Day 3. No Spending.

Tomorrow I have to put together a dozen or so plastic eggs to contribute to Kate's school egg hunt on Friday. I'm also signed up to take veggies, so I probably need to go to the grocery store.

I don't want to go!

Three days without spending money feels good. I wonder how many days it takes before one completely loses the urge to shop. Is it even an urge? I think it had become almost reflexive.

I'm not sure how the next couple of days will play out, but I'm hopeful that I can come in under $10 for this week, including groceries. How cool would THAT be?!

Day 2

No spending today. Day two.

For the first time in a very long time, I spent no money today. I already have a small grocery list for tomorrow, though. Sigh.

I'm trying to think if I'm going to want ANYthing else this week, but I don't think so. The girls are here for spring break, and since I'm all set with projects, I don't plan on any other shopping. Eventually I'll make my way to the dollar store for some sunglasses for them, maybe next Saturday. Otherwise, I am going to take a deep breath, and stop spending money for April. Even the Easter Baskets are all ready to go! :)

For April, I'll have some bills for postage for Laura, and necklaces to Ann, and I'll finally get Debbie's Christmas gift in the mail -- four months late! We have several nights out planned and have hired Andrea, including bookclub, a night with Sheri and John, and a school fundraiser (from which we may play hooky and just go to dinner). That will be plenty of spending for April. I'm wondering what we'll get done around the house, since Andy will be home one week on vacation, and I suppose that could lead to curtains. . . .

When you give a mouse a cookie. . . .

With the way things are going at work, it won't be long before I won't be able to count on the educational reimbursement, so it looks like the goal will be to save at least an additional $250 a month to pay for classes... a fraction of my "no spending" goal, but still a significant amount. And more if I decide to take two classes at a time at some point.

The healthy eating is still going well, even if the weight loss isn't. I have an exercise date with one of my girlfriends for Saturday and have been walking Tuesdays and Thursdays on breaks at work. Even with healthier food, I still need to eat less of it, but at least I'm heading in the right direction.

Two weeks = three days?

So, on Sunday I spent about $700. On Monday I spent a couple hundred, and Andy bought a new paddle for about $300. On Tuesday, I spent $108 on new cordless phones, and over $100 on groceries and other things we needed. In total, I think we've spent at least $1500 in three days. UGH.

Next week is spring break, and if Andy's home, I'm sure it will be full of spending. We'll be trying to get some things done around the house, and I know I'll end up spending money, to say nothing of the food. If Andy's not home, I don't think it will be bad. I'm loathe to take the girls to the stores if I can wait and go by myself. In addition, some of the money I spent at the start of this week was on projects to keep them busy next week. Like I needed to do that. . .

Anyway, I don't even know what to say about this month. We appear to have done all of our normal spending. And there is still more than a week to go. Uffda.

April would look hopeful, but we have three long nights of babysitting on the calendar already! Those nights will also require quite a bit of additional spending. I am hoping I can keep those three nights under a total of $300.

I feel really bad about all this. I've got to figure out how to get back to good. Perhaps reading more Cheapskate books will inspire me!

Today I bought a pretty expensive elliptical machine. About 7 days of spending. So in order to meet my goal, from last month, of cutting spending in half, I'll have to have 14 days of no spending. I don't have anything planned for the coming week & hopefully can get away with just medical and food expenses! Wish me luck. In the meantime, I have this additional reason to get the basement organized, as I can't leave such a thing sitting in a box in the garage.

I've really moved on to healthier eating (and have lost a little over 4 lbs in a week!), but after paying a few bills this morning, I realized that I need to be doing both.

Now, if the pre-prepared healthier food weren't more expensive, this wouldn't be so hard... or if I could motivate to prepare my own food. Cooking healthy meals just isn't as easy as cooking really bad ones :)

At least most of my spending this moonth has been on consumables that will be better for me than the ones I bought last month.

I did show Mike how to find the books he wants on half.com, so he has several books coming in the mail soon for easily a third of the price he would've paid at Borders. He actually bought a couple that he wants to pass on to Andy after he's read them again.

I think we'll be grilling tonight to get rid of some of the meat Mike bought in January and froze... and I'll be eating some grilled veggie burgers.

I'm losing track of my spending again. Even though I didn't save as much as I'd hoped to, I did save a significant amount in Feb. I think it did really help to have to write it down, and it also helped me to plan spending a couple of days in the future, so I'm going to start checking in again. Are you still working on not spending, or are you on to the healthier eating?

