this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

A few weeks ago, I shared the struggle I was having on where to put the non-grocery items that I tend to buy along with the groceries. Stephanie from Stop the Ride! shared the following advice:

"I always lump that type of stuff together because I buy the groceries and the
TP at the same time. I use household for things that aren't replaced often like
towels. You probably need to up your grocery budget a tad."

I love the concept of using the household category for things that aren't replaced often. It's brilliant! It makes it, well at least more cut and dry than it is now. So, I'll up the grocery budget a bit to include things like kleenex and toothpaste. And bring back the household budget for things like dish towels (mine are all falling apart, I could use some more). I took a look at what I averaged each month last year for household and lowered it a bit (since it sometimes used to include the shampoo and laundry detergent and won't now). It's important to note that I'm not introducing more money into the budget, just doing some rearranging. I hope by giving myself some more guidelines as far as what purchases go in what category, I can avoid household being too much of a catch all.