💖MAY WEEK 1 CHECK IN & CASH STUFFING | REALLOCATING SOME SAVINGS | PANTRY STOCKPILE ON A BUDGET!

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. Welcome back to the channel. It is your girl Ray and welcome to Ray's Budget. Guys, in today's video, we are going to be doing my weekly tracking for the week of May 3rd through the 9th. In addition to that, we are going to be stuffing for the upcoming week of May 10th through the 16th. In addition to that, guys, I need to reallocate some um savings challenges that I finished to some of my low priority syncing funds. In addition to that, guys, I am going to be starting what I think will be a really fun project that if you guys want to get involved in, you can. So, if you're interested in checking all of that out, then please stay tuned. Happy Saturday, guys. I hope all is well. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.

[00:00:45]I am having a good weekend. And if I don't talk to you guys tomorrow and before I get it before I forget to say it in this video, happy Mother's Day. If I don't talk to you guys tomorrow, I will be doing a video tomorrow. But if you don't join me, I hope you have a happy Mother's Day. But with that said, guys, we are going to be tracking my spending for last week. We are going to be stuffing for the upcoming week. And I need to reallocate some savings challenges. And again, I'm going to talk to you guys about a project that I am going to start doing, a very needed project that I want to do. But with that said, we are going to go ahead and get into the tracking of our spending, guys.

[00:01:26]We didn't do too much for the last week.

[00:01:29]Um, so what we're going to do is go ahead and go through my spending tracker. Then we're going to transfer the numbers over to my actual weekly check-in. Um, and the first item on the list is Walmart pickup. That is our groceries. We spent a total of $12.79 and that is going to be orange. So, let me color that in. And guys, as you can see over here to the side, I put all of this on my credit card, but that may be changing soon because I I am slowly creeping into some bad habits that I need to change. So, and we'll talk about that during another video. Um, so that was $12.79.

[00:02:14]So I am going to round that to 103. And then we have one more grocery entry where I went to Walmart and spent $3.79.

[00:02:26]And y'all, that was for some Walmart bread.

[00:02:29]Bread is ridiculously expensive. Now I normally do the Sarah Lee honey wheat, but that is like well over $4. So, I went ahead and got the Walmart wheat bread. I swear I need to learn how to make my own bread because there's already added things that we don't need in our body in these breads. So, I need to figure out how to make my own bread, y'all. But that was $3.79.

[00:02:55]So, I am going to round that up to $4.

[00:02:58]So, 103 + 4. So, for the week, we spent a total of $17 in groceries. And then next guys, we have gas. I went to Shell that Monday before I went to work and spent $4630.34.

[00:03:16]Guys, as y'all know, I typically don't spend that much, but unfortunately, the gas was $4.99 per gallon.

[00:03:27]Hairy hot mess. So, I am going to round that down to $46.

[00:03:35]And then next we have dining out. I actually since this is the weekend, I didn't spend any of my money um to go out to eat or anything like that. My husband is taking me to one of my favorite restaurants tonight for Mother's Day. It's a Greek restaurant.

[00:03:51]And um oh my god, I love this place. I get this um entree. It's called um lemon soul.

[00:03:59]It is so good. But of course, I get calamari and I'm going to get me a glass of wine as well. But what I did was I took my little bit of money and I got us some Subway on I think it was Thursday and it cost us $1867.

[00:04:15]So for spending or dining out, no dining out, I'm sorry. That's a total of $1869.

[00:04:23]But what I'm going to do is just round that up to $19. So let's do dining out.

[00:04:31]19. And then I went to Walmart to get me some vitamin water before I went to work and that was out of my spending.

[00:04:42]So that was $1.92. We're going to just um round that up to $2. And I also went to McDonald's and got me a um McGriddle sandwich for $3.49. So we're going to round that down to $3. So, for my spending for the week, I only spent $5.

[00:05:03]And y'all, that was it.

[00:05:06]Not much to work with, but we really don't spend that much anyway. Um, so let me put spending.

[00:05:17]That's five.

[00:05:20]And what we're going to do is transfer these numbers right here over to the actual check-in report.

[00:05:27]So, and honestly y'all, the the um the key is to not leave your house. If you don't leave your house, then you don't have to spend anything. Just as a FYI, we hardly um go out, especially not me during the week because I have to drive to and from work, a total of about 2 and 1/2 hours. So, when I get home, y'all, I'm tired and I have no time. I don't like when I leave work to have to stop here and there. That's why if I need to get something from Walmart, I go right before I go to work since it's like not even 5 minutes away from my job. So, we try to stay in and then on the weekends if we need to do anything, we will. But really, the only thing we do is go out to eat. But with that said, let's go ahead and transfer these numbers. So, for groceries, we budgeted 115, right?

