Prioritized Living

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How Much Should I Spend on Groceries?

How Much Should I Spend on Groceries?

Is your food spending normal?

Maybe you’re a die-hard fan of outsourcing your food prep. You eat nearly every meal out and use your oven for storage.

Or, on the flipside, you’re a frugalista — someone who shops for the best deals in-store and online, stocks up on discount groceries, meal plans like a pro, and whips up 40 inexpensive freezer meals in a day.

But everybody wants to know . . . How much should I spend on groceries? Is my family’s food budget on target, or are we way off?

Get ready to see whether your spending is in line with the average grocery bill in America. Learn how to create a custom food budget for your family. Plus, grab the FREE food budget calculator down below for calculating your family’s ideal grocery budget!

Here we go! [Read more…]

Tagged With: Saving, Freezer, Downloads, Food, Budget

Why Budgets Fail (Part 2)

This post is part 2 in the series Why Budgets Fail.

Why Budgets Fail

If you’re just tuning in, click here to read Part 1 of this series.

Your budget is too simple.

Does your budget have only a few items on it?  Maybe housing, clothes, and food?

If your life is more complicated than a hermit’s, your budget needs to reflect that.  You’ve got a kid in college, a gym membership, a family vacation, a newspaper subscription, vet bills — the list goes on and on.

Don’t gloss over the hidden and forgotten expenses in your life when you make your budget, or your budget’s simplicity will be your downfall. [Read more…]

Tagged With: Downloads, Budget

Why Budgets Fail (Part 1)

This post is part 1 in the series Why Budgets Fail.

Why Budgets Fail

Are you hiding from your budget?

You’ve gone to the trouble of creating a financial plan for you or your family, but you’ve thrown it out in exasperation.  It just doesn’t work!  Why even bother?

Your budget may have failed you for one of these (fixable!) reasons: [Read more…]

Tagged With: Downloads, Budget

Getting Started with Time Management: Create a Time Map

This post is part 3 in the series Getting Started with Time Management.

Getting Started with Time Management - Create a Time Map

You now have a comprehensive list of what you need to do, what you want to do, and estimates for each activity.  You’ve also got documentation on your where your time currently goes.  It’s time to put it all together!

Enter the time map.

Some people refer to this same tool as a time budget, drawing a nice analogy between planning your time and planning your spending.  Either way, the concept is the same — you plan out your day or week by creating a personalized schedule for yourself.  Here’s the process: [Read more…]

Tagged With: Downloads, Templates

Don’t Forget These 21 Expenses in Your Budget

Dont Forget These 21 Expenses in Your Budget

Note:  This post contains affiliate links.  Read my policy here.

Just as there can be easily-forgotten activities that suck up our time, there are some expenses that are frequently overlooked but can really add up.  Sometimes we neglect them because they’re infrequent and sometimes because they’re small costs that we pay mindlessly over and over.

Have you remembered to include these 21 expense items in your budget? [Read more…]

Tagged With: Saving, Downloads

Getting Started with Time Management: Track Your Time

This post is part 2 in the series Getting Started with Time Management.

Getting Started with Time Management - Track Your Time

At this point, you’ve performed a brain dump of every activity in your life (and the activities you’d like to include in your life) and have quite possibly recoiled in horror at the magnitude of it all.  Before we attempt to bring order to the chaotic — and pages long — list, we need to do one more step.  In the first post of this series, I said this:

To get on top of your schedule, you need to know what you have, what you don’t have, and what you need.  [Tweet.]

Consider this:  You want to organize your disaster of a closet.  It currently has little to no structure at all, so you know you’ll need to get some closet rods, shelves, bins, and other supplies.  Before you make your purchases, you write down a list of things you’d like to put in your closet and things you remember storing there.  If you stop there and skip off to The Container Store without looking in your closet, you’re in for trouble.  You’ll invariably find 30 clothing items more than you thought you had, along with four-foot stuffed Pooh.  Then it’s back to The Container Store for you . . . with less skipping this time.

Likewise, while it’s a critical starting point and gets you flying down the path to success, it’s not enough to write down what you want in your schedule, what you recall having in your schedule, and what amount of time you estimate that each of those activities occupies.  In order to create a time management plan that truly works for you, you need to see what’s really occupying your time and how long those tasks are really taking. [Read more…]

Tagged With: Downloads

Saving Big on Easter Candy

Saving Big on Easter Candy

Can you smell the sweet, chocolatey scent of candy savings coming around the bend?  If you are a fool for chocolate bunnies, coconut eggs, or jelly beans, you’re in luck!  Stores everywhere will be practically giving away their Easter candy soon. [Read more…]

Tagged With: Gifts, Saving, Downloads, Food, Holidays

Hi, I’m Megan!

Megan Nye I'm a personal finance writer, wife, and mom. And I know we’re all looking for the secrets, the systems, and the hacks that will make our lives easier & better.

We want to stretch our resources to get more for less . . . so we can spend our time, money, and energy on what really matters to us and our families.

Here at Prioritized Living, we talk about making smart money choices, organizing our space, managing our time, and pursuing our goals. Be the driving force of your journey. Live your priorities! Read more.

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