Stick with tracking it for a full month, see if those numbers stay consistent or if there's any random weeks where it jumps up more. Did you notice any specific meals that kept pushing the cost up higher than you expected, like meat or eating out, or was it all just small stuff adding up? I bet you'd be surprised by what you find if you try it for even a week, kinda like a budget wake-up call lmao.

Start tracking stuff like that and you start noticing patterns everywhere, not just in the shop. It's like when you count how many times you walk to the fridge or how many miles you drive in a week, the numbers just keep growing. Funny how we hardly think about the little steps until someone points out they add up to two miles of window frames.

Buddy of mine did almost the same thing with a homemade vocal booth, built it around his chair and then realized he couldn't even fit the mic boom in without taking the wall off. Had to crowbar the whole corner apart just to get his setup back.

Man, that's such a good call. It's funny how the best stuff is always the stuff people try to steer you away from, like the hidden gem coffee shop or that back road that takes ten minutes longer but has zero traffic.

Read somewhere that old Italian stone masons would spit on their mix before laying it, called it "blessing the mortar." Tradition is strong in this trade no doubt. @green.mason I get it, measuring feels like you're cheating at solitaire or something. But think about it this way: your cousin's saving 30 percent and the wall still stands, right? That's not baking a cake, that's just working smarter. The old timer can keep his trowel, I'll take the extra cash.