Well we are officially one week in to our no-spend month! I did go to the store...to do returns. Which was hard not to do a little shopping while I was there but it was still good to get things done!
What did we do this week? We found fun ways to stay inside (like tea parties). We have been racking up amazon no-rush promo credits for movie rentals, and used them to stay in an watch a movie. Our house also has had a nice cleaning with the free time (clearly not before the photo of the tea party was taken)
We visited our new local library twice (when we moved, we switched libraries since we moved into a suburb). We actually got pretty excited to become more involved in our new community! We spent time cooking at home, which is something I normally never do, but with a little extra time from not shopping, and being very aware of our grocery budget, we got to enjoy home cooked meals! We also visited the local art museum, which we don't remember ever taking Lorelai to yet.
I mentioned earlier that in December I signed up for a Meal Prep class with my mom! Our local grocery store (Hy-Vee for you Nebraska folks) has this amazing freezer meal prep class. Each store and dietitian on staff schedules and plans their own, but most have something similar. We made 5 meals, 3 sides, each set to feed 5-8 people. My mom and I had been wanting to try it for a while, and finally our schedules aligned for this week. It is $100, and we paid last month. Anyway, if you're going to do a class like this, its great to do in a No-Spend month, but felt a little like cheating because we really did want to use what we had in the house. In my defense, what we have in the house isn't a ton right now, since we just moved and it isn't like we have years of pantry items that have been sitting there. Still, I know it will make this month much easier on our grocery goal. Overall keeping the grocery bill down to $150 for a month is pretty good in my book ($100 for the meal prep and $50 for the fresh foods, milk etc. I budgeted for this month so my 1 year old wasn't eating ramen each day).
I forgot to buy cat food before the month started. Okay so other people may be thinking "of course, you should have bought this ahead" but hear me out...I'm typically a very over-prepared person. For example, when we moved houses we moved no less than 6 TUBS of cat litter from one house to the next, because if I was doing a grocery delivery I often would add it to my cart for convenience since someone was delivering for me. Well, since being in the new house I'm off my game and incorrectly assumed we had as much cat food stored up as cat litter....wrong.
I found myself having a bit more free time once I got into the swing of not online shopping. I often click on advertisements or search online for things, and even though I don't check out, I spend a lot of time browsing. I knew I couldn't just "browse" so I simply knew I couldn't click.
I'm finding that we are getting a bit more creative with what we have as well. For example, we had my parents over for dinner last night for chili, and I needed a side. I ended up using oat bran from the cabinet (from one of Kevin's food phases) I was able to google a recipe to make muffins to go with our chili! That is something I never would have normally done (I hate cooking...if you don't remember), and likely would have thrown out the oat bran in 2 years when it expired. I also had a great time organizing our medicine cabinet, realizing I actually have 3 tubes of toothpaste, plenty of half used boxes of sudafed, and lots of various cold medicines. This all occurred when our family came down with the flu at the end of the weekend (also this is the THIRD time we have gotten the flu this season. It averages to about every 6 weeks...what is happening??)
Overall it has been a great week! I've decided the first week is really just getting in the mindset and remembering you aren't supposed to spend money. We had a few online orders that trickled in at the beginning of the week, but not much. We are accustomed to receiving about a package a day due to my online shopping addiction, so I think that will hit us more as the month progresses. We have a lot of "tricks" up our sleeves for the rest of our no-spend month, and are hoping to enjoy a few of our other free/membership haunts (the zoo and the botanical gardens) along with some great stay-cation activities (Lorelai's first finger painting and coloring with dad).
What did we do this week? We found fun ways to stay inside (like tea parties). We have been racking up amazon no-rush promo credits for movie rentals, and used them to stay in an watch a movie. Our house also has had a nice cleaning with the free time (clearly not before the photo of the tea party was taken)We visited our new local library twice (when we moved, we switched libraries since we moved into a suburb). We actually got pretty excited to become more involved in our new community! We spent time cooking at home, which is something I normally never do, but with a little extra time from not shopping, and being very aware of our grocery budget, we got to enjoy home cooked meals! We also visited the local art museum, which we don't remember ever taking Lorelai to yet.
I mentioned earlier that in December I signed up for a Meal Prep class with my mom! Our local grocery store (Hy-Vee for you Nebraska folks) has this amazing freezer meal prep class. Each store and dietitian on staff schedules and plans their own, but most have something similar. We made 5 meals, 3 sides, each set to feed 5-8 people. My mom and I had been wanting to try it for a while, and finally our schedules aligned for this week. It is $100, and we paid last month. Anyway, if you're going to do a class like this, its great to do in a No-Spend month, but felt a little like cheating because we really did want to use what we had in the house. In my defense, what we have in the house isn't a ton right now, since we just moved and it isn't like we have years of pantry items that have been sitting there. Still, I know it will make this month much easier on our grocery goal. Overall keeping the grocery bill down to $150 for a month is pretty good in my book ($100 for the meal prep and $50 for the fresh foods, milk etc. I budgeted for this month so my 1 year old wasn't eating ramen each day).
I found myself having a bit more free time once I got into the swing of not online shopping. I often click on advertisements or search online for things, and even though I don't check out, I spend a lot of time browsing. I knew I couldn't just "browse" so I simply knew I couldn't click.I'm finding that we are getting a bit more creative with what we have as well. For example, we had my parents over for dinner last night for chili, and I needed a side. I ended up using oat bran from the cabinet (from one of Kevin's food phases) I was able to google a recipe to make muffins to go with our chili! That is something I never would have normally done (I hate cooking...if you don't remember), and likely would have thrown out the oat bran in 2 years when it expired. I also had a great time organizing our medicine cabinet, realizing I actually have 3 tubes of toothpaste, plenty of half used boxes of sudafed, and lots of various cold medicines. This all occurred when our family came down with the flu at the end of the weekend (also this is the THIRD time we have gotten the flu this season. It averages to about every 6 weeks...what is happening??)
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Bobbie Allgood