How much DID you spend on tea in 2014?
My original budget was $600 to $700 (counting online, in person, and teaware – but not factoring in swaps) but seeing how quickly I’m reaching that and now also having a much more stable job, I’m revising my new budget to $850-$1000 for the year, with the low end of the spectrum definitely being my comfort zone.-Yeah, totally over budget now.-
Side Note: January’s totals were poorly kept track of so all purchases for the month are generously guessed. In reality, I probably spent much less in January than it looks like I did.
January Total: $130.66
Tea Desire $6.00
DAVIDsTEA (Samples) $4.50
Vintage Tea Room/Metropolitan $15.00
Cuppa’T Specialty Teas (Large quantities of blends) $35.00
QueenOfTarts’s Tea Sale (Including Shipping) $17.00
RiverTea (Including Shipping) $53.16
February Total: $27.20
DAVIDsTEA (Tea samples) $27.20
March Total: $0.00
All March teas were birthday presents! I didn’t spend any of my own money on tea! Hooray!
April Total: $93.60
McQuarrie’s Tea and Coffee Merchants (Bloom teas and herbals) $28.00
DAVIDsTEA (Tea and Teaware) $65.60
May Total: $247.12
Red Leaf Tea (Including Shipping) $99.90
52Teas (Including Shipping) $36.06
DAVIDsTEA (Tea and teaware) $42.80
Tea Desire (Restocking tea, and teaware) $39.50
RiverTea (Including Shipping) $28.86
June Total: 133.24
DAVIDsTEA (Infuser and samples) $15.36
DAVIDsTEA (Restocking) $28.56
Butiki $89.32
July Total: $115.14
DAVIDsTEA (Restocking, Carnival Teas, Teaware) $60.84
Tea Desire (Teaware) $25.00
Tea Desire (Restocking) $11.00
DAVIDsTEA (Restocking) $18.30
August Total: $103.56
Design A Tea (Sampler) $10.00
Camellia Sinensis (New Teas & Shipping) $37.56
DAVIDsTEA (Fall Collection/Tea Ware) $56.00
September Total: $114.95
Adagio (Hobbit Sampler and Restocks) $61.20
DAVIDsTEA (Tea To Go) $8.00
Tea Desire (Restock and Tea To Go) $22.00
McQuarrie’s Tea & Coffee Merchants (New Stuff) $23.75
October Total $283.24
DAVIDsTEA (Samples and Restocks) $43.00
Butiki (Last Big Order…) $135.24
Antique Wedgwood Teapot $105.00
November Total: $80.35
DAVIDsTEA (Christmas/Holiday Samples) $28.00
Tea Squared $10.00
Octavia Tea (Samples/Black Friday order) $42.35
December Total: $89.55
Whispering Pines (First order there/Cyber Monday) $38.15
DAVIDsTEA (Restock) $19.00
Assorted Group Orders (Verdant/Butiki) $32.40
Grand Total: $1466.61
I am officially now over budget. Oh well…
January total – $35.90
February Total – $14.45
March Total- $15.00
April- $66.55
May – $3 at local tea shop (a very modest month)
June – $0 (I have had to make other things priority, but July may see an increase in my spending)
Total this year $134.90
(My budget for the year was estimated at $200. I’m at $22.48 per month now. If I keep going at this rate this rate, I will spend my $200 by mid-September and will have spent a total of $269.76 by the end of Dec.)
Don’t want to know…way too much??? Over $700 for the month of june…july ain’t looking much better so far, only 5 days in.
I admit… I do have a problem. Please don’t judge.
Not judging but that made me feel so much better xD I figure at least I’ll just work my butt off when I go back to work to make up for all the money I spent this summer xD
#highfives I don’t want to be alone with my “crazy” spending either! :) Phew. Maybe I will place that Verdant order after all…
Lol, cavo, that was NOT meant to enable anyone!! Sigh, I seem to enable even when I don’t want to…having said that, you are totally allowed since it is YOUR BIRTHDAY!!!!
