Fine Tuning Your Budget: Essential Consumables

My first strategy in budgeting for my personal needs is to purchase all edible, body care and cleaning products on my once a month payday. To identify my rate of consumption,  I write dates on all bottles, bags, and containers. This is a long-term process of getting to the finer points of budgeting in order to anticipate meeting essential need. It also helps us to scrutinize and modify purchases that add up to significant spending. Groceries are not as straightforward as monthly; your utility bill reflects a period of time automatically. Your consumables need the same system. How frequent we purchase consumables also depends on shelf life and perishable.

By writing the date on perishables such as milk, butter, tofu and eggs I put a date on the package and was able to discover that these purchases vary from twice a week to once a month. One container of butter lasts two to four weeks, so at the beginning of the month I estimate needing to purchase butter twice and budget accordingly. If a second purchase of butter takes me over budget then I know that one tub of butter needs to last all month. According to the dates I have written on milk cartons I require at least one carton of milk a week, so now I know I need to budget for  five cartons of milk a month. Additionally I may need to scrutinize this purchase if I am spending too much money on milk. When writing out a budget, I may have to decide that I need limit myself to 3 cartons a month or even better make cashew milk from scratch.

After one month of dating consumable packages including soaps, eggs, milk, nuts, coffee, sugar and grains. I begin to create a realistic food and hygiene budget. I save the empty containers so that I can access how much was consumed that month and allow for the next month. For example, at the end of last month I had two empty bags of coffee, one was a pound and the other a half pound. This month, on payday, I bought a pound and a half of coffee. I will be measuring it each day to ensure it does not run out before the month is over. Containers that are not empty are also looked at to see how much is left and if it will last the rest of the month. This way I can decide if I need to make what is left in the package last or if I ought to purchase another container.

On the other end of the spectrum are less frequent purchases like shampoo, laundry soap, bulk grains and flour. Once I began dating packages, I realized that a bag of flour can last me a two to three months; anyone who bakes frequently will likely purchase flour more often. I have a house rabbit so I do laundry frequently therefore I consume laundry soap rapidly. This process is individually based on your lifestyle and subsequent spending habits. Not only does it make you aware of how much money you spend on consumables but also allows you to modify use to meet your budget needs to allow for all essential items.

This kind of budgeting is fine tuning and the experiencing the full benefit can take several months. Creating an awareness of what we consume, allocating money for it and prioritizing based on income will create a realistic budget for our most essential monthly purchases