Laura's Renovation Adventure

I.Hate.Math. Especially when a checkbook is involved. On the bright side, I have Moneydance, which does everything that Quicken does, except expire. (If I am content to use an old version of a piece of software, the company should not determine for me that it is too old, and disable downloads from my bank.) I fed in all my expenses (except February from US Bank, because they only keep 90 days of record online) into Moneydance and found out where my money went. This is what I found:

I spend more in clothes that I believed that I did.
Our grocery bill is out of control.
And we eat out too much.
We need a lot of entertaining.
We need to use the library more.

It is all very horrifying really. Essentially I have nice sum each month that I really have no idea where goes. Well, I know *where* it goes: Wal-Mart, Taget, Walgreens, the Dollar Store, Freds... So I *know* some of it is cleaning supplies. And some is clothing. And some is groceries. But what is what? I am clueless.

Then, I started poking around and found the USDA's estimated costs to feed a family. Turns out the federal government figures that we should be expected to spend $983 a month to feed our family of five. Now, all we need to do is cut down what we spend eating out...

Tonight, in the midst for cooking supper for my bunch and my dad who is visiting, I decided to do "something" about the open shelves in my kitchen. And what I decided to do was eradicate the plastic. So I put my baking supplies into glass jars, and put my metal canisters on the shelf and it looks really great. I did have to paint above the stove-- evidently I forgot to do that before. But it is done, for the moment. Now I just have to decide what to put on the open shelf above the stove. It gets hot enough that I am worried about putting just anything up there...