30 days of no spending-week 2

What a week this one was!!!! By the second day of this week, I had run out of both my flat iron cream AND my curl cream. While I am certain that this is not an emergency I really wanted to make it one! That being said, if you see me with crazy frizzy hair please just smile!

 The next thing this week brought on was a cheat! Gasp, I know, but it was NEEDED. We also kind of worked it in.  We left the money for McAllister's in the budget. We've gone almost every Sunday night since Stan died. We go with Patsy and the kids LOVE it. Ryan and I love that we can guarantee that at least once a week she doesn't eat alone. Not to mention Sunday nights are crazy and the kids and I all eat off the kids meal and it's only about $10 for all of us! This week Ryan was home sick, Landon had a fever, and Rylee was saying her throat hurt. Basically, every one as miserable and cranky. The compromise?? We would all forgo our $0.99 kids drinks at dinner (the kids LOVE their tea so I wasn't sure this would work), we would all drink water and then we would all go get a $0.79 icy  after dinner.  Came out a little cheaper and all the sickies would get some relief. Hannah was next on that list just an hour or so after dinner. We all got our cold frozen drinks and went home to oil up and head to bed. Everyone was much improved in just a day or two. Following our budgeted "cheat" the next day cleaning out some last things at the old house we found an envelope that had been pushed to the back. We are calling it the Heavenly manna of $15 of Bueno, $10 of Chick-Fil-A, $5 to On Cue, $20 to 7-11, and $10 to Wal-Mart! It was like we won the lottery! We were working hard to finish up at the old house this week so we were excited to see treats! We used one of the $5 7-11 ones and it was awesome. Wednesday we decided to treat the kids because they had been cooped up so much this week so we took the Chick-Fil-A card as well as some free kids meals coupons we had. All five of us ate for only $7 out of pocket, Ryan and I got to sit and relax, and the kids played for an hour wasting LOTS of energy. Priceless!!!!!!!!!! They needed it! (so did we)

The final cheat came as the MOST unexpected. My phone rang Wednesday afternoon and it was the realator of one of my in-laws rent houses.  (The just put it on the market last week.) THANKFULLY, we go to church with this lady or we would have had no way of knowing. You see, my in laws are on vacation over 700 miles away and she was calling to tell me a car drove through the house they are selling.  The neighbor called the number on the for sale sign and when the agent couldn't get a hold of them, she called me.  Ryan and I ended up spending about 4 hours at the house. Early on we had to run to Target to get a camera card so we could leave it with them. Knowing it could be a long evening/night I opted to get us both a pretzel and a drink to hold us over. Ended up being worth it since it was after nine when we got home! Thankfully we were finally able to get a hold of them (they were in the mountains) and insurance has the house boarded up. I just hate that their relaxing vacation had added stress and that they have a mess to deal with when they get home!

Life happened to the fullest this week. Yes, we spent money. NO, we aren't upset. The key for us was to mindful of our money. It would have been easy to just cheat. Instead, we made cuts, did what got us by, and thought cheap! We could have eaten a full meal out and spent lots, but we didn't. That's what is great about no spends. You remember to be in charge of your money instead of it being in charge of you!

30 days of no spending-week 1

Week one is OVER!!! I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  I feel like when we do a "no spend" the first week is always the hardest! So, I'm sad to say we weren't totally no spend, but we did make a pretty good go at it. Here is the week one run down. The first "offense"' happened Saturday. Ryan packed his lunch for work but forgot to put it in the fridge when he got there. By the time he finally got to eat almost 8 hours later, it probably wasn't safe so he ran to the cafeteria and got some grub. I'm saying good call on this one. He avoided food poising and his blood sugar crashing! A must both ways when you are charge nurse! The very next day came instance #2. Getting ready for church we realized that my kid who is going through one crazy growth spurt (an inch and a half taller in only 10 weeks!!!!) had no church shoes that fit!!!! Fantastic.  Thankful I used Payless' BOGO and 10% off plus a credit that I had with Paypal and now there are 3 pair of church shoes and Hannah's replacement boots (1/2 off) on the way for only $33 out of our pocket.  Those were the only two bad things.  One of the things we budgeted for was the State Fair, which we had tickets to prior to deciding to do a no spend month. This was a family outing with the in laws so we were going to go. In the spirit of money saving the kids and I opted to eat dinner at home and go for dessert at the fair. Ryan lives for fair food and it the main money maker in our home so I really encouraged him to enjoy it and eat dinner and dessert at the fair! It wasn't hard to convince him...like, at all. We shared things and had bites of each others, so we got samplings of everything we wanted and for our family of five, we rang in at $42 on food. That was $18 less than our goal! I've also spend only $152.85 on groceries for the month. That's almost 3 weeks of food, 2 freezer meals for a friend that is (hopefully) just about to pop, and a couple desserts for things! All in all I think week one was a success. A little more than we planned to spend but the hubs needs to eat on what ended up being a 14 hour shift and said child can NOT go barefoot to church. (Although she sees nothing wrong with it!) Here's hoping week 2 goes off even more smoothly!

30 of no spending....day 1!!!

Ryan and I have done a "no spend" month before and we loved it.  I don't know why we don't do it more! We are not terrible at controlling our spending. To be honest, what gets us is drink stops.  We usually get the kids something and 5 drinks several times a week adds up FAST! So late last night we decided that there really is no time like the present and we will start as soon as we wake up.  Maybe I should have thought this through...as in go to the grocery store before we start. I didn't. Time to get creative.  I was not going to have a strike on day one, Since we were out of bread tuna salad for lunch gets served in hard boiled eggs. That was close! There are a few exception to our no spend. What we are learning is that pre-planned expenses aren't what gets you, it's the impulses. That being said, we will still leave the money there for the kids and I to have our weekly Sunday night dinner date with Ryan's mom (after all, all four of us usually eat for under $10). Instead of just adding this money, we will work extra hard and it will come straight out of the grocery budget which will mean cuts on unnecessary grocery items. We also already had plans to go to the fair with the family. We will take our own drinks and we are already picking out the one food item we want.  Other than that we will just enjoy the sights and let the kids have fun. Besides, people watching really is the best part of the fair. That's it. Those were the only two things allotted for and everything else will just have to wait. The only spending this month will be necessities. We will pay the bills, medical expenses (we all have dentist appointments this month) and stick to our tight $300 a month grocery budget! I'm excited to see what we do this month.