The Costs of Running a Marathon

Running a marathon is not for everybody. The $100-$200 entry feel alone might be a barrier, to entry but then there are all the other odds and ends things that start to stack up. For the most part, I don't buy premium running apparel or supplies, but still, things added up:

Nutrition and hydration cost nearly $250. ( I bought most of mine from The Feed.)

Three pairs of shoes (a big ticket item) rang up to almost $520. (I also bought a new pair of shoes for work so that my feet did not get injured from my long days of standing. Those were over $100 alone.)

I spent nearly $60 on apparel: one pair of running shorts, a hat, and two sets of compression socks.

Travel cost close to $350, and we only had to drive two hours and stay overnight for one night.

Suffice it to say, running a marathon doesn't just cost $100-200 to enter. Consider the cost of the training cycle and travel that total runs closer to $1,200, and I am sure more for runners who use premium fuels and/or travel to destination marathons. This financial cost is good to know, for myself, and for any other runners who might be considering a marathon.

Five Tips for Saving Money on Groceries

Groceries make up a significant part of a family's budget. As the manager of our family's budget and the chief "shopper," I am always looking for ways to save. Here a few tips that I have learned:

1. The more stores you go to, the more you spend (generally). Yes, shopping at multiple stores allows you to find multiple sales, but it also means multiplied time, and time is a form of currency. Shopping at multiple stores increases opportunity to make impulse buys, and as time goes by, decision fatigue creeps in, making it more likely to make unwise decisions at the last stores.

Tip: If you must shop multiple stores, try to shop on different days, or even different times of the month based on a rotating schedule.

2. Grocery pickup saves you money, until it doesn’t. Most pickup services require a a minimum purchase. If you need groceries that total that amount, great! If you only need a few items, you guessed it, it’s cheaper to grab them yourself. I’ve found I can actually run in for a few sundries and get out again in the time it would take me to wait for pickup delivery.

Tip: Whether you do pickup or not, still use the store app as a grocery list, as it allows you to see a running total of what you need in order to determine if pickup is beneficial and if not, how you might include the total of what you need into your weekly grocery budget.

3. Budget for the cost of warehouse store membership (e.g. Costco, Sam's Club) from the house fund, not the grocery fund (Don't Waste the Crumbs, 2021). Trying to scrimp enough from the grocery budget to afford the yearly subscription isn’t worth it!) Having those funds set aside elsewhere is such a relief.

Tip: If you buy groceries via subscription, eg Hello Fresh, etc. (not really budget friendly anyway, consider a special or different budget fund. This avoids the grocery fund getting “eaten” by other expense categories.

4. Shop and stock the sales. I have found that most stores rotate sales on basic items like cheese, eggs, and meat. I try to shop the sales and buy the most items I can afford (and fit in my freezer, fridge and pantry) so that I only have to buy items when they are on sale. It is not a fool-proof plan, but it helps.

5. Use the freezer! Going off the above, store bread, cheese, meat, and other stocked, but perishable items in the freezer. This allows you to take advantage of sales without having to hurry through what you do buy.

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I am by no means an expert, but I try to make the most of the resources God has given me. May He continue to give wisdom and may He get the glory!

Reference:

Don't Waste the Crumbs. (2021, March 26). How to budget for bulk purchases. https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/how-to-budget-for-bulk-purchases/

Practical Tips for Sharing Money

My husband and I share our money. Like we have joint accounts. Like we don't have our own accounts. Period. What's ours is ours. But how, as two separate people, do we practically make living as one with our budget work? Here's how:

1) We have roles. Currently, I have the roles of paying the bills and managing the budget. This does not mean my husband is subservient to me or that I decide how to spend our money. It just means that I keep track of things. This role differentiation prevents conflict about whose job it is to balance the budget day by day. It is my responsibility, so receipts for spending go to me and I take care of them.

2) We have periodic budget meetings. This wise idea came from my mom. We should have these monthly, but do not always. The premise of the budget meeting is to take stock of our finances each month so that both of us know where we stand. We both have access to our bank account balance, but I keep the books, and while my husband can look at them any time, he chooses to trust me and get updated at our budget meetings. It frees up brain space for him to do other things, to carry out other roles that are currently assigned to him.