[00:06:17]Let me add this up real quick. We have 115, 25, 10, and 50. So, we budget. Is that right? $200.

[00:06:29]15, 115, 25, 10. Yeah, 200. I thought it was more than that. So, we're going to put 200.

[00:06:40]And then let's go ahead and do our actuals. So, for groceries, we spent 107 of the 115. That leaves us with eight.

[00:06:49]Dining out, I spent 19.

[00:06:54]Of the 25, that leaves me with six.

[00:07:00]Gas or spending, I'm sorry, I only spent $5.

[00:07:06]And of the 10, that leaves me with five.

[00:07:09]And then gas, I spent 46 of the 50, and that leaves me with four. So alto together I spent 107 195 and 46 177 of the 200. So 8 + 6 + 5 + 4 is $23 left over.

[00:07:38]So, what I'm going to do now is go ahead and bring out my everyday spending binder so we can go ahead and pull these funds out right here and then we'll get the stuff in my low priority scing funds. Okay, guys, I am back. Before we get to stuffing all the envelopes really quick, I wanted to let you guys know that this is a cute free celebration of mother's shut the box challenge that is in my coffee shop. Guys, I will actually be doing this challenge and um two or three other savings challenges that I created for Mother's Day um tomorrow. So, I hope to see you guys tomorrow. I will link my coffee shop down in the description box.

[00:08:21]So, if you want to get this challenge for free, you can. But, I just wanted to let you guys know about that really quick. I actually posted it yesterday.

[00:08:29]Um but let's go ahead and count this money and get it into the cash tray really quick.

[00:08:35]We have 51 20 40 60 70 80 90 95 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 78910.

[00:08:45]That is $210 that we are going to be stuffing today. So, let me get it into the cash tray.

[00:08:56]Let me know what you guys are going to be doing for Mother's Day. I'm actually going out tonight like I told you guys and then we're going to go and visit my um mother-in-law tomorrow. My daughter's coming over with her husband just to spend some time with us. But other than that, it's going to be pretty chill for me. So, I hope it's going to be pretty chill for you guys as well. So, what we're going to do is go ahead and pull the money out that we need to pull out so I can take it to the bank to pay my credit card for the expenses from last week. So, we're going to pull out groceries, dining out, spending, and gas.

[00:09:46]I'm going set this off to the side really quick.

[00:09:51]Let's go ahead and separate these funds.

[00:09:57]So, we need to satisfy the credit card $177.

[00:10:02]So, we're going to do 51 20 40 60 70 80.

[00:10:11]And I don't need 80. Yes. Do that again.

[00:10:13]51 20 40 60 70 75 76 77 Let's count that one more time. 51 20 40 60 75 67. So that is going to satisfy the credit card bill. What I'm going to do is put this in the back in the bank envelope.

[00:10:43]And then this $23. Let's see. 10 15 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28. Why do I have 28?

[00:10:56]H.

[00:10:57]We'll deal with this in a minute. This is a project that this is money for a project I told you guys I was working on. So now what we are going to do is go ahead and step for the upcoming week. First we have groceries which is which is going to get us normal 15. And I know anybody that's new that is um watching this video for the first time is probably thinking how can you budget $115? It's really easy because most of the time guys and my neighbor just started his truck up. I'm sorry. Um the majority of the time I don't have to get any meats. That's why it's either vegetables, fruits, um our milk, our drinks, and different things like that.

[00:11:42]And that is because every 3 months we go to Walmart to stock up, not Walmart, but Sam's Club to stock up on meat. So that's how I am able to actually budget that much. Um, and speaking of budgeting and food, that is what part of the project that I'm going to be doing is about. So stay tuned for that. Next, we have dining out. Dining out is going to get 25.

[00:12:08]And I'm hope I'm doing this in the right increments.

[00:12:12]Spending is going to get No, I'm not.

[00:12:16]Yeah, I have to be doing it. Spending is going to get 10.

[00:12:26]No, I'm not doing this right. Let's go ahead and just put 10 in here.

[00:12:31]And then gas is going to get 50. 20, 40, and 50.

[00:12:41]And that is it for my everyday spending binder. I'mma set this off to the side.

