No Spend Month Wrap Up

Family Shot: Halloween 2012

I can't believe how long it has been since I posted!  Geez, I've been busy.  I'm not even sure with what, I certainly don't feel like I have accomplished much in the last several weeks.  I guess growing a baby takes a lot out of you!  I've spent most days working my hinder off at the office and have come home too pooped to do much more than the basics.  Most nights I don't make it to 10pm, my husband would tell you some nights I don't make it till 9pm (I think there were a few nights that I beat the 4 year old to bed).   For those of you that are fans of Modern Family, last night's episode was about "pregnancy brains".  I've been experiencing a mild case of that lately.  Latest proof was found in my fridge tonight when I decided to store the ice cream in there last night.  I was really looking forward to eating that ice cream tonight.

My Pregnancy Brain sabotaging me.  I was looking forward to eating that ice cream.

We did make it through our "No Spend" Challenge.  No tears were shed but I have to say, I am so HAPPY it is over!  That was not easy!  We spent a total of $418.  Certainly, we went well over our $250 allotment but if I take gas purchases out of the picture (which I really probably should have done given that our cars are not an option), we only spent $254.  Woot!  Woot!  I'm going to call that a success!  We accomplished this by eating a lot of cheap simple meals.  Meals like: eggs, grilled cheese, lots of rice side dishes.  We also ate lots of staples from our pantry and freezer, some of them were past their "expiration" (do noodles really expire?).  We also rarely ate out (unless someone else was paying) and kept ourselves entertained by doing "free" stuff, like going to the zoo (we already have a membership), visiting with family, and playing outside at the park.

J as a Monster for Halloween 2012

I crafted almost exclusively using supplies that I already own, forgoing Papertrey Ink's product release on the 15th.   That's a HUGE sacrifice people, especially with the holidays sneaking up on us as fast as they always do.  I was still able to make my son's Halloween costume and stick to budget.  This year he was a monster. I spent a total of $9 ($7 on the sweatshirt and $2 on the ping pong balls), everything else for his costume came from my craft supplies already on hand.  I'd say the costume was a success and I'm super happy he decided against going as a frog, I had no idea how I was going to make that happen.  

J's cute monster tail

Our best week was our last week and a half, which I find to be completely odd since I thought that would be the hardest week of all of them.  We only spent $79 that week ($29 of that on gas).  I did exclude a $30 dog food purchase.  Our dog doesn't eat the way it is, I really didn't need to purposely starve him for the purposes of this challenge.  Don't worry, he was as happy as a clam, I was trying to prolong his food purchase as long as possible and he got cans of wet dog food that we had laying around the house.  For a dog that doesn't eat, I've never seen him so happy!  He had no problems eating on wet dog food days, what a stinker.

I'm happy we did this challenge.  I feel a little better going into this holiday season of spending with the previous month of "no spend" behind us.  This may or may not become an annual event for us.  I have almost a whole year to figure that out.