A No Spending Challenge

My husband and I sat down before we left for Florida and realized that we were in desperate need of a financial overhaul. I wish there was some magical reinforcements that could come in and redo, re-fi-niggle, and leave us with a perfect and no fault budget plan. But....there's no such thing so we're left to act as the adults in our family of four and mend our broken puzzle.

Just as it is with most families in this country, we spend majority of our money on food and filling our bellies.

"The average amount spent on groceries each week for such a family would add up to $144.30 on the thrifty plan, $183.80 on the low-cost plan, $228.70 on the moderate plan and $279.60 on the liberal plan." --Rebecca Moore

Yeah, I'm not sure if we qualify for liberal. Honestly. We KNOW that we spend way to much, but not just on food alone. The quirky thing is, we don't know where it's all going. Ok...that's not quirky at all...that's lazy and irresponsible. I know.

And I know I just shared a big purchase with yall yesterday, but we're not counting that since we've actually been saving for that for quite some time. *frown*

Evaluation was long over due for us though. After Florida, we challenged ourselves to a no spending month. We really wanted to spend as little as possible and we have been extremely strict with our finances. We laid out a generic budget outline for us to attempt to follow in hopes that it might help us to see where our money is going.

We also vowed the following:

-No spending on random things.

-No "time-to-kill" trips to the stores.
-One "eat-out" night a month

-Grocery trip once a month (not to sure on this one)

-One meat market trip a month
-As little driving as possible to save on gas
-Save all receipts!
- Sticking to the menu Moma has planned
-Seriously use the cash envelopes I made a while back.

We've already entered pay period 2 and things are going good. We had money to spare after pay period one. However, I'm pretty sure we still went over our food allotment. I'm really curious to see how well things will look at the end of the month when we sit down and look over the all of the action ins and outs. I'm really ready to have this thing under control and feel comfortable about buying a new activity for girls without worries of affording it or not (hince a little hindsight on the jumper castle).

At the end of the month, we plan to sit down again and plan out another budget based on the old one. I'm working on a budget worksheet for us to use since we didn't have one last time. Once I get it tweaked and finished, I'll share it with you.

I'll keep you updated on our progress.