[00:12:49]Next, what I'm going to do is pull out my low priority scing funds binder. And guys, we need to reallocate some savings challenges that I finished um during my last stuff and save Sunday of um April. But before we do that, this should be $10.

[00:13:12]And this is actually going into my car maintenance. And guys, speaking of car maintenance, I just lied. I did I am doing something tomorrow. I totally forgot that your girl needs to get her oil changed. There's a couple other things that need to be done to the car as well. I need to get a new um air filter and something else done.

[00:13:35]That's why I was getting this envelope buffed up a little bit.

[00:13:42]So, I just put 10 in it, right? So, let's add 10. What is today? 59.

[00:13:48]I'm adding 10.

[00:13:51]So, we should be at 3 09. Let's see.

[00:13:59]51 20 40 60 70 80 92 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 85 90 95 96 97 98 99 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Look y'all. Whatever.

[00:14:20]100 308 309 potato potato.

[00:14:26]Okay. So now what I want to do is pull out my minis. Right. And we are going to reallocate these funds.

[00:14:38]Now, just as a FYI, these two savings challenges that or it's actually three savings challenges that I completed, I put the funds in the bank. This um savings challenge was for investments. That money has already been moved to my Acorn's account and my M1 Finance account. And then these two account, these two savings challenges were for the grandbabies. That's already been put into their account with Ally.

[00:15:07]So, I'm going to set those off all to the side. Now, we have general fund, general fund, self-care, self-c care.

[00:15:20]Well, wait a minute. Self-care.

[00:15:22]Self-care. Self-care.

[00:15:25]Uh, monthly daily dollars. This goes to my cell phone.

[00:15:30]Low priority scing funds. Low party syncing funds. Low priority scing funds.

[00:15:33]I need to figure out how I'mma do these.

[00:15:35]So, let's go ahead and do self-c care first because I do want to track this and I've already spent about $20 of the self-c care out of the self-care envelope because I had to get some personal things and I also needed to get some um chia seeds. Guys, y'all, I need to get my gut health in in good health, [laughter] if you know what I mean. So, I'm going to try this concoction that I um make sure I'm not forgetting any money here that I found on Instagram. I was using this stuff called Sour Stop um bitters. And y'all, when I tell y'all that stuff is really, really good. That stuff is really, really good. Let me see something.

[00:16:31]24 + 20 + 18. I don't think this is $62.

[00:16:36]Did I accidentally H 5 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 38.

[00:16:59]I am missing $24. Did I mix it up with something else?

[00:17:05]Okay, I'm g have to figure that out later.

[00:17:08]Um, let's go to self-c care.

[00:17:15]Where is my self-care? Here it is.

[00:17:19]Okay.

[00:17:21]And I will track what I've spent later.

[00:17:23]Was only $20. So, how much was this again? 510.

[00:17:29]38.

[00:17:36]So 59.

[00:17:39]Let's put savings challenge plus 38.

[00:17:44]So that takes us to 59.

[00:17:47]I'm not going to count it cuz I don't feel like it. I don't know where my $24 is at. That's irritating me. Okay. Next, let's do the general fund.

[00:17:58][clears throat] General fund received money from two different savings challenges.

[00:18:11]So, we have funds right here.

[00:18:20]So, there's already what's that? 57 67 in here. And we are going to be adding 10 15 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 312 $32.

[00:18:38]So 59 savings challenge plus 32.

[00:18:45]What is that?

[00:18:48]99.

[00:18:50]Let me make sure this is 99.

[00:18:57]All these ones.

[00:19:00]10 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 80 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Yes, this one is correct.

[00:19:27]Okay. And then next we have monthly daily dollars. Like I said, this goes to my cell phone, which I can't wait to get paid off, y'all.

[00:19:38]Cannot wait.

[00:19:41]So, let's go ahead and pull out what we currently have. Now, we're at $248.

[00:19:46]We are going to be adding I'm just going to put April and we're going to be adding I think this is 84 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1 2 3 4 and it is.

[00:20:06]So let me get on my calculator.

[00:20:10]248 + 84 $332.

[00:20:17]Let's make sure we have that. 20 40 60 81 20 40 60 70 80 92 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 953 5 10 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 4 5 6 7 8 9 312.

[00:20:44]Yep. $332.

[00:20:52]Okay.

[00:20:55]So, what are we going to do with this?

[00:20:58]These funds for my low priority syncing funds. All of these self-c care, car maintenance, general fund are all considered low priority syncing funds.

[00:21:10]So, move that off to the side.

[00:21:16]that I think what I'll do is just split it between all three of them. And I think I may put some into my grandkids account.