Hahah. Well I took it that way and spent $50 on an order (to get free shipping, and I used up my $10GC from the points rebate). #noregrets
At least you are brave to post on this thread. I don’t want to know either. I have been ordering in too many teas! How will I finish them all? Do you keep an excel report? I started doing that since I don’t always update every single tea on my Steepster cupboard. The excel report gives me the full detail of all samples and full teas. I added a new column called “Date purchased” so I can watch out on teas getting too old.
There’s a reason why I don’t post on this thread. :D Honestly I don’t keep track of my spending much but I think if I did it would be shocking. Blissfully unaware!
Ubacat, no, I haven’t started a system yet, but it’s been on my mind for a while…but I know myself, I’m not consistent enough with these things…would probably become inaccurate very quickly :-O
But it does sound great!
Marzipan, the only reason I know is because the only stuff I bought last month on my U.S. Dollar card was tea!! When I saw the balance, I went, oops…that did not count other tea related stuff I bought…so yep, “don’t want to know”!!!
If you want a good way to discourage purchases, when you do your Excel report, add up the tea by weight. The first time I did this I was shocked to realize I had over 14 pounds of tea: at my rate of 1.5 pounds per month, that was nearly a 10 month supply.
I’ve also gone back and dated each of my teas, and have prioritized everything older than 6 months. My goal is to be down to about 3 pounds by Black Friday, then go crazy.
Oops: just checked my inventory and I’ll be lucky to be under 8 pounds by Thanksgiving. Darn sales!
July Update:
(Budget: $50/mo, total $600)
January Total: $77
February Total: $78
March Total: $41
April Total: $50
May Total: $17
June Total: $55
Running total: $318
I’m on a major belt-tightening effort right now due to some changes in jobs and income for DH and me as well as trying to sip down my cupboard so I will predict spending $200 this year, most likely around the holidays. So far I haven’t spent any money on tea, unless you count the roughly $12 I spent at Trader Joes a couple of months ago on some Chai latte and matcha latte mixes (do those really count as tea?).
2014 total year budget: $450
January total: $66
February total: $68.01
Arbor Teas: $32.87
Butiki: $21
Harney&Sons: $14.14
March Total: $12.95
Bamboo Leaf tea: $12.95
April Total $37.64
Butiki Teas: $21.74
Bamboo leaf tea: $15.90
May Total $60.00
Whispering Pines: $22.75
Whispering Pines: $37.25
June Total $0
July
Arbor Teas: $29.50
Year Total: $334.10
August Update
Budget: $600 Prediction: $1000-2000
January Purchases – 174.70 USD 20.00 CAD
February Purchases – 76.13 USD
March – None
April – 178.75 USD 106.80 CAD
May – 181.44 USD
June – 85.10 USD
July – 21.23 USD (single birthday order I allowed myself)
August Purchases
Verdant Blends Sub – 17.00 USD
Nina’s Paris – 15.99 USD
Teavivre – 36.00 USD (includes my teapot!)
Tea Gschwedner – 65.78 USD
Adagio – 17.18 USD
David’s tea – 50.00 CAD (includes the pitcher I bought)
Running Total 2014 – 869.30 USD 176.80 CAD
Good job! :) You rock with your willpower! I think I’m going to ignore the Teavivre sale and not buy anything in August…
Oh crap. Unless you entice me to split teas from Chicago. (runs & hides)
Uh you KNOW we’re getting teas while i’m in Chicago lol I’m still going to try and keep it to smaller quantities (ie we’re splitting a bunch!) since i should be back in Chicago in September as part of the roadshow as well.
Uh, around 50 bucks. Lots of sample sizes for hoarding. Much of it went to Teavivre, Lupicia, and a couple local tea shops.
August Update:
(Budget: $50/mo, total $600)
January Total: $77
February Total: $78
March Total: $41
April Total: $50
May Total: $17
June Total: $55
July Total $17
Running total: $335
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