Tracking spending (in blog) did help, it was a good way to get back into a blogging habit.  But having a calm month was probably the most of it.

That said, now I just want to take a break.  If life is calm whatsoever, I have a million things to catch up on.  So I may end up going the opposite way this month.

{I probably started this blog post 2+ weeks ago.  Clearly I went the opposite way; have not posted much.}

I do have January sum up of spending:

Notes:  

This is our 'variable' spending I guess, that I tracked daily in my blog.

In January 2020 we spent $152 on auto fuel (mostly gas), versus the $26 we spent last month.

In January 2021 we did receive 100 free miles of fuel, for the electric vehicle.  

February-to-date:

We seem to be having a unicorn month with the grocery spending, having only spent $475 on groceries (done shopping for the month).  January was weird.  Two months of this is extra weird. ($900 is more our monthly spending level)  I wouldn't be surprised if MH ends up with a $400 grocery run (for just 10 days).  At some point, there's going to be a stocking up of something more expensive.  

The only other thing of note is that we did some extra spending with unemployment money.  I think I came up with $400-$500 already spent for the first half of this month (includes that hard drive, which didn't ship/charge until February).  Mostly MH supporting musicians/comedians with online concerts and investing in his movie making passions.  Which he was doing anyway, but is where he is redirecting his time and energy during this period of unemployment and pandemic.

We did receive my final side income check ($500) and $1800 of unemployment income.  It's all going to savings (February) because we pay all bills the first of the month.  February is done, so everything rolling in this month will get saved.  But will probably reduce this $500 (extra spending) or whatever it ends up being, from next month's unemployment checks.

I personally could care less about eating out and the kids seem fine.  (We never ate out much to begin with, is probably normal for the kids to go months without eating out).  But I recognize that I am not the one cooking dinner every night.  I brought up to MH the other day, reminded him I had some Christmas cash for a dinner out.  He told me it wasn't financial, he was just being COVID cautious.  I think he decided to order out this weekend.   

I do think that some of it is that we never did take-out or delivery before (with the exception of pizza) and we all feel, "Meh, we weren't missing anything."  Cold and soggy food, and always some mistake with the order.  Literally, we are only ordering from and supporting our favorite restaurant at this point.  Home cooking is so much better.  Already kind of felt that way but could find something redeeming (sometimes) eating out at a restaurant.  If the alternative is take-out, we'd rather just make our own meals.  Heck, I think MH is just ordering from this restaurant to be nice and to support them.  I don't get the sense it is something he is overly looking forward to.  He had plans this weekend and already asked me to cook dinner all weekend, so it's not like eating out is his only way to get a night off from cooking.  (I made dinner 3 nights this week, but it was an unusual week).