[00:21:30]We have 10 20 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 76 77 78 79 80. We have $80 here. I am going to take 30 of it.

[00:21:47]5 10 15 20 25 26 27 28 29 30. This is going to go into my grandkids account. I'm going set this off to the side.

[00:21:59]And we have 10 20 30 35 40 45 50.

[00:22:06]I'm not putting anything in self-c care.

[00:22:10]It has 59.

[00:22:12]Yeah, I am.

[00:22:14]Let's go ahead and give it $10 and it's going to take it to 69. I am not going to count it.

[00:22:26]Not putting anything in all things home.

[00:22:28]I do a separate um savings challenge for this every month. Car maintenance.

[00:22:35]Let's go ahead and give it an additional 20 cuz this is about to be empty all over again.

[00:22:46]I'm going to do 59 um savings challenge plus 20. This takes it to 329.

[00:22:58]They said when I do the um actual services in a bundle, I get a discount.

[00:23:05]So, I better get a discount or I'm going to know something.

[00:23:12]Okay.

[00:23:15]And then general fund's going to get the rest.

[00:23:22]That's 20.

[00:23:27]So, savings challenges plus 20. This takes general fund too.

[00:23:36]99 + 20 119.

[00:23:45]Let's go ahead and stuff this in here.

[00:23:52]I need to do a condensing. And I normally do condens off video cuz y'all, some of y'all can be a little harsh when people make mistakes. So, I definitely will do this off video because I don't like getting out of character.

[00:24:08]So, now we're going to put this up. Give me one moment and I'm going to talk about a project that I'm going to be starting. Okay, guys. I am back. Now, these are two um savings challenges that are in my shop at budgetworksbyraay.com.

[00:24:21]Now, I wanted to let you guys know what I am going to be doing with whatever um funds are left over um after I pull the funds from my everyday spending binder.

[00:24:35]I was putting those funds towards the mini and long-term savings challenges, but I don't think I'm going to have that much each week. So, I thought I would do something a little different. And one of the things I'm going to do, this is my project. I'm going to talk to y'all about pantry stock up. Talk about that in a minute. But what I want to do is um with my build a buffer account um savings challenge. You can do this challenge however you want. You can actually build a buffer for your um checking account or whatever the case may be. I'm actually going to be using my mine as PTO time. Now, unfortunately for me, sometimes at least two to three times a month, I have to use what some people know as FMLA because I get what's called ice pick headaches to where my my headaches are unbearable basically. And sometimes I'm up all night and I can't go to sleep. Therefore, the next day when I get up, I am tired as houble hockey 6 and don't want to go to work.

[00:25:34]And sometimes unfortunately I don't have PTO time available to cover that time.

[00:25:41]So what I am going to do is basically fund my own PTO time. And I am going to do that with this build a buffer um account savings challenge. And I am going to build it slowly. So basically what I'm doing is each of these little boxes in here are worth $5 a piece. You can make them whatever you want. And so what I am going to do is I'm going to move this five here. I'm going to put 10 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23. Actually, we are going to move that off to the side. 10 15 16 17 18 19 20.

[00:26:23]And we are going to put $20 into my self PTO or build a buffer. So, what I want to do, since each of these blocks are worth $5 a piece, I am going to go ahead and just mark off how much was that? 20.

[00:26:40]Four of these.

[00:26:44]And basically, if and when I don't have the PTO time available from my job, I will just pull from this. And my goal is to get this up to the 130 before I do have to pull. So that is how I'm going to be using my build a buffer savings challenge. But again, you can use it however you want to.

[00:27:11]So I'm going to set this off to the side.

[00:27:15]Okay, guys. I'm back. Next, what I want to do is talk about pantry stock up.

[00:27:19]Now, this $3 that I have here left over is just going to go into my grandkids account. So, I'm going to add it to this right here and move it off to the side.

[00:27:28]But guys, um I created pantry stock up because I want to do just that. I remember when um the pandemic started, guys. I know you guys weren't ready for it, but your girl wasn't ready for it. I know y'all can remember when there were was no toilet paper. There was no cleaning products, especially when it comes to um disinfectant products, right? There was a lot of different things that were just flying off the shelves because people were panicking and for good reason. Well guys, I learned my lesson back then after the pandemic actually um started to slow down and we were able to, you know, do the different shopping that we wanted to do uh because it wasn't as much of a threat. And so basically what I started doing and which I still continue to do today is I stock up um of course not only not on only on our meat products but toilet paper, paper towels, disinfectant sprays, um tissue, um all kind of cleaning products that have antibacterial in them. I stock up on it.

