kaid59•10d ago

Watching my friends try to budget without tracking their coffee runs is painful

I keep seeing people set a grocery budget, but they forget to count all the small trips for coffee or snacks. My buddy in Austin swore he was sticking to $400 a month for food, but he wasn't counting his daily $5 latte. That's over $150 a month right there, blowing his whole plan. How do you all handle tracking those tiny, easy-to-miss buys?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_wilson1810d ago

Yeah lol, that's so real. My sister did the same thing with her "no takeout" rule while ignoring all her drive-thru iced coffees.

miam7510d ago

My roommate in college was convinced she spent almost nothing on food. She tracked her big grocery hauls but missed the vending machine chips and gas station sodas. We added it up one month and she was dropping like eighty bucks on junk she barely remembered buying. She started using a cash envelope just for those little buys and it totally changed her spending.

finley72910d ago

Honestly, I don't track the small stuff at all. Trying to log every coffee would make me quit budgeting completely. I just set a lower total number for my main spending categories to cover the little leaks. The cash envelope thing @miam75 mentioned sounds like more work than it's worth for me.