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Archive for March, 2014

Made it through no spend month/ frugal february

March 3rd, 2014 at 03:49 pm

We made it through Frugal February alive, but I will be honest. I stuck to it, but Dh gave up around Feb 15! Silly man. And here I thought I was the one with the spending problem.

It was still an incredibly useful tool, even if it didn't quite work out the way I had planned. We realize our biggest money drain is eating out, despite my constant cooking at home, kids activities, and the constant dribs and drabs of 'Oh we need X so I'll pop out and get XYZ." You know how that goes.

It did alter the way I plan meals and grocery shop. That was so productive, I plan to stick with it. I also liked having an envelope of cash on the side of the fridge. It's easy to say, if there is cash in there, we have enough to cover it, if not, go without. You can't do that with a credit card.

I'm going to stick with the monthly budget, but I may up it to $200 a week instead of $150.

We did have a lot of one-time expenses this weekend. Dh's bonus came (hazzah!), so we finally got a new mattress. It's supposed to be delivered today. Our backs have been hurting sleeping on the old one we have, so we decided it was finally time. Happy spine = happy life. It was one of our planned purchases for the year.

We also sent $3000 to the mortgage. Most will go to principal.

DS2 also needed some new shoes ($20), and we will be spending a chunk of change on a gift cert for grandma's birthday next week. She does soooo much for us.

I also had to order some berry plants and bulbs for the garden, and that couldn't wait any longer. Also planned expenses. I'm tracking the garden costs in my page on the sidebar. I'll post soon about the garden project. It's coming along!

So yes, I'd like to continue on a cash-mostly similar weekly budget for as long as possible. Anything we can do to free up more money for savings and for paying down the mortgage would be money well saved.