If you have a lightbulb moment, or just want to share a personal victory - post it here! Would you encourage other members to try out the Forget the Joneses program? What have you gotten out of it? Share your stories and you'll be encouraging others to jump on the bandwagon!

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This has been very consuming (happily) for me. I am encouraged each day by logging on to read the posts made by others. I have always been very careful at grocery shopping, but I am learning that I used grocery shopping as my excuse to "spend money but its OK b/c its for groceries". We have made out our budget and I have very happily stuck to it. I plan to fine tune it for February. I have made out my price list sheet and am ready to start that as well. Thanks Mommy Savers!

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Wife of Tim 21 years

I have found that I question myself more now when I need to spend money and have the Needs and Wants conversation with myself more often.

Since not going out to eat, or ordering out I have enjoyed trying out more recipes and NEW recipes in my kitchen. I believe things had gotten 'stale' here with the same meals day after day. I've been putting new life into our meals and my kids are enjoying it.

I also made a menu so everyone knows whats for dinner, and with myself, I know what I'm making and can prepare myself. Alot of the 'thrown together' meals come from not knowing what to make, or not properly planning ahead.

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~Missy~Mommy
Meghan9.Samantha7,Cameron5

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After the 21 day spending freeze we were able to save 349.00 to put toward our house fund!! I have no idea where all the money came from, so it is my new challenge to get back to tracking where our money goes, I did it years ago, but stopped.

I have to say making a bi-weekly menu for dinner has been the best. During the freeze I had to use what was in the house and that forced me to really know what i had on hand. I no longer say "there's no food in the house". Making meals around what I already had is saving us so much money. Usually I get home from work and don't want to have to "think" about what to make (have we had chicken for 3 days in a row now and none of it was leftovers?). Having it posted on the fridge takes the thinking out. Not only that, but when dh is being really nice, he'll go to the fridge and start making what's posted for the day. We've only got out to dinner once when we both got home way to late to start cooking (and we did applebees to go, so we still saved. No tip, no drinks).


On a side note, since I take time to plan out the menu I find when I am cooking I enjoy it more. It's not so much of a chore. I plan a new dish once a week (thanks to my new cookbooks and mommysavers) and cooking has become more fun.

I feel the same way as most of the previous posters. I have found that I am really saving money just by making a menu and by still cooking from the pantry and the freezer. I think I still have some bad habits to break as far as picking up things we really "don't" need, but want to buy out of convience. I am so grateful for all of the other voices that are on this journey with me.

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Wife to Ricky
Mommy to Bryce & Emilee

I love the FTJ project. Thanks in part to the spending freeze and in part to a 3-paycheck month , we have managed to completely pay off the last of one of our debts (there was about $1700 remaining) and I have a solid plan to rid ourselves of our last remaining debt this year.

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Debt payoff:
debt: 4593.95

I had a yipppeeeee moment today!
I did our taxes. DH is deployed. This is our first deployment so we weren't sure how it would affect taxes, well it fell in our favor, big time!
Two months ago, heck two weeks ago I was daydreaming of all the junk I could buy when our tax check came. If this was the old me I probably wouldn't have thrown one dime towards the cc payment. Maybe some to savings, but it would be spent quickly.
Fast forward, new me, I will have enough to pay off our cc debt (we still owe on cars, SLs) and refund our emergency fund which is super drained right now! Yay! And I am not even sad about not spending the money on fun times!
Thanks for helping me change my thinking!

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Aja

We saved about 400$ this month!! My SO was right on track with the spending freeze and didnt complain at all! He got his allowance and everything was good. He even asked if we could do a spending freeze every 3 months. This also helped us decide to SAVE our tax refund because its going to be over a months living expense. I also loved all the tips, and plan to look over them every month to help me save more!

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Jessica Nichole! Mommy of 1 little boy!

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January Results $2400 spent. Last year we spent on Average $3700 a month. So yes spending time on freezing spending and watching your budget helps $2400 and under is tough for us in the last year this is only the 3rd month under $3000. So pretty much a rock bottom budget for the month

The Three Biggest areas Where we saved Compared to last month we saved
Gas ~ We didn't go anywhere 70% decrease
Dinning out ~ Only for special occasions 50% decrease
Groceries ~ 18% decrease (I started using Coupons)

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006 &

Organizer of the Coupon Clippers of Tacoma