shots and at least I got Monkey’s done while I was already paying a copay instead of scheduling for next week and paying *another* $20.

Since we were able to save on paint this week, we had some extra for trim in the bedroom also. So, the bedroom has trim, primer and a painted ceiling now. Not all the trim though. The rest will come next week. But it’s so close!

And the best news, we were able to still put $300 in savings, thanks mostly in part to hubby stocking the pantry so there were no mid-week grocery store runs which always cost more than they should.

So, a bit more than we’d planned for a few things but limited expenditures on gas and food this week helped us stay ahead. And the house is still progressing. I can’t complain!