Turns out I don't know how to budget

Post Reply New Topic

My mum made it quite clear to me (by getting angry) that I'm spending too much money on groceries.
My sister pointed out that one shopping trip should last me about two weeks. I never thought about that. I always overlook things like that.

My mum got very insulted when I said I would not be buying Christmas presents for anyone and then when I brought up the reason being because I could barely buy enough food she sort of lost it on me. I'm used to that - why do you think I moved? But it still hurts that she said I should budget and go through the supermarket's catalogue as though it was obvious. I'm really sensitive to any type of criticism now especially from her, because I actually missed her the most since moving here. I hardly miss my house mates when they go away.

Two of my greatest fears are starving to death and running out of money. Yes, it's complete paranoia but I tend to get that way about most things. I'm still kind of afraid of the dark.

Like most of the people here I have no feelings for Christmas, other than a big meal and spending it with family (but I spend enough time with them).

But this thread isn't about Christmas it's about me yet again freaking out after one criticism said about me and feeling like giving up again.

Now I'll give you some pointers on things that will not make me feel better:

Constructive advice. Unless I ask I don't want it.

Telling me that I should just know this by now. I don't know this because it never occurs to me, like I never knew school was preparing you for a job and making a career for yourself or like I didn't know how to feed myself or when to wash my clothes. These types of skills have been very hard to develop and remember. Also I didn't know that an Alaskan Malamute was a really big dog that took a lot of responsibility to look after - people treated me like it was obvious.

Things that will help:

Saying that you relate and what you did about it (see, now I'm asking).

Some of that empathy I've heard so much about.

I think I can work it out myself. I just need to see how much everything costs before I go in and buy it. But the environment is so stressful (even with ear phones in) and it gives me headaches (sometimes migraines) and I get tired in there and I usually forget a couple of items on the list or I buy things not on the list. Or I neglect to check the list. And I need someone to drive me to the bigger supermarket where things aren't that expensive and they have more products, especially Drizzles which is a choc-chip biscuit I love with milk chocolate drizzled on the top that tastes really nice when you dunk it in tea.

Sorry, I just put the pointers there because I'm really delicate now and any criticism might lead me into a shutdown. When people say I should know by now how to do this it hurts because my development was very very slow and my knowledge is still very limited. And when people offer advice without me asking it makes me kind of angry because I like to reach my own solutions because people in my life have always tried to control my destiny.

Post editted because I'm terribly unempathetic.

Another edit, though, my NVLD makes me extremely good at budgetting....theoretically. As in, I can budget like hell, but then when unexpected things come up, like an emotional purchase of an energy drink, it can throw wrenches in my plans just because I'm so unimpulsive 99% of the time, but then when I am impulsive due to my silly little feelings, I'm an idiot. I feel, actually, I'm MUCH better than budgetting than NTs. By far. Like I know the best strategies, etc, have crunched all the numbers in my spare time just because I feel like it, I got it all figured out. I contingency plan out like, what I'd do for example, if I ever became homeless, just because I'm bored. Like I have an exact plan of stuff I'd do if I ever became homeless for some reason. Why, I'm afraid I guess, so due to my fears, I just plan and plan and plan until oblivion.

Just wrenches get thrown into my plans, and yeah. I think the big thing, I read someone else with NVLD describe this, we have to put so much contingency planning into everything just to negotiate the world around us, that we're awesome at contingency planning for, say, businesses, just because to negotiate the world around us, we need to do it all the time. I'm assuming it's different for just pure Aspergers, though. For me, it's mostly the NTs I see that are stupid impulsive buyers of stuff, if that makes you feel any better. Then again, my one friend with Aspergers is pretty similar to me in my thought process, so yeah... But yeah, your problem isn't unique to Aspergers or anything like that. NTs are complete idiots with money, which is why the economy keeps going on it's perpetual motion machine cycle. Like one thing I personally cannot understand, why would one buy a new car? I don't understand that at all. What will it do for you? You can spend the same money on like...a 80s Porsche 911. That's just sorta how my "divergent" thinking thought process is. So I'm good at budgeting, just my way of going about it puts me at odds with the rest of the world, and it's quite frustrating.

Oh well, hope things go better and stuff, if I can leave you a tiny bit of advice, check out this website http://budgetbytes.blogspot.com/

Oh well, think I still suck at empathy, but oh well. Hope things get better and stuff, again.

That's one thing about us (autistic people in general), I think there's this whole sea of implicit knowledge that we don't pick up. I mean, I've picked up bits and pieces over the years and probably everyone on this forum has. But there's an expectation that as an adult, you should know most of it already, and I don't think that we do. I am using my own experiences to generalize, so I realize I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me.

