Hello Again!
Yes, I also keep pet expenses (food and vet) in a separate category, and I also keep none-food (bleach, dish soap, laundry supplies) etc in a separate category to grocery food.
Personally, the rationale behind this for me, is that when we see (for example) laundry soap on a special deal - we buy a load of it. It has no expiry date, so why not?
By keeping it separate, I allow that category to "break" rule 4. That big spend puts us OVERSPENT on household, lets sat -$40. I carry the -$40 over into the next month rather than have YNAB automatically punish the following month's budget. In time, as we don't buy soap any more for a few months, it gradually gets "Paid back".
It's the same with unexpected vet bills - I track the Pet category and gradually let the deficit get paid down.
Also, with regards to the veggie garden not helping that much - there are a couple of things you could consider if you don't mind me chipping in! Here's what we do.
I don't know what square feet you have, I look after around 400 square feet - all managed through a high-yield organic programme which anyone can do at home. It's less work, virtually no weeding, and works great even in the short growing season we have up here in Northern Ontario.
Basically, this means we are over-producing for what we need to eat in the summer, and if your kids dont like to eat them, maybe that's your issue too. Or, maybe you scale back your production because you know the kids won't eat them. If you cut the amount of produce growing by 50%, you only cut the workload by around 25% - that's a good rule of thumb.
So, we firstly sell the excess at our local farmers market. It costs $15 per season to have permission to sell, and we recover that in the first Saturday. Also, before the market begins, we swap our excess with other vendors - cucumbers for beans, tomatoes for courgette, depending on who has what.
If you don't have a market nearby, or don't want to make this an actual sub-business - then look at either canning or preserving - which we do with tomatoes, pickled beets, cabbage for sauerkraut., onions etc.
Then for the things which don't can well - green peppers for example - we cook up a basic sauce with tomatoes, garlic, green peppers, mushrooms (not grown by me!!) - into a generic sauce base and then freeze it in portions. It's much better to freeze that stuff after it's been cooked into something. Then over the winter, those sauces can be turned into a chilli con carne, a spaghetti sauce, chicken cacciatore etc - just by adding ground beef and different herbs. I've worked in a couple of restaurant kitchens in my time, and I'm the volunteer cook at our local Canadian Legion. I can tell you it is the way almost every professional chef works, and the knack is to examine your food plan based on your knowledge of family preferences (The Menu), and spot the common elements which can be combined and prepared in advance. Then when you add fresh meat, and fresh veg to supplement it at the time of preparation - it is efficient, cheap, and as delicious as making the whole thing from scratch.
Also, the excess herbs I grow get chopped and diced, then frozen into ice cubes in pre-measured amounts. Just pop them out and drop them into your cooking for taste that really is as good as the day they were picked and cut. However, if you do this with rosemary (one of my favourites) - make sure you really crush and bruise the needles (mortar and pestle if you have one - rolling pin and a plastic bag if you dont) prior to adding water and freezing them. You can dry these out and store them instead, but I find the flavour just isn't the same.
So basically - it's about growing as much as you *want* to, rather than as much as you only think you'll *need*. The ratio of "work" versus "output" is the key to it all. By only growing what you think you can eat, you are still putting in around 75% of the effort to grow a lot more.
Apologies for going off topic, or for sounding like a bit of a know-it-all - but this is one of my major, major, MAJOR interests in life. And to have it roll into a budget discussion too is pretty cool
Cheers,
Dave
EDIT - GARDENING INFO ACTUALLY FOR PREVIOUS POSTER
