Saturday, October 12, 2013

Week Six of the Spending Freeze Challenge

This was my first week off from work and in order to follow along with our Spending Freeze, I limited any activities that would involve spending money.

Here's a recap of our week...

I spent $96.01 on groceries and we totally ran out of food.  With me no longer eating at work and the boys not eating a majority of their meals at childcare, we just plain ran out.  I'm going to have to adjust some things and possibly put a little more money towards groceries. 

I read about people who spend $50 on average on weekly groceries for a family of four.  It makes me wonder, how do they do that?


The boys and I walked to a neighbor's home for a play-date, went on several walks, packed drinks and snacks for soccer practice and combined a trip to the library with grocery shopping.


An unschooling group that we are a part of organized a game day at a local coffee house.  It was a little bit of a drive but other than gas, didn't cost me anything.  Matthew and Liam chose to spend their own money to buy hot chocolate and I just hung out and played memory with Liam while Matt played Monopoly with friends.






My husband and I decided to go out to dinner with the boys this week.  We hadn't spent any money aside from groceries and gas and so we treated ourselves to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.  We went before 6:00 p.m. and got their early dinner specials and had coupons for two free kids meals from the summer reading program this past year.  We had water to drink and spent a total of $23.00, including the tip.


We have suspended our satellite account which is going to save us $85.00 per month.  I've been pushing, I mean, encouraging my husband to let us do without it for over a year now.  It finally hit home how much we can save compared to how much we actually watch.  Having 100's of shows available for the boys is not the direction I want to go and saving money was a great excuse.


We've doubled our savings from last week and it's a good feeling to be choosing to not spend money.  When we have no money, it feels a little like we're depriving ourselves of things.  We can't go there, we can't do that, we can't have that, etc.  We have money and as I so kindly remind my seven year old when he asks, we are choosing to save it instead of spend it.




To read more about our Spending Freeze Challenge, click this link: Frugal Living





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