You have a budget, or at least a list of bills you have been working from, and somewhere along the way the economy shifted, prices went up, and your budget stayed exactly where it was. So now you are getting to the end of the month wondering where your money went even though you feel like nothing has changed about the way you spend.
This episode is about the gap between what you think you are spending and what you are actually spending, and the three specific numbers that are most likely causing it. I call them creeper numbers because they do not change dramatically overnight. They shift slowly, a few dollars at a time, and because the change is gradual most people do not notice until they are significantly off from reality. That slow drift adds up, and if you are not reviewing these numbers every six months your budget is running on information that no longer reflects your actual life.
In this episode I am giving you the exact method I use with my clients to find the real number for each one, including how to use your last two weeks of grocery receipts to calculate what you are actually spending, the fill-up formula for gas that builds in real world cushion, and how to pull your utility history to find an average that stops you from being caught short every time the seasons change. This is not about spending less. It is about knowing what you are spending so your budget stops lying to you and you stop feeling behind for a reason you cannot explain.
[00:04:15] Why your grocery budget is probably the most disagreed-upon number in your budget and how to use the two week receipt method to find what you are actually spending
[00:09:30] How to use the fill-up formula to calculate your real gas number based on what it costs to fill your tank right now and why I always add one extra tank as a buffer
[00:14:45] Why utility bills are the most invisible creeper number in your budget and how to pull your billing history to calculate a 12-month average that keeps you from being caught short when the seasons change
[00:19:20] How often to review these three numbers and why checking them every six months is the difference between a budget that reflects your actual life and one quietly running on fake math
[00:22:10] What updating these three numbers actually does for your savings, your debt payoff, and your ability to stop getting to the end of the month wondering where your money went
Tune in to this episode of Money Files to learn how to find the three numbers most likely to be outdated in your budget so you can stop running on fake math and finally have a budget that reflects what is actually happening in your life.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
If you loved this episode on finding your real grocery, gas, and utility numbers and finally having a budget that reflects your actual life, check out Episode 195 The Money Table: How to Create a Real Budget (and Stop Fake Math).
Transcript for “The Three Numbers Most Likely to Be Wrong in Your Budget Right Now”
Intro: Hi, and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. So today I want to dive in and I want to talk about your budget, of course. And probably at some point, maybe you are someone who has worked with me, so you already have a budget. Maybe you have a list of bills that you keep track of or you’re getting started with budgeting. And I think there’s one of two things that can be happening here. You have a budget that you set and maybe you haven’t reviewed it. Or you are working on budgeting and you might be confused or feel like, I don’t know how to account for certain things. And when I say that, usually people have a hard time thinking about like, well, how much do I spend on groceries? Like, how could I possibly plan for something like that when I feel like that number fluctuates all the time? Gas is another thing that I feel like people would tell me that it fluctuates all the time.
And so for those of you who have a budget, it might be true that you haven’t really considered how those numbers have changed in the last year. For those of you who are starting budgeting, it is probably true that you’re trying to figure out how do I actually account for this number in my budget in a way that feels meaningful? Because if you’ve been listening to me, you know that I don’t want you to do fake math. I want us to have a real number or as close to a real number in our budgets so that we are working off something that is in alignment with what we are actually doing.
I was actually on a coaching call just yesterday and I was talking or my client was reflecting back to me where she was saying like, I have a number set for food in my budget and I noticed that like, I continue to go over this number. And she’s like, I finally just had to change the number in my budget and I changed the number in my budget because I wanted to get closer to what is actually happening. And I loved that that was her reflection point because our numbers are supposed to change in our budget. Our budget should be flexible. And when you start budgeting, when you continue to budget, you are going to have numbers that change from one year to the next and that’s okay. And you might be someone who, if you are just getting started or maybe you’ve even been budgeting for six months or you’ve been budgeting for years, there can be some frustration and some shame that can come in when you have to change a number in your budget.
When you’re like, but I don’t want to spend $500 on groceries, I don’t want to spend $800 on groceries. And I’m using groceries because that is the one that I often hear from my clients where the reality of what they’re spending versus the number that their brain offers them about what they’re spending are generally not the same number. And there is disagreement about reality versus the number that they actually believe that they’re spending. So it can sometimes be this moment of disagreement with oneself. But in today’s episode, I want to give you three numbers that I want you to look at and I want you to review for this year. I would say that these are three numbers that you want to review every six months because they can impact how you feel about your finances.
