fposte wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:16 pm
Ivygirl wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:37 pm
fposte wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:53 pm
Ah, then more is in order than a discussion focusing on pantries as hedges against inflation. If you want to put more into your IRA, it looks like you'll need to genuinely cut back. It's been asked a few times if you have a budget, and I'm guessing that you don't; it's almost impossible to find ways to cut back without identifying spending limits on categories, IOW a budget.
I think also that stubbornness about getting to that goal could be an ally here. You probably have enough stored up to skip grocery shopping for a month--what if you did that and put the grocery money into your Roth? What's more important to you--money in your Roth or swerving those lima beans? (Easy for me to say as I like lima beans.) It doesn't all have to come from food, but that would be an easy place to start. Do you have a sense of how much you've been spending monthly on food?
I have a spreadsheet for expiration dates of canned peaches, but you don't think I have a budget?
Sounds like you do, then. Great! What is it?
What does it mean to "genuinely cut back"?
It means to take the budget down so you can contribute more to your IRA, which you’ve said you want to do; alternatively, if you have the time and energy, you could pick up a side job to bring a few more dollars in. You’ve said you cannot afford to continue as usual. Do you want to explore ways to change that up?
"What is your food budget?" is a legitimate question on a thread about Pantry Inventory and Grocery Shopping in Time of Inflation, and I'm not at all reluctant to share mine.
There are going to be some ground rules though. First, you do not imply again that I am being insincere. I take this subject seriously, and expect to be taken seriously myself. If I tell you something, you can believe it.
Second, you also share your own grocery budget, as well as the kinds of things you buy and eat, also anything you may have had to give up to keep that budget constant in time of inflation.
My grocery budget is $400 a month - it includes pet supplies for a cat, detergent, paper products, some things like bug spray and lightbulbs - anything one would buy at a grocery store. Also sometimes a bag of wild bird seed for my cheap hobby watching them from a window.
In the last 30 days I have spent $420 on grocery (I would know to the penny, except I lost a cash purchase receipt), and $34.72 on lunches at work. Four workdays a week I drink a protein shake for breakfast and lunch, they cost about $1.98 each. Usually I buy two bottles of wine a week at $8-9 each. It's summer, so I bought a pint of Talenti gelato and a pint of Ben & Jerry's. A typical meal for me is GF spaghetti with meat sauce (the sauce is $6.50 a jar, makes 4 servings), or hamburger vegetable soup, or bean/beef nachos, or salmon patties (including the bones) with mashed potatoes and gravy, or a roast chicken. I make soup from the bones. Dessert is not every day but is usually GF cookies (cost somewhat more than regular cookies), or I make a fruit crumble with GF flour, sugar, and chopped walnuts.
I already work quite a lot of cyclical overtime, for which I am paid time-and-a-half, so there's the part-time job.
Now you.
** Editing to add: Forgot, I bought with cash an additional $10 bottle of Chilean wine I wanted to try. ** Editing again to add: I spent cash at the Hispanic grocery also, add on about $15 to total spent.