[00:28:41]Especially when it comes to toilet paper. Look, we will never run out of toilet paper in this house ever again and not be not prepared. Okay, so basically y'all, I've been watching all of these like um YouTube channels where these um I'm sorry y'all, this light is bugging me where um people are preppers. They're they prep their pantries. They have different stock um pals for different um seasons. They have um their working pantry stockpile. They have their short-term stockpile which is for like 3 to 6 months. They have their like mid-range stockpile which is for like one to two years. And then they have a long-term stockpile. Y'all, with the way prices are going today, there prices are just going to continue to go up and up and up and up. Now, right now, when it comes to our foods, we are or not our foods, but our meats, we're probably about two to three months in because again, like I told you, me and my husband, we go to Sam's Club religiously every 3 months, okay? And we stock up on meats. One thing I do not stock up on is like our everyday like canned goods, frozen foods, vegetables, um staple items, different things like that.

[00:30:04]So, [snorts] what I am going to do is start a pantry stock up. And I am going to start my pantry stock up, of course, on a budget. And I am going to put $5 into my pantry stock up savings challenge every week out of whatever funds I have left over from my everyday spending binder. Then at the end of the month, I am going to take that $20 and I am going to go to um some discount stores. And I think what I want to do first is start to stock up on my canned goods like my um green beans, corn, mixed vegetables, different things like that. And I want to stock up on things that I know my family is going to eat and I know that my family is going to use up, right? Um I don't want to be one of those people who hoard things, but I want to make sure that we are prepared um in the case of a natural disaster. I lose my job, my husband loses his job, whatever the case may be, right? Or in case of a natural disaster or something like that, and people start to panic, and they just go out and buy everything on the shelves, I will already have it.

[00:31:20]Now, my goal is to have my working pantry, which is basically items that I will constantly be pulling out on a day-to-day basis. And then I will pull from my shortterm um pantry stock up to replace those that I'm pulling out that I'm working on that I'm using on a weekly basis. So, um, like I said, um, I'm going to first start out with canned goods, vegetables to be more specific, and then I think what I'm going to do after that is move to canned meats. Yes, we do eat canned meats. Those meats consist of canned chicken, canned tuna, canned salmon. Um, what else? Those are three that I get all the time because I make tuna salad. I make chicken salad.

[00:32:12]I make salmon patties. My salmon patties be the bomb, y'all. Okay, but anyway, and I know there's a couple of other um canned meat items that I want to get as well. But as I get them, I will tell you guys about them. So, what I'm going to do at the end of the month, like I said, there should be what, $20 here. I'm going to go to places like um the Dollar Tree, um dollar um Dollar General, Walmart, Aldi, and I am going to only shop for items that are on sale. When you're uh building your small pantry, stock up. Always look for stuff that's on sale. Always look for stuff that you know your family is going to eat. And also, don't be a hoarder.

[00:32:59]My goal is to essentially get to at least six months of food that my um family has just in case of any type of emergency going on. So, with that said, I am going to put my very first $5 into my pantry stock up savings challenge. Like I said, each of these um canned goods are worth $1 a piece. And guys, I am so excited about doing this.

[00:33:29]And I am going to whenever I can, y'all, my basement, this one part of my basement is a hot mess right now, but it is where I keep our stockpile of our um like toiletries and different things like that. I need to carve out a space for my actual pantry stock up as far as our foods are concerned. And once I do that, which will hopefully be by the end of the month, I can take you guys along with me and I'll make a small video. Let me know if you guys are interested of me possibly going to the grocery store, getting the different items that I want to get, showing you guys how much I paid for them and putting them in my pantry stock up. And you can guys can see month by month by month how I am coming along when it comes to my pantry stock up. So, was that five? One, two, three, four, five. Yep, that's five. So, we are going to put our $5 into the pantry stock up. And my goal is to spend $20 um per month focusing on this actual project. In addition to that, taking you guys along with me so that you guys can see that um small savings do add up over time. But with that, guys, I'm going to end this video. I really hope you guys enjoyed it. Make sure you join me tomorrow for a special Mother's Day edition of Stuff and Safe Sunday. I am so excited about that. But if you enjoyed this video, please give me a thumbs up and comment below. And if you're new to my channel and you like what you see, hit that subscribe button before you leave because we will all love to have you here, guys. Until tomorrow, be blessed, stay well, and do great things. Bye, guys. This