Does that happen when you aren't pregnant? Because I'm not. Let me reiterate, I am NOT pregnant. But I do think I've been nesting. Maybe it's because with homeschool comes the need for organization or maybe it's that I'm reaching 30(ok, I've got a few years) and still have yet to keep a clean room. And I'm no shining example to the girls in trying to teach them to keep theirs clean! There's no mom to yell at me anymore about keeping a clean room because I am the mom.
With organization comes decluttering. It's amazing how much better you feel when there isn't clutter EVERYWHERE! I just cleaned out our walk in closet and there were things in there I haven't even seen in a year! How spoiled are we in America that we have things that we don't even use in an entire year? And more importantly that we've never even missed!
So, along those lines, I was inspired yesterday while reading an article in the Reader's Digest of a family who spent nothing for an entire month. They bought bread, milk, or fresh fruit(perishable things) but nothing else. They didn't stock up in order to have enough food for the month either. They wanted to use up what they had. They gave themselves $100 and I don't know what they used it for but they promised not to buy anything all month long. I think even their gas came out of that $100. Anyway, I decided we're going to do this starting October 1st. I made the decision on a whim, didn't think about it. What's there to think about? There are plenty of people that don't get to choose whether or not they spend money each month. I can run to Walmart to pick up a gallon of milk and walk out with a gallon of milk, a pack of pop, a frozen pizza, a t-shirt for Kylie that she liked and was on sale, shampoo...
So, I figured in order to keep myself accountable I'd list my goals for the month:
1. Buy nothing.
Ha, sounds so easy. I will buy bread, bananas, grapes and milk because those things might last a month but probably wouldn't taste very good.
2. Limit gas to $120 for the van(which is 3x a week to town for Awana's, Bible Study, and swim lessons) and $100 for Jake's long, long Ford that he uses for work.
3. Buy(before October 1st, lol) a $10 phone card to use for long distance calls and limit long distance calls to doctors/clinic only. My long distance bill every month is around $70 so if I spend $10 on a phone card that's a big savings. And it might last me more than a month, who knows!!
We'll see how it goes. I'm thinking of more goals as I go. Maybe I'll do a "No tv" month sometime too! That will of course have to wait until the next season of Grey's Anatomy is over. :)
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4 comments:
that sounds so invigorating! what an awesome idea. you'll probably be surprised at what you can live without (well... for a month!) so good luck! i'm the same way... when the check out lady asks me if i found everything i was looking for i usually say, "no... i found more than what i was looking for!" i too, buy the shirt for samantha that i can't live without and buy 3 boxes of mac-n-cheese just to come home and put them in the pantry next to the other 5 boxes that we already have! AHHH! sounds like i need to try that too! you'll have to blog about it in november!
I would love to do this too, but I have three kids in either pull ups or diapers. Are all three of yours out of them? Or what do you use? Not to discourage you or anything just wondering! We are moving into a house later this year and we need to cut down on what we spend every month so this would be a great learning experience for us to figure out what we do spend and what we don't need!!! Definitely let us know how it is going!!!
Hmm.. I am ok with all of that outside of the only calling the doctors long distance. That means MY phone bill will go up! lol
Chare,
My girls are out of diapers and Emeric uses cloth. I took a break from cloth diapers for the last couple months because he's had bouts of diarrhea off and on and that's disgusting but I don't NEED diapers so I'll just have to use the cloth! Which is fine! :)
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