April Money Review

Ouch.

Let me say that a little bit louder.

OUCH.

The month of April, which comes to an end in about five more hours, hit the bank account hard, hard, hard.

Let's start with the grocery purchases first. Grocery purchases (edible) for April? $206.52. Household items? $17.99. Grand total? $224.51.

We're aiming for $175.00 a month annually. We blithely sailed past that—right around April 16 by the looks of my notes.

Now, there is about $24.00 worth of hams in that figure. Aldi was running an amazing sale leading up to Easter. Their hams were all on sale, ranging from 55¢ a pound to about $1.29; we bought two of the 55¢/pound ones and a slightly ritzier ham at 85¢/pound. Those came to about $20.00 total; there will be a lot of meals, not to mention some pretty amazing soups with the ham bones later this year.  There was some extra spending, anticipating a guest's needs, which added a little extra (a pound of coffee, for example).  And there were two boxes of matzohs, because it was Passover the last full week of April, and those were a staggering $3.99 apiece. (I don't often observe Passover and as you will read in a later blog, I blew it this year as well, but clearly it had been awhile since I'd bought matzohs because I almost let out a shriek when I saw the price.)

Okay, so strip out the matzohs, the hams (yeah, I know, a little incongruity with the food item immediately preceding), and the coffee and we're down to about $188.00 for April, which is much, much better. And way closer to $175.00. But still OUCH.

The April amount shoots our annual monthly average year-to-date to $174.62, so we are just hanging at the $175.00 a month average. Just.

Despite how much our grocery spending veered upward, our eating out came in at $66.39, considerably better than last month, despite being out of town early in the month, despite our both having birthdays in the month (we ate out for Warren's; we ate leftovers very late on mine due to an unfortunate combination of meetings), and despite our having the perfect storm with the final concert of the season and my absolutely heaviest two weeks of school attendance mediations leading up to that concert. There were several nights when we toyed with the idea of grabbing something fast and easy, but with one exception (which had other ramifications, to be blogged about along with the matzohs), we did not do it.

Warren and I also hosted at our home a reception for our final concert. Those costs are tallied separately. The reception was great. It had laughter, it had warmth, it had great conversations, it had wonderful guests artists, and it had a lot of food. I had budgeted $75.00 for it, but went over because I anticipated a far larger turnout and wanted enough food. However, a number of guests who had said they would be there were exhausted or feeling under the weather that night (one couple left the concert at intermission, in fact) and went home instead. So I bought too much food, probably.

The reception came to $151.63, about double what I had planned. $25.65 went to the purchase of three bottles of prosecco (I had two bottles left over from the fall reception). Several guests showed up with wine, all of which got consumed, and that was great, but now I have five (5!) bottles of prosecco stored in the cupboard. (We don't drink alcohol. Warren by principle/beliefs and me by health issues. Just saying.)

Things I learned about future receptions, watching what got consumed and what didn't. Biggest hits? Sliced cheeses, crackers, wine (but not prosecco), olives, the shredded lime-garlic turkey (a variation of a Cuban dish; I used up all of our Thanksgiving turkey in the freezer) and the mini eclairs and cream puffs (bought frozen from Aldi). Medium interest? Cut vegetables, seltzer water and flavored sparkling waters, homemade gluten free chocolate cookies, and an avocado spread I also bought at Aldi. Least interest? Fresh cut strawberries (now in the freezer), clementines (in their peels), and hummus.

An observation: almost everything came from Aldi, so had I not done my shopping there, the cost of the reception would have been considerably higher.

Some of the leftover food went home with others. The rest of it went into our freezer or refrigerator or pantry. None of it went to waste.

And, truthfully, the evening was so sparkling, from the stunning final concert to the height of the party to the last guest out the door, that it was worth every penny. Warren and I were both beat to pieces by the end of the "day" (a 22 hour day that started early Saturday and ended in the wee hours of Sunday) that we put away the perishables and left everything else—everything—until Sunday late morning. And although we still had three days left to the month, that was the end of April for all food expense purposes!

Here's to May!