Day 70
Foundation Day!!!
The new foundations have been poured!!!
Living room.
Front porch.
Dining room extension.
Here’s hoping that the warmer temps this week help these puppies cure lickety split.
Floor Outlets
We suffered a minor interior design emergency last week. Our architectural plans indicate four floor outlets in the living room, with a note that they are contingent upon furniture placement:
Evidently, this all needed to be wired before the concrete foundation was poured, so our contractor sought such verification on Tuesday. Reader, I was thoroughly unprepared. I was hoping (naively it seems) to actually get to stand in the framed space before I had to pick where the furniture - which I have not yet selected - goes.
This forced me to take a good hard look at what we might need for the living room, and where we were going to put it. As it stands, I’m planning to take exactly one item from our current set-up into the new space (it’s this 80” media stand from Room & Board). Anyhow, this is the best I could come up with on short notice. Here’s hoping the floor outlet placement (two located underneath the couch) works out!
Budget Swaps
Let me begin here by stating that I do not understand anything about the world of HVAC. But, from what I have gathered, we need two heat pumps for the house. This has something to do with the complexity of duct work and air returns in a two-story home. One unit will service the first floor and be located underneath the staircase, and the other will be used for the second floor and be housed in the attic. Long story short, the original quote was for standard-sized units and our house needs slimmer models, which will cost an additional $2k per unit.
On the flip side, it looks like lumber for framing will be closer to $50k than the budgeted $70k.
September Food Spending Wrap-up
At the beginning of September, I set a goal of spending no more than $3,300 on groceries and dining out during the month. Now that September has ended, it’s time for the debrief.
So…did I hit my goal?
Oh my, no. I ended up spending $2,919.73 on groceries and $914.76 on dining out, for a grand total of $3,834.49 (or $534.49 over budget). That said, I learned a ton, and here are some of the highlights:
My largest spending category was beverages, at 30% of spending. Granted, this one was a little skewed by a $307 wine club shipment, but still. That’s a lot of bucks spent on coffee, sparkling water, and wine. Sober October is sounding better by the minute.
We spent 21% of our grocery money on snacks, but looking over the list, it’s mostly the good stuff. Lots of yogurt and cheese, etc.
I assumed that meat (in this house, mostly chicken, turkey, and pork) was going to be a larger percentage of my grocery spending. In reality, it was only 10%.
Produce was 20% of our spending. I am very proud of this. I’m learning to buy what I can at the discount stores (Trader Joe’s has great apples and I’ve had enormous success with Costco for asparagus and berries), but when it comes to the best stuff around, there is no substitute for the Farmer’s Market and Bianchini’s.
There are some items where the price difference was so egregious between stores that I will now only buy the following items at these locations:
Organic coconut milk: $1.99 at Trader Joe’s versus $4.99 at Bianchini’s
Organic red bell peppers: $2.00-$2.50/lb at the Farmer’s Market versus $6.99/lb at Bianchini’s and $3.49/lb at Whole Foods
Rao’s Marinara Sauce: I can get a 2-pack of the large jars for $11.99 at Costco, which beats everywhere else by a mile
Imagine Low-Sodium Chicken Broth: 6 boxes for $2.07/box at Amazon versus $5.99/box at Bianchini’s
I go grocery shopping a lot. Like, a lot. During the entire month of September, there were only 7 days when I did not set foot inside a grocery store. I think my next experiment to reduce food spending might simply involve fewer trips out.
