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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

No Spend March?


I was inspired by Amy at MotherLoad: the MomAdvice Blog. Last month she did a No-Spend Month and I wanted to join her on her adventure, but there were too many things going on in February so I'm going to try this for March and we'll see how we do. It's been proven to be a real challenge already and it's only the 4th. We'll see how well we do at this. Here's the plan from Amy:

"When we say no spending, we mean no spending outside of our normal daily living expenses. Some things will still need to be purchased in order to keep the lights lit, food on our table, and diapers on our baby."

That leaves it pretty wide open, but we will only be buying the necesseties. Now, I might think that having more Downy for our laundry is a necessity, but in reality, this is a luxery that I love and will be hard for me to give up...if we run out during the month. I think this will be good for our family. My husband and I usually go out for dinner on date night, so we'll see what creative things we can come up with so we don't have to spend any money. Oh, and I didn't really prepare in advance...I thought that would be cheating. So my pantry is not stocked up from February and I didn't go out and purchase a bunch of restaurant gift cards. We're doing this for real people and I will be very honest with our spending.

We already had an "incident" because my parents were in town kind of unexpectedly so we went out for lunch with them after church on Sunday...plus I kind of forgot it was the 1st of March. Also, it's my son's 3rd birthday this month and we've planned on having it at Valentino's. I will be making his cake so at least there's no spending there. I'll let you know how it goes.

March 1st - Jimmy John's $17.51 (Yikes!!)

3 comments:

Miche said...

That's a really great idea!! And I liked your idea for trying out potties before buying! I don't know if it was against the rules or not, but I did open a few to make sure the "hole" part was bigger than the one I have. I ended up getting the cute frog one from Fisher Price-not only was it way cheaper than the others at $10 (walmart) but it was made PERFECT for little boys with a big "hole" and a huge shield that is all one piece with the seat. NICE!

Unknown said...

WOW! What a great idea...that would be a challenge! Can't wait to hear how your month goes!

Blessings! Amy

Katie said...

Hi thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment today. I really appreciate it. I may have jump on the no spending band wagon as like everyone we could stand to save a little but more importantly we don't need any more stuff! I think sometimes I get caught up in all the things I HAVE to have when really there isn't much I HAVE to have. But this month, isn't a good one for us as my birthday is coming up and we've got other committments. I talked with my husband and May might work, this is an interesting idea for sure. Let us know how it goes.