How did it go today? Were you good? How can you improve?



Today I gave dd $20 for her lunch account, paid my daycare bill, stopped at HyVee to pick up a prescription ($10) and bought a few needed groceries ($11) and put some gas in dh's car ($24). All in all, I was pleased. I did not spend on anything that we could do without. I only bought what I needed at the grocery store, nothing else.

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~Happiness is a large family~

DID good. Spent nothing... WIPPEE

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September Coupon Savings: $146.56
October Coupon Savings: $209.08

spent nothing here

I was really proud of myself. Spend nothing today and I took leftovers for lunch instead of forgetting them and then having to run thru fast food. The down side of my day was the call from the babysitter that DS was throwing up, mom went to pick him up and said he smelled like he had strep. She's a nurse so she is almost always right about that stuff, got a script called in and she even went and picked it up for me. Refused to let me pay, gotta love mamas.

I have been busy lately and haven't spent much time on here as usual...so I just barely spoke to my husband about the "spending freeze." He thought it was such a great idea! So starting right this moment..until end of Jan...it's on!

He has an account that he pays the monthly bills he sends out...
Gas...around $150
prescriptions $30
dd's 12th month check-up...$10 co-pay
$225 for everything "grocery-like" (Target/Walmart etc) since I already did my 2-week grocery shop and shouldn't need to go again until the middle of the month.

We also gave ourselves a few allowances that we agreed upon right at this moment..no exceptions....
No eating out except we can use 1 gift card this month(from Christmas)..plus 1 pizza night (football playoff party)
$20 for my daughter's b-day present
$30 for my husband's b-day present
$30 for annual PA state farm show event (special occasion)
$20 for already planned date-night this weekend

No more impulse trips the mall for fun (we shop for fun...so bad!!)
No more clearance sales
No more cheesesteak lunches
No more take-out
Nothing unless it was already stated in the exceptions!

We are going to do this every month until our credit card is paid off in March...then we will revisit the budget...do a spread sheet again..and adjust misc. money for birthday's etc.

If we do this for a few months...we will be able to afford to pay off our $3000 credit card racked up in 3 months (I know...terrible!!!!!!) and we should be able to pay CASH for our vacation in Feb. to visit the in-laws in Arizona...plus a beach vacation this summer!!

Afterall..you have to have pay-offs.....light at the end of the tunnel! We are up for the challenge! It really helps to have your husband on board...team effort!

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Bekah
Co-founder and CEO of the NOVITZKE FAMILY INC.

I actually am proud of myself the last 2 days. I, personally, spent $0!! The hardest part for me was staying away from the "online hot deals" forums since I'm addicted to online shopping.

DD did have a doctor's appointment today, and DH spent $15 on a copay, but that couldn't be helped.

We do have a lot of doctor/therapy appointments coming up within the next 21 days. Unfortunately, I have a medical test next week that will set us back quite a bit of $$$, but it needs to be done. We do have an flex health account, so we will get reimbursed the $$, but I still hate to spend it.

I'm still working on my allowed expenses, but do have most of them sorted out in my head. Just need to get them on paper.

Good luck everyone!!!

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SAHM of 4

August food budget (groceries/take-out): $500.00/$75.00
Total spent: $238.97/$14.12

July budget/spent: $500.00/$650.00

I'm just now starting watching my spending.....We have been gone for the holidays so I haven't needed anything for the last two and half weeks. I used up what I had so I wouldn't have a lot of stuff here while we were away in Alabama for a week. So Today I spent the day stocking up. I shouldn't need to go back to the store for weeks and then just to get milk and eggs and maybe the bread store. We homeschool so the kids are home for all meals. I'm hoping it will last for 3 weeks.. a month would be great.

Aldi's 65.50 (stock up on can goods and a few other things the pantry was bare)
Walmart 72.77 (did some more stocking up)
Sam's 75.00 (I couldn't find the receipt so I guessing) (milk was $2.92 a gallon and I did some more stocking up)
Price Chopper 38.33 ( frozen pizza's and juice was on sale so I stock up)

My monthly budget is $500 for groceries and household

I spent $251.60

So I have $248.40 left for the month

so far I'm off to a good start....I think:

Today, I put $20 of gas in my car (it was on empty for about a week! We used fiance's truck while he was on vacation and stayed with us, but now he's gone back home).

I also bought notebook/paper for my binder for the challenge and for my Home Organization notes/planning, etc.

I also bought cough drops for my daughter who has been complaining of a sore throat.

That totaled $26.02 since the Freeze began.

I could have done without the notebook paper but I WANTED it to be able to participate in the challenge more easily. Everything else I feel was needed.

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Carly
SAHM to:
DS Levi (9)
DD Abbey (7)

We are on day 6 here and we are doing absolutely awesome. It is addicting. Tonight hubby had to go to the store to get cereal and garbage bags. I gave him a Rite-Aid rewards certificate for the cereal. He came home and said "The cereal you told me to buy on sale wasn't on sale so I put it back, and the gabrage bags were 10 cents more than I thought they'd be and I had to use my debit card, not the cash I intended to use and I was so annoyed!". Then he laughed and said that this challenge was addicting. It totally is for us! My hubby came from a house w/ more than enough money to just blow, and he retains a lot of that mind set. Not tha the blows our money, but he'd never think twice about spending money on something like cereal that we need. He just totally turned down cereal and said he'd eat oatmeal until the cereal went on sale! LOL I just totalled up our 6 days purchases and we are holding steady at $19! I can't wait to see if we can go tomorrow w/o spending. It would be awesome to have an entire week and spend less than $20! I feel like for once we are a unified team in our money handling. I know that this is the only way we will ever dig out of our debt - not justifying and enabling eachother.

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Carrie
SAHM Momma to 2 sweet boys and a baby princess

Zero spent today!