Day 15

3/11- No Money spent today. Yeah. I think that this is the second day where we haven’t spent anything- sort of pathetic. I have been talking to people about this experiment and I am amazed at how many people say that they have been doing the same thing to carrying degrees.

One friend and his wife are doing it to get out of debt and give themselves more options for the future, another has two houses they are maintaining so extras are going to that right now. Still others have had reductions in income for whatever reason and are trying to live more resourcefully. I have also run into a few people who have always done this. These are my more frugal friends and relatives and seems to be relate to how they were raised.

Jay and I have also had several discussions this Lent about what pieces of this we would carry forward after Easter. I think that overall it would be a general consciousness of what we are spending. But imagine if we- gasp- had a food budget- that seems to be where most of our money goes- other than the boys activities. If we just set a budget for the grocery store and eating out I think we could easily save more money.

Have you had these conversations with friends, loved ones? Have you been considering these ideas or ways to incorporate them into your life?

Money Spent- $0

Day 14

3/10- My wonderful hubby took me to lunch today. It put us a little over our food budget for the week but it has been forever since we went out anywhere by ourselves and it was nice to catch up on all that is going on in our lives.

In the evening, A had a spring musical tonight and as always it was wonderful. It was so cool to see A play the drums and sing. I don’t give him enough credit for all of the things he keeps track of in his life.

Money Spent- $17 (Lunch for Jay and Heather)

Day 13

3/9- Nothing exciting today. We have been cleaning out our freezer and discovering all kinds of yummy treats. I am starting to get the swing of things. I have some ideas for how to use up some items in our freezer this week. We defrosted the last of the flauta meat and made flautas Sunday evening. They were great. And gone. 4 dozen of them in 24 hours. I am pretty sure some people in our house were sneaking them but no one is ‘fessing up.

Money Spent- $8 (Heather lunch with a friend)

Day 12

3/8- Today my ‘buy only what you need’ self clashed with my ‘wow this is a good deal’ self. I think they ended in a draw. As soon as I walked in the door, they had ‘almost’ expired marshmallow on sale- 3 packages for $1. I figured- it is only $1 and I can make rice krispie treats. This clash followed me through the rest of the store- there were some really good deals. I did fairly well through the rest of the store. My goal was $40 (revised from the unrealistic $30 previously posted). I ended up at $43 dollars- The $1 for the marshmallows and $2 for the rice cereal to make treats with put me over my goal.

On another note, Jay has been itching to make pretzels using dough from his bread maker and he finally made them Sunday evening. They were WONDERFUL! I cannot believe we let our breadmaker languish in the basement when it can make so many wonderful things for us. It is definitely going to find a permanent home in the kitchen.

Money Spent- $43 ($43- grocery store- darn those marshmallows for being on sale)

Day 11

3/7- All I have to say is EEK! Today it was very hard not to spend. A went to an archery tournament in Linn MO (east of Jeff City and about 3 hours from our house). We knew that we would need to buy lunch/snacks so we packed some things and brought drinks from home. I also knew that I hadn’t used my allotted lunch money all week so I felt okay with buying lunch for A and I.

I drove with several other parents and that turned out to be very helpful in the no-spend department. I did all the driving but they paid for dinner and chipped in for gas. I think I figured out that I spent $23 out of pocket between gas and food so that wasn’t too bad.

Jay also had an event that we were concerned was going to be a challenge but he ended up only spending $2- Yeah Jay.

Money Spent- $25 (Heather $23 at event, Jay $2)

Day 10

3/6- No news to report today. Work, soccer practice, and a movie at the elementary school where they supplied the popcorn- D and I watched Madagascar 2.

Money Spent- $24 (gas for Jays car to go on archery trip Saturday)

Day 9

3/5- D started soccer lessons tonight and he loved it. He was so cute running around the field with his tiny cleats and shin guards on. When we left he told me it was awesome and asked if he got to go to it again. He was very happy to hear that he gets to back every Thursday for 8 weeks.

I would also like to note that I have been cooking so much more this week and it really hasn’t been a big deal. One of my goals for the weekend is to dig into the freezer and see what sort of meals I can make for the next week. I keep finding all sorts of yummy things in there to add together.