And I do relate to poor budgeting. I was finally able to manage my food expenses with my rent and other stuff several years ago - I could manage about $200/month after rent into eating for a full month (including 1-2 cheap restaurant trips each week) as well as some entertainment. There were times I had to sell off books to make it, even without too much impulsive spending, and selling my books was like slashing my own veins.

What I did to stretch my food money was decide on cheap meals I could (and wanted to) eat a lot of (in this case, it was macaroni and cheese, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, and some other cheap stuff) plus things I still wanted to eat (such as chicken, hamburgers, and frozen food that didn't require serious preparation). So I scheduled most of my meals for the month and mostly ate cheap food that could last for a few weeks or a month. Mostly, it was finding the cheapest thing I was willing to eat and making it my staple meal.

I also messed it up frequently, hence the book selling to not starve.

I find it difficult to do what your mother (and, really, my mother as well) says is necessary to shop effectively. I am not entirely oblivious to prices but the level of organization and planning necessary to take advantage of sales and low prices to that extent is often beyond me.

I'm not sure why she got so mad at me, she usually spends a lot of money in a single shopping trip and she buys clothes impulsively and hardly has any money stored away in savings, and is in credit card debt. Yes I do have a lot of money stored in the bank but it's there for security. I'm also trying to save up for a professional camera so I can start a career I'm also apprehensive about.

There's a lot of things I'm worried about.

I do try to buy food that I can afford that is kind of healthy but easy to prepare and people tell me it's not healthy enough. I'm kind of sick of organic made and good for the Earth products now. Everyone just has them in Sydney. My health isn't so bad that I can hardly move, or however one feels on an unhealthy diet - that's how I feel after I eat junk food. I don't even know how to select fresh fruit and vegetables.
And I've been criticised for feeding my cat canned food because it isn't healthy enough. They want me to feed her tuna and $35 dry food. Sure, tuna and canned food costs just about the same but you get more food out of the mixed meat or whatever they put into it. The cat litter can be costly too and now I found out she's been sleeping in it so I have another problem. My step mum said that I should buy her a bed - why did I not think of that?!

Last Christmas I just wanted to die because of all the severe seizures I had that nobody believed me about, this Christmas I just want to give up because people think I'm being stingy on the whole gift giving, not to mention my PMDD will be back which gives me suicidal ideation.

Budgeting food in this economy is difficult even for people like me who have an almost physical aversion to spending too much money. Everything costs way too much; I get shocked every time I go to the store.

And I know what you mean about the store environment being stressful and always forgetting one item or another. Both my husband and I do that and he's normal!

And another thing: there is less food in most packages these days so you run out more quickly so you wind up buying more often.

I think your mother is being unreasonable.

I can't resist giving a suggestion, though: is it possible for you to order your groceries online? It may be less stressful for you and you can have your list beside you and calculate the money you spend and how much food you need in the comfort of your own home.

I understand and totally get you on this.

I do know how to budget and have a system that works very well for me if I follow it. I'll be glad to share if you want.

I can also give you a practical plan for grocery shopping if you want.

Frances

Yeah, one problem with my NVLD, if my plans have to change and I'm "set" in them, it basically can equal a meltdown and I'll be an idiot.

But, if you want a tad more advice, the best thing you can do to your budget is get really good at cooking. If you "play the game" and buy prepackaged food, you're basically screwed no matter what you do. It seems Americans no longer think they can cook anymore, even things like cake mix? What happened to just making a cake from scratch? It's a trap everyone's fallen into now, and it's a completely needless trap, as relative to everything else, I think food prices are dirt cheap today. Rice is like 33c a pound here, which if you're on min wage, 8 bucks will buy you, well, a lot of rice. You can get extremely abnormal like my planning, and buy animal feed grade wheat, a grinder, etc, and make your own stuff that way. That's extremely abnormal, though. Then, too, you gotta sacrifice the time at home to prepare it all and whatnot, yeah. But, cooking. Good stuff to learn, more stuff you learn to cook, more stuff you don't gotta pay others to cook. Now, it's sad, I'm like disillusioned by restaurants, as I know how to cook alot of things better at home. Especially "easy" American food like burgers and stuff, I feel like I always make better burgers than a restaurant just because I know what I like.

Oh, as far as pure numbers you can pull cooking, well, my friend is Indian, and doesn't eat meat, so numbers are scewed. But, his family of 4-5 was eating for $90 a month for their Indian food budget, which I believe may have included his mom's little Indian catering business on the side, too. He still ate some American food here and there, and soda, too, but his family was perfectly capable of living off their Indian food. No meat, start off with dried beans and stuff, etc, add spices, $90 a month for a family of 4-5, not bad.

What I've found helps us a lot is to keep track of how much things cost after the fact, figure out what a normal week's budget based of of what we have been eating costs, and then just check what the cost was after the fact for various amounts of food. Pre-budgeting is a lot harder than making sure to continue to be spending the same amount of money.