30 days of nothing update

I spent 25 last week on a couple things we needed, and this weekend I went grocery shopping and spent 60. So that means that I have 40 left for the remainder of the month. I am still hopeful that the original 200 will last for the grocery budget. I may have to increase the budget just because I find that I'm not able to stock up on sales that I find with this budget. I will wait until Nov to try to stock up on too many things since I only have 40 left.

I am discouraged because we were not able to put the 600 into savings. We purchased a washer, dryer, and deep freeze for 250. Then we put brakes on the truck for 250. And we had a surprise auto insurance bill. Overall, we probably would have been able to save at least 600 this month had it not been for these things happening. I am thankful that we were doing this because I don't think we would have had the money for these things if we were not.

We have also talked about establishing an entertainment budget. We enjoy going out to eat and we like to go to the movies occasionally. I am trying to cut fast food out of my diet and hoping that my husband will do the same. Its not good for you and it is so expensive anymore, but sometimes it is just so convenient.

30 days of nothing challenge

Yesterday we had to replace the brakes on my husbands truck. They rapidly declined over a few days time. It cost $250.00 to replace both the front and back, which really is not bad at all. I am so grateful that we have extra money this month because we have been saving and not going out to eat. If we had not been doing this 30 days of nothing challenge I'm not sure we would have had the money. We also had an unexpected payment of almost $500 for car insurance. Overall I feel like we are still doing really good with this challenge.

The one thing that I have been really wanting is to go out to eat. I did slip this morning and stopped at McDonald's for breakfast, I only spent $2.69 and I won a free breakfast sandwich with the monopoly game. It hasn't bothered me to limit grocery shopping or to stay out of department stores yet. There are a couple things that I feel like I need, but I'm going to ask for them for Christmas from my family. I figure I have went this long without them I can wait a few more months.

I have $125.00 left in my grocery budget. There are a few things on my list so far but nothing that I can't live without for a few more days. I'm hoping I can wait until next weekend to go shopping. My husband really wants some banana nut bread and my bananas are about to turn so I may have to go pick up some nuts. I feel like we are doing really well so far with this challenge. I'm happy with our progress.

30 days of nothing challenge

We are doing alright with our challenge. My mom and I went out to lunch so I did eat out on Friday which I felt guilty about but how can you say no to your mother. I had to stop at dollar tree to get some envelopes and I bought a bowl from there but it was only $1 (isn't that how we always justify these things). One of the reasons for this challenge is to see how much we can save for this month and to try to stop the consumerism in our lives. We buy way too many things that we don't need so we are wasting money on them. Overall we are doing good and we are on track. I decided to spend $75.00 on groceries this week, I bought quite a bit of stuff so I am going to try to make it last for 2 weeks and maybe I will need to spend $25 next week. I am hopeful that this weekend is the last one that we slip up on. I am hoping that through this challenge we will find that there are things we can live without and that will last for us longer than the month of October.

30 Days of Nothing Challenge

I have been inspired by Mary at Owlhaven. The whole month of September she did this challenge. I came in late and was reading about it, I talked to my husband and he wants to see how much we save this month. So we are not going to limit how much we eat out and try to stick to a budget. I set $200 a month for groceries a while back, some months I come close other months I go way over. There is only 2 of us so that should be easily doable. We want to save an extra $200 this month, for a total of 600 into savings. If we do not eat out all month we will probably save even more than that. So we are beginning today. I will post updates about our progress.