March - No-Spend Month

I realize that it has been two month since this blog was started and neither of us has written anything since that tiny initial post that Lee made.  We haven't even really introduced ourselves or kept (at all!) up to date with how things have been going here in the amateur house...I promise that we will do that.  However, today is March 1st, 2013 and we are embarking on an adventure (of sorts)...

NO SPEND MONTH!

Lee and I have been working on tweaking our spending and getting even closer to finishing paying off our student loan debt (we have already paid off over half {!} since the start of 2010!!!)  After reading Carrie Rocha's (she runs the Pocket Your Dollars website and is super awesome!!!) book Pocket Your Dollars (if you want to borrow it, let me know!!!), I asked Lee to read it, as I felt it had some really good ideas.  While we have already done really well for ourselves in the past few years, I figured some extra tips and ideas couldn't hurt.  Lee really liked the ideas Carrie had and we both decided to really move forward and start fixing this stuff.  We want to get rid of this student loan debt (and our car loan...) ASAP and we are determined to do it, but we aren't going to be miserable while doing it.

I have started religiously using Pocket Your Dollars and other sites like Totally Target to find deals and coupons to reduce our grocery and household spending (PS both sites TOTALLY break it down for you.  If they know of both a store and manufactures coupon to create a great deal {free even!} they put it up there, clear as day).  We invested in a new printer (ours was pretty ancient and didn't work so well anymore), so I could print coupons and such.  I also started really focusing on not buying "stuff" we don't really need.  Additionally, we downloaded YNAB (34-day free trial!) and are using that to track our budget and spending and actually make this work for us. While we haven't been using it very long, I really think it will help us and may make the investment to actually buy it.

Getting back to the No Spend Month thing...

A while back, I pinned something on Pinterest about a family doing something called a No Spend Month.  They only spent $250 for a family of 3 for a month on things like groceries, gas, clothing, eating out, yada yada (aside from mortgage, bills, etc).  The other night, I asked Lee what he thought, but with my own tweaks and he agreed to do it!  So...for the month of March, this amateur household is having our own version of No Spend Month!  Here are our "rules":

• We are starting with $100
• I pulled this out in cash money, so we have more of a visual of where we are
• What is included in the $100?
• Lilly's Birthday Party (!)
• Chase's (our nephew...my Godson) Birthday Present
• Groceries
• Other household needs
• Entertainment/Fun
• What are we not including in the $100?
• Mortgage, Utilities, Insurance
• Student Loans
• Car Payment, Insurance
• Typical Monthly Bills
• Gas
• This decision wasn't easy, but with me still trying to get into my new work routine, we didn't know how to "budget" this
• Can we do it?
• YES!

Starting With THIS $100

I am going to try to keep this up to date, as best I can, with how we are doing each week.  I will let you know what how much money we have left!  Let's do this!!!

XOXO

~Katie