And they are three numbers that you’re like, oh my goodness, like when you go and change them, you didn’t realize that they were changing in this way just simply because we could call them creepers of numbers. They can slowly fluctuate, but with the slow fluctuation, there can be a lot of money that is being shifted in your account. So that first number that I want you to look at is your grocery expenses. Particularly in 2026, grocery costs have gone up significantly. I’ve been trained to look at grocery store prices since I was little. I think I’ve always been a numbers girl and I’ve always known the price of groceries. I could be president and I would know the price of milk because I would just know the price of milk. But I know that I’m noticing when I go to the grocery store that what used to be the regular price is now the sales price. And like one of my examples is there’s a granola called Michelle’s Granola and I think it used to be like $6.99. And now I feel like $6.99 is the sale price because it is $8.99 in the grocery store now.
And so that’s a $2 fluctuation and that’s happening with a lot of things in the grocery store. I buy a lot of, I mean, you guys probably don’t want to know about my grocery list, but I buy like I’ve been on the chicken thigh kick with a recipe that I’ve been using. And literally from one week that I went to Whole Foods, the next week they went from like $4.99 to $5.99. So I’m noticing things like that. The reason that matters is because if you think about all the things you put in your grocery cart, from one week to the next, all of those little dollars, they add up. And so you are going to naturally spend more at the grocery store, even though your shopping hasn’t changed. And so that’s where I think the disconnect comes in, where you’re like but I’m not buying anything more extravagantly. Or maybe I’ve even gone from shopping twice a week to maybe I only go once a week, but there is still an impact on your budget.
And so I want to make sure that you actually have a real number for your groceries. I have since like over the last few years, I feel like my grocery budget has gone from $300 to $400, now $500. And it is more reflective of what’s happening. I don’t think I’m buying anything differently, but the grocery store prices have changed. And so my budget has to reflect my reality. And so if you are thinking about your groceries, like how much should I spend on groceries? Here’s what I want you to do in order to find that number. I want you to look at your last two weeks of grocery store receipts. And when I say receipts, looking in your bank account or looking at your credit card, and I want you to find like the higher of the numbers. So like there’s probably like you went and picked up some limes or whatever, maybe there’s like $4 in there. But if you went to Whole Foods and you spent $150, you went to Trader Joe’s and you spent $80, let’s just go ahead and pull that Whole Foods number for $150. And let’s take that $150 and multiply it by four.
And that’s the number that I want you to put in for groceries. So that $150 times four means that your grocery store budget is probably $600 a month. And you might be planning off of $400 a month. So we want to go back to your budget if you already have a budget. If you don’t have a budget, let’s just start with $600 a month. This is not about trying to, I don’t want you to disagree with yourself, but I just want you to play with the real number. We can talk about, how can I reduce my grocery store budget? Like that’s a whole different conversation. But today, I just want you to think about what am I actually spending? And for some of you, that is going to be a very sobering number. If you find that maybe if you’re like, well, Keina, I went to, there’s a Costco trip in there or BJ’s or Sam’s Club trip in there. And it’s kind of a one-off thing that might be $300, $400, $500.
I would tell you to actually create another line in your budget for your Costco BJ’s run. I feel like they’re a little bit infrequent, if you will, as compared to going to just your regular grocery stores. So when I’m working with clients that have families or even myself, like I might go to Costco and spend $200 like every other month. And in that case, when I’m doing it every other month, I’m going to just break it down and say, if my bill was $200, I’m going to put in my budget, $100 a month for Costco. And so that helps you separate like your day-to-day shopping versus your bulk shopping, which people might do for meat or toiletries, etcetera. So if you are at a point where you were thinking about separating those things, that’s how I would tell you to support that in your budget.
The next number I want you to look at is gas. And it’s very similar to groceries. So gas prices have gone up significantly in the last 90 days. I was in Oklahoma and then I was back in DC. And I want to say in a span of like two weeks, gas went up by over a dollar. So that’s another number in your budget that’s changed. If you’re still driving to work, if you still have the same commute, those aren’t things that maybe you can change. You may not be able to work remotely. You’re still paying for gas. And so we want to make sure that your budget doesn’t have a number that was serving you six months ago or two years ago. It might’ve been true that two years ago you were paying $100 a month for gas, but that number has shifted. I know that number has shifted for myself and I mainly work from home.
I drive around DC, but I don’t have a commute anymore like I used to. And so I fill up once every two weeks, but even still I’ve had to change how much it costs or not change how much it costs, but change the number in my budget to account for gas. Because filling up my gas tank is not, it was $60. Now it’s more like $75. So what I want you to do in order to change your gas budget is I want you to know, like how much does it cost to fill your tank up right now? That’s the most important question. And then how many times a month do you fill up? So if you’re someone who fills up every single week, then say it costs you $75 to fill up your tank. I want you to take that $75 and multiply it by four. So it’s costing you $300 a month to fill up your gas tank. But then I want you to add another 75 for good measure.
