Week 5 : Monday October 5th to Sunday October 12
We start out each Monday with $160 in cash for groceries.

This week was a little funky and Mr. A totally blew the budget due in part to finding a great deal on lunchmeat and had to stock up.  16 ounces of sliced ham, which regularly runs $5.99 a package, and occasionally goes on sale for $2.99, marked down to $1.49.  He had $60 left, but the bill came to $74, so he opted to use his debit card.

He planned to hold onto the cash and not buy any more groceries until we start again.

Here's how we did up until Friday:

I'm not sure what happened after that, except Mr. A said he got confused because he spent cash on birthday gifts, so he thought he had money left for groceries.

I added a new category to track – EatingOut. This is for the occasion when Mr. A doesn't have anything to bring for lunch for the day (normally he's very good at taking a sack lunch) and uses grocery cash for lunch.

Snack category is high due to a birthday celebration.

The plan for Week 6 is to stay within the remaining $82 for the week.

Here are my other posts on the cash method saga.

Trying the Cash Method Again – September 7th. In this post I give a brief rundown of what led to our trying cash method again. We'd tried the cash system in May 2008, but it was a flop.

Week 1 Cash System for Groceries – September 15th. In this post I recount the week, and found myself incorporating some frugal moves to stay within budget.

Week 2 Cash System for Groceries – September 22nd. We run out of money early and decide to borrow from next week's grocery money.

Week 3 Cash System for Groceries – September 29th. We had less money to work with due to last week's overspending, but we did it!

Week 4 Cash System for Groceries – October 6th. Another good week, even though I buy a $10 loaf of bread.

Yours Truly,