Well our monthly "No Spend" challenge has come to an end. The last week (which was really 10 days thanks to the long month) was a killer! Man alive was it hard. I came down with a stomach virus during the last week of this challenge and it contributed to us not making our goal to only spend $200 for the entire month of January. I got to say though, we came really really close and I'm really proud of how close we came.
We didn't start out so hot. My hubby ordered a couple mouth guards online for $12, sure that's a good deal and sure he needs them but during our home stretch? Yeah, I let it slide, after all I had no business making that marker and stamp order in week three which was well over $12. We had friends over one day and our lack of dinner planning caused us to order a pizza after they left. I had good intentions to put something in the crock pot that day, it just never happened. We spent $7 out of our pocket thanks to a visa rebate card my hubby had in his wallet.
We've been in a disagreement about these gift cards all month and if they count or don't count against our "No Spend" challenge. I say they don't count because we have so many that we haven't used (well over $500 people!). He thinks it is cheating. I say, "this is my game, we follow my rules". Right?!
I'm not sure why we have so many. It is like I collect them to never use them. I say enough is enough, this is free money that needed to get cashed in! Now in fairness, I always buy our grocery gift cards through my son's scrip program through school (his school gets 5-10% of the sale back to them). We agreed a long time ago (outside of this challenge) to count those gift cards in our budget when we spend the money at the grocery store and not when we buy the actually gift cards, so any spending I did at the grocery store this month (regardless if it was spent with a GC) counted against our budget. All the rest of the gift cards pictured here came to us as gifts or as store credit. Anyway, the point was, my hubby is wrong and I'm right. I just want to be sure we all remember the point here. I'm right. He's wrong. Awe, that never gets old. The only thing that would make that statement better is if it was coming out of his mouth instead of mine.
The rest of the week's spending was a direct result of a stomach virus which I had for 5 very LONG days: crackers, Gatorade, drugs from the pharmacy, McDonald's for the boys. I think you get the picture. Here is the breakdown:
$12 Mouth Guards
$7 Pizza
$7.50 Drugs at the pharmacy
$2.50 One sleeve of crackers (the only thing I ate for 4 days, yes just the one sleeve)
$8.50 McDonald's (because I was a single parent on my sick day)
$2 Gatorade (Dr's orders)
$4 Milk (Hubby: "how much is a gallon of milk normally?", Me: "Not the same price as gold!")
$7 More milk, 2 gallons this time (making yogurt) and some washer fluid for my car
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$50.20 Total
We could of done better but in all fairness we really could have done much much worse!
So let me remind you how all the other weeks went:
$28.76 Week 1: We did great. We ate lots of meals from the freezer and used what was on hand
$72.29 Week 2: Yikes! I was the matron of honor in a wedding, it could have been much much worse!
$68.02 Week 3: I really got the itch to shop and spend some money....and I did.
$50.20 Week 4: For 10 days and a really bad stomach virus...not bad, not too bad at all.
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$219.27 Total
When all is said and done, we went $20 over our goal. Not bad, right? We should be reaping these rewards into February and March. I'm not going to lie though, I'm SOOOOO happy it is over!
Forgive me while I catch up from being sick. I'll be back soon with that yogurt post that I promised last week!
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