3) We have an allowance that is part of our budget. Communicating about money is good. Communicating about every last cent spent can get tedious. Sometimes we do not want to communicate about what we spend money on, so as to surprise the other one. Enter marriage protection insurance. We got this idea from first year marriage books and liked it, so we instituted it for ourselves (Devries & Wolgemuth, 2012). The allowance is a category of our budget for discretionary spending for each of us. Each of us gets a set amount of money to spend every month, no questions asked. We can choose to take the money in case, or use the cards and then share the receipts. 

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Do these practices prevent all money stress? No. We still have plenty of it. These tips do help us be more unified with spending, though. They keep us honest. They keep the one budget system working, and that's what we want, to be one, in money, and in marriage.

Reference:

Devries, S., & Wolgemuth, B. (2012). What every bride needs to know: The most importance year in a woman's life. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Sharing Money

I was very adamant that my husband not know much about my money before we got married. After we got married, however, I insisted that I share all my accounts and even my credit cards with him. The bank demanded a marriage license for me to do this. The credit card agency warned me that adding my husband to the account that was previously mine did not give him any accountability, at least with the credit bureaus. I did not care. We were married, and we now shared everything.

Couples differ in the ways that they handle money. I am not here to say there is necessarily always one right way. Situations differ. I am here to make a strong argument for the importance of sharing money, however, and to encourage couples to consider it if they have not yet done so.

Sharing money cements a marriage. It puts some skin in the game. If we share money, we share ownership. If we share ownership, we share responsibility. It is not one person's job to manage the money, but both a responsibility for both spouses, and if marriage is two becoming one, this makes sense.

When we share money, we share accountability. Both of our expenses affect, well, both of us. We cannot spend in isolation and therefore impoverish the other. We also cannot spend in anonymity. The bank shows what and where we spend, preventing us from spending on things we shouldn't, and forcing communication when we do spend. We know from experience that increased communication benefits our marriage.

Sharing money not only promotes positive marriage habits, but promotes a positive marriage environment overall. How? Writer Shaunti Feldhan suggests that having separate accounts and having to negotiate money results in a 50% deduction in marital happiness (Fuller, Smalley, & Smalley, 2021). That's huge, and not something I want!

Does sharing money fix everything in our marriage? No, it makes some things hard, like buying each other gifts, like spending on things we want. Is it worth it overall, though? Yes. The unity, communication, and happiness it promotes are worth it. I would not have it any other way.

References:

Fuller, J., Smalley, G., and Smalley, E. (Hosts). (2021, June 24). Working through different financial priorities. [Audio podcast episode]. In Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast. 

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/episodes/focus-on-marriage-podcast/working-through-different-financial-priorities/

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

I always say that marriage is my priority, that I want to serve my husband above all else. Life lately has been putting my words to the test. I continue to do less and still lack time to do all that I want to do. Then my husband and I decided to do a version of the 10 minute daily challenge. That first night, I got really frustrated because I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do. I felt crappy. My old narratives of unworthiness arose. I realized I had to make a very real choice, though: choose my husband, choose to be; or choose to do. I could only do one.

As days have gone by, I have had to turn down more and more to fit in time with my husband: hiking, friend dates, and other things I wanted to do. We are just in a season where there is very little time. What time there is, I need to save for my husband, that is, if I want to put my money where my mouth is.

There are times, too, where I have to put real money where my mouth is. Sometimes I want something that isn't good for both of us. Sometimes the budget only allows so much, and I have to choose between alleviating my wants or contributing to something that is for the good of our marriage. Sometimes money I allotted for something else needs to be redirected. Decisions always have a cost. I have to spend on what matters to both of us.
Prioritizing is painful sometimes, but I guess that is what makes it prioritizing. It means sacrificing what I want in the moment for a greater goal. It means choosing where to exert my energies when I have very little. It means choosing to live in line with valuing marriage, even if it hurts, a lot.

Priorities get put to the test sometimes. This season of our lives seems to be test. I say that I want a good marriage. Now I get to live that out in real life.

Three Budgeting Hacks to Save You Money

We're still over here trying to work on our budget. We know that money can be an issue in marriage, and we are trying to manage it together, before it becomes an issue. Here are a few recent budget hacks from our adventures in life together:

1) Track your spending. It's annoying, but seriously, just do it. Start small, maybe just a category or two, and see what you spend, no judgement. We let our Costco membership expire a few months ago, but when we did, I committed to tracking potential savings. We didn't save the first month or so, but guess what? In the last few weeks, gas prices have skyrocketed. With Costco membership, I could have saved $3.00 a week on gas alone. And now we have two cars. So we renewed our membership and now know that we'll at least break even.