I am planning to go to the grocery store on Sunday but so far don’t have much on the list-oil, honey, cereal, milk and maybe toilet paper. I am trying to decide if frozen waffles are a need (ha ha). My boys are getting tired of cereal and I have not much luck in the past with freezing leftover waffles or pancakes. Maybe I will take one more shot at making them and then break down and get some if that doesn’t work.

I am also going to try to spend less than $30 on Sunday to make up for my overage last week. That might be a stretch- I will let you know how it turns out.

Money Spent- $25 (gas for Heathers car)

Day 8

3/4- Jay made homemade pizza dough in the bread maker this afternoon and we finished up the last of our pizza sauce and pizza toppings tonight. The pizza dough was sooooo good. It takes more time to prepare since it has to rise etc. but it tasted so much better that I think we will try to make it this way more often. It felt like we had gourmet pizzaJ.

Money Spent- $0 (I think this might be the first time we did not spend any actual dollars)

Day 7

3/3- I am really struggling with only having 1 Diet Coke per day (let me remind everyone that this is the only form of caffeine since I don’t drink coffee). I broke down and bought a Diet Pepsi at work today for 75 cents. Otherwise we seem to be doing fine so far.

Money Spent- $140.75 ($95 for drum lessons, $45 for gymnastics- wow- just typing that makes me cringe; .75 on my caffeine addiction)

Day 6

3/2- We spent the day going to the funeral and serving everyone afterwards. I was happy to be able to serve lunch and feel like I made the funeral more comfortable for the immediate family members. My sweet brother bought me a drink which was much appreciated. And I finished another scarf. We also had enough leftovers for dinner so we were able to just heat dinner up.

Money Spent- $33 on gas for Jay’s car

Day 5

3/1- Today I SAVED money- YEAH!! We went to 10am mass which ends at about 11:15. My niece’s birthday party was scheduled for noon with a 30 minute drive between the two events. Our pre-Lenten routine would have been to run through a drive through and spend $25-30 on lunch. Our Lenten-challenged selves made sandwiches, and found ½ a box of Cheez-its, some animal crackers and a couple of apples. Everyone happily munched in the car on the way to the party. And of course we had cake and ice cream at the party so everyone was happy.

Today is also the first day I have felt uncomfortable with this challenge. Jay and I were talking about this with some people and they were commiserating with me about all of the things we/they are doing without. The difference is that they are making these changes out of necessity to make ends meet. We are taking this challenge to make ourselves more mindful of the blessings that we have been given. But at the end of the day, there is nothing requiring us to change our spending. We will have to think more about how vocally we want to talk about this. We would never want anyone to feel like we were playing a game while they were really struggling. The day definitely brought home for us how truly fortunate we are. We also realize that this could change at any time during these times.

Money Spent- $13 on last minute food items for the funeral- this will not be charged against our food budget

Day 4

2/28- we had a death in the family this week and my mom and I are cooking all of the food for after the funeral; this has caused me to be a little off on my focus. It doesn’t help that we went to Costco to get several of the items and there is always something there that looks wonderful (we rarely go to Costco because we spend so much there). This was actually a good test of my resolve and I am happy to say that I did fairly well. I did buy a bottle of wine to drink while I was cooking 6 pans of lasagna and spaghetti pie. We also picked up an outfit for my nieces birthday party which saved me a trip to Target.

I also went to the grocery store for the first time since starting the Lenten Challenge. I did go over budget but it was for a good reason (so Jay could make my mom raisin bread- I had no idea how much powdered milk cost). I felt good about the trip. We are not significantly out of anything and everyone is still in good spirits about our challenge. My second son, C, might be starting to crack because he is used to eating a sleeve of Ritz crackers as a snack and we have cut him down to just a few at a time with some fruit or cheese. He is having trouble adjusting to this.

Money Spent- $75 total ($52 on groceries, $8 on wine, $15 on a cute outfit for my niece)

Day 3

2/27- we realized that in our goals for the month we did not account for Jay’s lunch. He works from home most of the time or is traveling and then his company picks up lunch but due to some social things going on this weekend we figured out that we need some money to cover those things. So, our goals are edited to include $15 for Jay per week

Money Spent- $43 total ($33-Jay gas, $5 Dairy Queen(end of season basketball party), $5- Heather lunch)