31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero - Day 16

Days 8-16 of the challenge were primarily about cleaning and organizing. I am a big fan of cleaning and organizing as part of a holistic financial wellness plan. It can be easy to forget what is shoved in the back of closets. As an example my daughter has become really interested in board games recently. Remembering that we had some board games collecting dust we took a trip down to the basement where she found the game "Clue". Would you believe it had never even been played?!? I don't even remember how we came to acquire it! Thus something that was collecting dust became a found treasure for my daughter.

It can be easy to have a knee jerk reaction to run out and buy a new game, toy, piece of clothing etc without stopping to take stock of what we already have. What about you? Have you ever been cleaning or organizing and been thrilled to find something you forgot you had?

31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero - day 7

Ok, so maybe I won't post every day. Anyways, I'm back to post about my family's progress toward the zero spending goal. So far it's going very well. I don't have any non-essential spending to report. We did end up doing a rather large grocery shopping on Saturday at the club store we belong to, but that being said we stayed focus on buying only essential ingredients and avoided snack food and beverages.

Day 4: The homework for day 4 was, "plan a meal swap" with the main focus being to cook in bulk. We don't really have anyone locally that we can practically do this with, so we opted to not participate in the swap but definitely did take on the recommendation of cooking in bulk. We've done this before and we're always glad we did. It's also one of the reasons we went to the club store. on Day 4. We stocked up on large quantities of meat and produce which facilitated the created of several portions of Potato Leek Soup, Shepherd's Pie and Pot Roast with fixings. What I liked best was that last night instead of rushing through making dinner I was able to come home, pop the pre-made Shepherd's Pie into the oven and then enjoy a game of Candy Land with my daughter. Not to mention there was far less clean-up after dinner.

Day 5: Day 5 was "eat out at home" day. We haven't done this yet, but I definitely plan on trying the home made Frapucinos!

Day 6: Day 6 was "get a free education" day. This goes back to my #1 money saving tip - "instead of buying something, do something. Personally, I'm working on building my skills on the two musical instruments I play. I'm also taking some time to brush up on my industry knowledge using the free classes available on Coursera. My husband will be back out in the woods hunting next week. Whatever it is, whether the re-invigoration of a once favored pass time or taking up something new by not wasting our days shopping we will find that we have much more time to build more fruitful skills.

Day 7: Day 7 is for "Week 1 Reflection". So far it's going really well. Personally, I'm not a big shopper to begin with. I loath shopping actually, but there are still silly little ways we all waste money even if we're not mall dwellers. I think for my family the biggest realization was that we have to do a better job meal planning, and also to stay away from the coffee shops. We love our mochas, but not enough for them to be a line item on our budget.

The next two days are all about cleaning the house. While I appreciate the gesture, the author of the blog hosting this clearly does not work a 9-5 like I do. Hauling out the house in the middle of the week doesn't exactly fit my lifestyle. So, I'm going to work that in where it works best for me. My husband and I actually did a pretty big cleaning a couple of weeks ago, so I might come up with some alternatives for the next couple of days. Stay tuned!

Be Well,
- Nicole

31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero - day 3

I know I said I would post every day and have already missed a day, but in all fairness I was down for the count yesterday with a bad head cold and didn't have the brainpower to formulate a blog post. I'm back on track though and ready to move forward with the challenge. Here's a a bit of a recap.

Day 1 - Went very well. We did send the dog to dog daycare, but if you knew my dog you would know that is a necessity. If he doesn't go at least once a week he becomes impossible. Some might disagree, but I'm calling that a necessity.

Total unnecessary spending - $0

Day 2 - Could have been better. I mindlessly bought some ice cream and a bone for my dog, both which were certainly not necessities. Especially considering I have all the ingredients for brownies and/or a variety of cookies at home if I really wanted something sweet. 

Total unnecessary spending - $8.18

Today - Today is going well. There is one major thing I should mention, however. My husband is buying a new truck today. It's something we have been going back and forth on for a while. He really needs it for his line of work and as much as we have tried to make due with our current vehicles, the time has come for him to make this purchase. To be fair though, we began researching and arranging this before we knew about the challenge so I'm giving us a pass on this. 

Now the homework for yesterday was to clean out the pantry and today's assignment was to do some meal planning. I will be working on both of those tonight. This part is especially interesting to me because I think a lot of people have the misconception that eating well is expensive. I joke, however, that my husband and I ate the healthiest when our income was at it's lowest. When we were first married I was a full time college student. We spent a good amount of time living primarily on oatmeal, beans, cheddar cheese, vegetables and rice. It's actually amazing how many great recipes you can make with these simple foods as a base. Not to mention that your wallet and waistline will thank you for it.

So that's my task over the next 24 hours. Go through the cabinets and see what's for dinner this week. While I don't keep a lot of back stock, I know I have an abundance of dried beans that are waiting to be cooked up. Off the top of my head I'm thinking I have the fixings for Potato Leek Soup, Mung Dal, Vegetarian Chili, Beans, Rice & Tomato (one of my favorite budget meals) and Shttp://www.livingwellspendingless.com/31-days/livingwellspendingzero/paghetti. I'll update tomorrow and let you know if I find any surprises!

Be Well!

- Nicole

What Ruth Said - 31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero

31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero

Whoa, where did September go? I've been very busy with a host of projects over the last few weeks. My jaw dropped when I realized I hadn't posted since August! That being said, sometimes when life becomes hectic it becomes easy to let our guard down when it comes to our personal financial habits. So, I'm taking the month of October to re-evaluate and re-prioritize using the "31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero" challenge from "Living Well Spending Less".

I will be posting daily using Ruth's daily prompts. Today involves setting ground rules. We all have different definitions about what is "essential spending" and there may some things that we're already committed to that will involve some "non-essential spending". For example, being a parent of a pre-schooler I will have some costs associated with Halloween. I'm also part of a wedding party in early November that will result in some expenses. That being said, I can still step back and look closely at each related purchase and make an effort to do it as inexpensively as possible.

We'll see how it goes. Check it out and stay tuned!

Be Well,
Nicole