I got an extra big tax return this year – double last years! Maybe I can thank that RRSP I finally bought at the end of February

The majority of it is going towards bills and savings but I can’t help but use a little bit to splurge on myself

So far I’m debating between:

Trail Shoes

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I’m planning on doing a lot more trail running this year so I’ve been thinking about investing in a good pair of trail shoes. Taking my road shoes onto the trails isn’t ideal and it wears out my road shoes quickly.

I have no idea what trail shoes I would get, though, as I’ve never tried running in them before!

Lululemon Wunder Under Pants

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I have to admit, I’ve recently been swayed over to the wonders of lululemon (I always thought it was SO overpriced before but I’m now seeing how good quality it is!)

However, my general rule is that I buy good quality running and yoga gear from them – NOT something I would wear to work/lounge around in. But I’ve heard such good things about the wunder under pant (and I LOVE my knock-off pair!) that I’m tempted to splurge on them.

Mani-Pedi-Massage

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Life has been crazy lately. Getting some spa treatments would be really nice. I haven’t even had a pedicure since my marathon (!!!!) so I am long overdue for one and with all the painting, the moving that is coming up this weekend and the fact that I’ve been running more than usual means that I could really use a massage to loosen up tight muscles!

And, I kind of just want a manicure so my hands will look nicer when I show off my ring

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I could probably swing the trail shoes OR wunder unders AND a mani OR pedi OR massage.

Thoughts? What would you splurge on – OR what are you planning on splurging on with your tax return this year?!

As a follow-up to Wednesdays post on our new way of budgeting for groceries I thought I’d show you what a typical grocery shopping trip looks like for us.

Tonight was actually slightly atypical as we went to Costco and we only go to Costco about once every 2 – 3 months or so, but other than that it was a pretty normal shopping trip

Costco haul: spinach and cheese stuffed ravioli, vegetable dumplings, mussels, and pesto sauce.

Produce (from Superstore): a bunch of banana’s, 2 bunches of kale, 1 bag of spinach, 1 cucumber, 4 tomatoes, 2 onions, 4 pears, 1 bag of oranges (on sale for $4!), 3 peppers.

Dairy products: 1L of 1% milk (for Eric + Webster. I rarely drink actual milk anymore) and Almond Breeze.

Grains/Carbs: 1 bag of multigrain tortilla chips, 1 bag of Dorito’s (impulse, counter buy!), 1 bag of hamburger buns, 1 loaf of garlic bread (mostly to go with last nights dinner of the above ravioli + pesto!)

All of this cost us about $80, leaving $320 in our budget for the month. We probably won’t get groceries for another 1 – 1.5 weeks or so.

Organic or not?

A lot of people commented on my last post they don’t like to set grocery budgets because they buy organic groceries.

I have to admit Eric and I do not buy organic produce in the wintertime. In the summer we go to the Farmers Market every Saturday and buy all our fresh produce there! From April – October (Farmers Market season!) our grocery budget will probably increase to $500/month to account for this because food at the Farmer’s Market isn’t always cheap! It’s completely worth it to me though I would rather spend my money on local food that I know was grown just a few miles from where I live than “organic” food that’s been shipped across the continent – or farther!

What’s your thoughts? Do you buy organic? Why or why not?

**EDITED TO ADD*** Since so many people asked about the Dorito’s bag I should clarify and say our normal Dorito bags do NOT look like that. This particular bag of chips is from some sort of black-and-white bag campaign Dorito’s is putting on. You can read about it HERE!

I like to think that Eric and I are pretty good with money for our age. We JUST acquired our first large amount of debt in the form of a mortgage + car payments within the last month. We have no credit card debt and no student loan debt (which I’m incredibly thankful for – I know everyone doesn’t have that luxury!)

But we aren’t super anal about money. We don’t have a “budget” per say and we don’t track all the money we make/spend.

One area where neither of us (read: me) are very good is grocery shopping. I’ve wrote about this particular spending problem before – it’s not pretty (think upwards of $800 in one month on groceries!)

Since about August we’ve been sticking to a “strict” $400/month grocery budget. In the past I’ve tried writing down the grocery bill in my planner every time we went but we almost always went over budget. Last month I tried something from the show Till Debt Do Us Part that I’ve talked about before on the blog and put $400 cash into an envelope.

That’s it. That’s all. If the envelope ran out of cash well I guess we were going to be eating out of our cupboards/freezer for awhile.

And you know what? It worked! Maybe it was because February was a short month, or maybe it was the fact that I was spending with cash so was a bit more frugal but we stayed within our $400 budget. In fact, we were $50 under!

Every time we bought groceries (about ever 1 – 1.5 weeks) I would pay for it with money from the envelope and put the receipt and change back in the envelope.

When I realized Sunday night that we were $50 + change under for the month we did what any responsible 20-somethings would do….

….We ordered Chinese Food + sushi!

What?! We deserved a reward!

And I’ve already got March’s cash in the envelope. Can we do 2 for 2, even though March is three days longer than February…I guess we’ll find out!

Once we’ve got the grocery budgeting down to a science maybe we’ll start budgeting elsewhere like gas, or eating out. Maybe…

Do you have a grocery budget? Are you good at sticking to it?