This morning I bought groceries and spent about $50 -- very little food of substance on that list, a lot of thing like tortillas and hummus. I really do want to buy an elliptical machine, so I need to see if the prices are as low as they were in Jan, and I'm thinking that will be between $500 and $700. I don't have any other expenses planned. I think I'll make fajitas for lunch, and I have the food for that in the freezer, and then I'll make pancakes & bacon & eggs for the girls for dinner. Perhaps I'll make some w/ blueberries for myself, and then w/ chocolate chips for dessert!

Yesterday, I hit another trifecta of dangerous stores: Goodwill, Tuesday Mornings, and Trader Joe's spending a couple of hundred dollars. I know I didn't really need those cookie cutters, but they were so darned cute! I think we may need to make some elephant-shaped cookies together this summer.

Today, I made the mistake of going grocery shopping when I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner and spent well over $100 on vegetables and "healthy foods." Granted, now I have food that may actually help with weight loss instead of contribute to weight gain, but this is getting ridiculous!

The goal is to not step foot in any stores for the next several days to try to make up for this.

More Best Laid Plans. . .

Over $200 today. I think I suck at this -- AGAIN.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. . .

Friday there was a Gem & Jewelry Show, and I took the money I'd earned from a sale, and spent that. Saturday I didn't go to thrift stores for my usual treasure hunting. This was good, but instead I end up warehouse - store poor! $146 in bulk, and $56 at Kohls for a slide/film negative scanner. Sunday, Andy bought a $50 car battery starter thing, since last week he got stuck at DIA with a dead car battery, but I think I have to count that.

Tomorrow I'm planning to spend some Kohls Cash and use up the store credit I have. I'm going to buy a $400 Roomba robotic vac, but it will end up being $85 out of my pocket because of discounts & promotional Cash. I'm wondering if this can help me out in the basement and the upstairs, potentially keep me from needing to hire the cleaners to do those floors too, which makes the $85 look ridiculously cheap! A friend recommended this to me, so I'm trusting that they've improved, and I expect that it will work well.

I'm also meeting a woman about a dressform for $75, which I hope will help me out with all of the clothes I want to tailor. Is this crazy? So, I'll add it up. Including Friday, this brings me to $412 in four days. SEE??? Okay, now I'm over my daily average. That hasn't happened for a while. Hopefully from here I'll be better, right? It's all of that "very little" spending I did last week! Rebound spending!?! I will be better.

It will feel good to pay such small bills this month, about half of the usual. That will make me feel motivated to continue the trend. After tomorrow. :)

We haven't been paying much attention so far this month/week. I know we've gone out to eat for a few meals, but for the most part, we've been trying to bring lunches to work like we did last month.

I've stayed away from my "dangerous" stores, but have picked up a couple of little things at others. I've only truly had two days of no spending this week.

I'll hit the reset button for next week and try to pay more attention to where my money is going. I think just being aware of it causes me to spend much less.

In & Out

I went to Target, returned something & got a gift card for $19, picked up two packs of Frappuccino and a prescription for under $15, and walked out with NOTHING ELSE. It's a little miracle.

March 2. I didn't spend any money yesterday, but I have to go to Target today to pick up a prescription. I'll get a gallon of milk while I'm there, in order to avoid another trip to the grocerystore, but that ought to be it. Circumstances are changing a little bit, and this month it seems even more important to have a lot of cash on hand, so I may be more motivated than I was in Feb.

I began March by bringing my sewing machine, and bags full of things to be mended or altered, upstairs. I basically got three new pairs of pants & a sweater yesterday! I have two more to do today, at which point I'm finished with hand sewing, and then I can move on to the few things that should be done by machine.

I have the ingredients for stuffed green peppers for dinner tonight, and for lunch I'm planning to have a fruit smoothie. As far as wasteful food I cannot seem to stop buying, my weakness is frappuccino. I end up feeling that it gives me a mental break which I enjoy taking, and then it gives me energy. Some of the substitutes I've tried are simply not cutting it. It's even too sunny and relatively warm for hot cappuccino! What to do about this? I can buy them by the case, and they're about $1 each, but if I drink three a day-- well, the calories are a problem, if not the $3!

Okay, well. March is off to a good start, but I've got to get moving. Good luck!