So if you take a road trip, have some extended driving, it’s going to give you a little bit of a buffer. So you’re not just like going from week to week. If you’re someone who would say like, well, Keina, I fill up every other week, or I’m filling up every 10 days. I want you to take the number. Let’s just say it costs you $75 to fill up. I want you to take that number and multiply it by two. So it’s $150 to fill up, but then I also want you to add another tank of gas to it. So I want you to put 225 in your budget, and that’s going to give you once again, just a little bit of extra room to consider what’s actually happening, what’s your lived reality versus what you’re hoping happens. And I would tell you this too, like thinking about it, summer, generally speaking, gas prices go up, gas prices go up for holiday weekends. And so this will help you be able to manage and correctly reflect what you’re spending on gas.
And the third and final number that I want you to check is your utilities costs. So think water, gas, electric, these numbers fluctuate for seasons. So in the winter, my gas is really high, but in the summer, my air or my electric is really high because of the season changes, like it’s being cold or being hot. What I have noticed because I track my utility bills is that I am spending probably at least like $50 more a month on average for my utilities. My usage hasn’t changed. And I know that because I’m just like, I can look at my bill usage year over year, but utility rates have changed. And not to bore you with any of that, but once again, those are just numbers that I pay attention to. And so I can tell you that in, because I literally just pulled up my budget, but in 2023, I was putting away like $180 a month for utilities. And then in 2024, I had to put away, or, oh, I think it’s gone up even more than I just told you.
But in 2024, I was putting away like $215 on average for utilities. And now I am putting away like $240 a month for utilities. So like from 2023 to 2025, it’s gone up. It’s gone up $60 a month that I’m setting aside for utilities. So that’s not insignificant. It’s almost an extra $1,000 a year that I’m spending on utilities. And so if you’re not paying attention to that, those are the missing pieces for why you feel like you can’t save money, because you’re not actually accounting for what’s happening with your finances. So if you’re wondering how I just quickly gave you those numbers, I keep all of my utilities in a spreadsheet. One, for tax purposes, I do it but also I like to budget for utilities based off of the average of a 12-month period.
So I track from November to October and just find out what’s my average cost for what I’m spending on water. What’s my average cost from what I’m spending on natural gas? What’s my average cost for what I’m spending on electricity? And I use those averages to put those numbers in my budget. I don’t do budget billing, but I do my own type of budget billing. So I just always have money, whether or not my utilities are going up or down. So all that to say, is that what I want you to do is you could log into your water, your electricity account. You could log into your natural gas account. But figure out and calculate, what am I spending on average for each one of those bills? And so put that number in your budget. I was just working this week with a client, and we were finding her average she had in, I think it was her electric bill.
She was saying, I’m going to save $100 a month. And her average was actually $130 a month. So we were going through and we were changing those numbers so that she’s better prepared to be able to pay her bills without wondering whether or not she has enough to pay her utility bills. And those are numbers, your utility bills, your gas, your groceries. I want you checking those every six months because they’re changing and they’re changing more frequently, I believe, than they have in the past. And so it can unintentionally cause you to use fake math because you are operating off of old numbers. So 19.95 is not the price anymore. 2000 is not the price anymore. We want to make sure that we’re using 2026 numbers.
So this isn’t about necessarily what you’re spending, but it’s about being able to think about how money actually moves in your life. This isn’t a matter of like, am I doing this intentionally or unintentionally? It’s like, let’s get the realities of what’s happening. I literally just got the imagery in my head of putting in a dipstick. We’re putting in a dipstick to see like, are the numbers in my budget still real? Are the numbers in my thinking about how I spend, is that my reality or is that an old number that no longer serves me? So the goal of this episode is for you to adjust those three numbers because it’s going to help you continue to save money. It’s going to help you continue to pay down debt. And it’s also going to help you feel like I am being responsible with my numbers or my money because I’m not always getting to the end of the month or always getting to the end of the week and thinking like, where did my money go? Because of the fact that you’ve actually aligned what’s actually happening in your bank account with your actual life.
So thank you so much for tuning in. If you are listening to this episode and you’re like, Keina, I’ve been listening to you or I just found you and you are in a place in your life where you want to pay down debt, maybe you want to pay off four to five figures of debt or you want to build a five figure savings account or you have a goal of like, I want to buy a house. I want to buy a car. I would love for you to book a consultation with me and I would love to get to know you more. And I can tell you exactly how my five month coaching partnership can support you. So you can go to the show notes or you can go to my website, wealthovernow.com and at the top it says book a call, but I would love to get to know you and I will talk to you later. Until next time, have a great week.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to money files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