2) Look for discounts. We recently discovered that Verizon gives my employer a discount on cell phone plans. We save almost $20 a month by activating that offer. Now we are looking for other places our various affiliations might save us money.

3) Use grocery pickup. This might sound strange, but hear me out. I use the Wal-Mart grocery pickup app to order groceries each week. I use the app as a working grocery list throughout the week. I preload everything I want to buy, and then I look at the total. If I'm over the budget, I see what I can remove. This process has helped me realize how many times I overstock, or buy things when I really don't need them. Shopping via the app also helps reduce splurge buys.

Easy peasy? No. All these budget hacks take time, but they also save money. And time is money, so there's a trade off. Are these hacks right for you? I don't know. Maybe try them and see.

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Do you have any budget hacks to share? Please comment below.

We Let Our Costco Membership Expire.

Our Costco membership expired. We let it. That might surprise people, given that we are a couple focused on keeping a budget, and Costco is a budget friendly store. We actually let our membership expire because of the budget, however. Let me explain.

I started calculating the savings we gain using our Costco membership. Gas is the largest category for savings. We save an average of 10 cents per gallon of gas we buy. Multiplied by the approximate six gallons of gas I use to commute to work each month, that is 60 cents of savings, or $2.40. We save some money on products we buy, but we don't shop regularly enough for me to calculate them monthly. We also have another bulk store right next to Costco and shop there more often. We could save on eyeglasses and prescriptions at Costco, but for various reasons, we don't use Costco for those services. With Costco membership costing a minimum of $60 a year, we need to save an additional $2.60 a month to make the membership cost a wash. I'm not sure we're doing that.

Then there are the time and convenience factors. I learned about grocery pickup when COVID-19 hit, and have stuck with it since then. Costco doesn't have this service. Costco is also more difficult to enter and exit due to lines and extra precautions. Honestly, going to Costco lately has become more of a stressor that a stress reliever. I really like Costco products (think cheese, peanut butter, cocoa, cinnamon, etc.), but I wonder if my preference is really worth the costs to both our budget and our time. So we're letting our membership expire to see.

Will we likely renew our Costco membership at some point? I believe we will. Maybe in a few months. Maybe in a few years. Maybe never. If/when we go back, I want to make sure have a good rationale for doing so. I want to make sure it's worth it, and not just for budget reasons.

Reframing Our View of Money

I've always been frugal, maybe not as frugal as I could be, but frugal. My mom is a missionary kid who had to learn to make do on very little. My family lived on one income growing up. I was taught well. I started a budget around seventh grade and haven't really looked back. We even started marriage on a budget. But recently, our budget has changed.

When COVID hit, our budget categories kind of went out the window. I spent whatever money it took to buy whatever food I could whenever I could find it. We didn't really eat at restaurants before the pandemic, so we didn't do takeout. Even with increasing the amount I spent on food, I figured I could always buy more at the store than at a restaurant. But then restaurants starting going down. In the downtown area where we live, restaurant after restaurant started closing and saying, "Watch for re-opening" or "We'll be back soon." But would they? My husband and I started growing concerned. So we made a shift. We re-adjusted our grocery budget and decided to eat more basically in order to have more money to eat out. Sound crazy? It kind of is, but not to us.

We realized that our money is not just about the amount of product we buy, but about people. When we buy food at the store, we buy product. When we eat at a restaurant, we invest in people: in the people that serve us, in the chefs that make our food, and in ourselves and our enjoyment. We have now stretched our budget to do takeout at least every other week. Does that cost equal approximately a week's worth of groceries? Yes, it does. But it may also contribute to putting groceries on someone else's table. We're okay with that, more than okay. We're happy about it.

Am I advocating for people to go blow money they don't have on takeout just to contribute to the good of the economy? Well, no. I am challenging myself and others to reframe their view of money, especially money spent on entertainment and "luxury" items. If nothing else, this pandemic has showed me just how many people's livelihoods depend on "non-essential" services. And essential or not, those industries are good, good for consumers, and good for the jobs they provide.

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Have "extra" money? Have corners you could cut? Well maybe now is the time to reframe your view of money and budget for some "extras." Decide to get coffee once a week. Order out. Save some extra money for tips. There are lots of "non-essential" workers whose lives have been devastated by this pandemic and its ensuing shutdown. Those workers are people, and those people are essential. They are our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and friends and comrades, and they need income. If you can support their livelihoods, please do.