No Spend January Confessions

Yep, it is only the 13th of the month and already I have confessions to make.

Let's start at the beginning.  January 1st, our family began a self imposed (read, MOM imposed) no spend January.  This was to include no clothing, entertainment and house hold items, with the exception of 4 Sunday after church meals, using gift cards for two meals and spending under $10 per outing for the other two meals. (You can read the full No-Spend January post!) I convinced them, sort of, that it would be a good way to save some extra money, maybe get to bless someone else at the end of the month, and be a good way to practice patience and self control.  Not to mention, we do not NEED anything.  Seriously!

So confession number one-
It was a bad idea on my part to try this the month we are trying to sell a house!  At the very least, it makes it more challenging.

Which leads to confession number two-
We had a last minute showing the first day on the market and had to head out of the house at lunch time.  Yes, I bought lunch out.  As cheaply as possible, but spent money none the less.  Because I was ill prepared gathering the dog, straightening the house, and getting one child off to work on time led to a crunch. I thought things our better the following day and we had a picnic lunch at the park- a story for another day.

Confession number three-
Our first lunch out cost about $10.38ish.  (I cannot find the receipt to save my life!)  But hey, I was pretty proud of ourselves- 5 people ate for just about $10.  Today our lunch costs us a little over $15, so about $5 over.  We probably could have changed a few lunch choices and hit our mark, but overall it could have been a lot worse considering what it usually cost to feed 5 of us.

Confession number four-
My family is not overly excited about my whole plan, and with an anticipated February move, I doubt our experiment will last past this month.  Move time is stressful and I do not want to make things worse.

It's certainly not over- so I will keep you updated. And wow, there are some big things on the horizon around here- can't wait to share!

Blessings