$150 Challenge Final Tally

$150.00 Challenge

The $150.00 Challenge for the month of July officially ended for me today when I went to the grocery store for a 12 hour sale.  I did quite well this month.  In fact, having a challenge helped me stay on track for the entire month, especially while on vacation. 

To review, the $150.00 challenge I gave myself was to reduce my miscellaneous and grocery spending by a total of $150.00 for the month of July.  We reduced our spending in these two categories by $151.51 and here is the best part - it was entirely painless.  I did not feel deprived at all. 

Here is why I was successful.  I was diligent about keeping track of every cent spent with a free app. on my cell phone.  As I shopped, I entered my totals on that app. so I could see the tally of what I was spending.  I immediately took those receipts when I got home and entered them on my spreadsheet on the computer into the different categories.  I used to wait until the weekend to do this but now I do it as soon as I get home.  Also I started to keep three lists on my fridge.  One was an ongoing grocery list and the second was an ongoing "Walmart" type list.  I tried very, very hard to shop for the items on the Walmart list once a week.  Also, before I left the house, I looked at that list to make sure that we really needed the things on the list.  I found myself crossing a few items off the list over the course of the month. 

The third list was a wish list of grocery items that I was waiting for a great deal so we could stock up.  On my list this month was 85% lean ground beef, chicken hindquarters (I cut them up into drumsticks and thighs) and ham.  This helped me to stay focused when I was shopping and not purchase something that I already had a large amount in the freezer.  Sure enough 85% lean ground beef was on sale and so was ham.  Hopefully in August chicken hindquarters will go on sale as I only have about 2 left in the freezer.

What have I learned?  To be aware of where our money is going.  I was doing a lot of unconcious spending.  I found that having more money at the end of the month can be a bigger high than buying something.   Not buying stuff makes me happier.  Thinking about how long it takes my DH to earn the money to pay for something makes me think more about how important it is to stretch our income and not spend so much.

So the challenge was a great success.  My DH and I are talking about our finances every week when we do a quick review of expenses and income to track where we are at.  I know that I can knock off another $100.00 a month from our spending after what I have been through this month.  From having this success it makes me want to move on and do even more.

For August I plan to reduce spending by another $100.00 and contribute to my Charity Challenge.  August has it's challenges as we will be paying for our son's Senior Pictures and will have some back to school expenses.

Again, it's living life conciously and making those tiny conscious decisions that will add up to dollars saved down the road. 

$150 Challenge - Final Tally Coming Soon

$150 Challenge

I have been tallying up my receipts and have only a few days left in this month and my $150 Challenge.  I've been doing well and will share the final tally in a few days.

$150 Challenge Update

I will give my total results at the end of this month, but so far we are doing great on this challenge.  Putting it in writing on this blog has helped me to stay on track.  One example is that while on vacation I only spent $8 on myself.  My DH didn't spend anything on himself.  We normally would pick up books at museums and such to read later, but both of us just browsed and walked on.  We were having a lot of fun with our DS and I think we just didn't feel the need to spend money on stuff. 

I read the book "The Simple Dollar" while on vacation.  I downloaded it on my Kindle and the main thing I learned from that book was the value of relationships over stuff.  I would much rather spend time with my family creating memories than buying books.  I am surprised at how I have reduced my spending and more surprised at how I don't feel the urge to go and buy stuff. 

Also my DH and I have had several discussions this month about ways to save on expenses.  We plan to drop our land line.  It has been discussed in the past but we always felt that since it only cost us an additional $10 a month on our cable and internet package, it just wasn't worth giving up.  When we got back from vacation there wasn't one message on our land line as everyone called us on our cell phones and left messages.  Dropping the land line will be easier than we thought.

Interest rates have been low so we checked into refinancing our house but the monthly payment would only be reduced by $15 so it is not worth the expense of refinancing.  But we did talk about it and check into it.

The challenge has caused us to be more conscious about spending and about ways to save money.  In the end it was a lesson well learned. 

Miscellaneous Spending Update - Oops

I have written this post, rewritten it and previewed it several times today.  I didn't want to post this as it shows that I have failed miserably over the past few months.  I feel like a fake.  I feel as if I have been living a lie by making by own laundry soap and then ordering something online.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  My family depends on me to be more prudent and I have let them down.  I can't go back in time and change things. The only thing I can do is to move on and get past this failure.   Yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn't happened, all I have is today.   So - here is today's post.  - Martha

As part of reducing our spending by $150 a month, I went through the grocery and miscellaneous spending that I had been tracking.  I take all my receipts from the grocery stores and Wal-mart or other store and enter them in Excel.  My DH also takes these receipts and enters them into Quicken.  He pays all our bills.  So while I track my spending, he tracks both of our spending. 

My grocery spending is within our budget.  That is good news for me. 

When reporting the average of $143.00 a month spent on miscellaneous spending, I neglected to add into my miscellaneous spending my monthly credit card payment and my DH's miscellaneous spending.  Yes, old habits do die hard, and I charge some items each month on my credit card.  Most of these are on-line purchases and yes, they are not necessary.  Each month the credit card payment is paid in full and it averages $50 to $100 a month in my spending.  My DH has never called me to accountability on these expenditures, because truth be told, he has a credit card that he uses for online purchases, but not at the level that I do. 

Miscellaneous spending in our household does not include household repairs, clothing, car repairs, pet expenses or school lunches as examples.  It is just that, miscellaneous.  It is what I call our life category and lately I think I have been experiencing a little too much life such as books, fabric, dvd's and online subscriptions, dishes, place mats, cell phone gadgets, and  music downloads, to name a few. 

After talking with my DH today he estimated that our miscellaneous spending in the past 3 months has been more around $300 a month.  Yikes!!!   And the worse part is that my credit card spending added into my cash spending was a big part of the overspending in the miscellaneous category.   Part of me wanted him to print out what was spent on miscellaneous so I could review it but the other part of me told me that I needed to move on and start anew.  I'm not going to beat myself up over this.  The money has been spent and I can't change that as that is in the past.  The only thing I can do is to take action today so that I don't continue to overspend in the future. 

Being accountable in this blog is important to me and admitting to overspending is kind of hard.  I am more than embarrassed, I am ashamed.  That is a lot of money spent on life. 

In looking over the past 6 months I think I settled into my homemaker life and as time went on I started spending a little bit more and it snowballed.  A lot of those expenditures I justified as being expenses for the home.  The best way to describe my life is to use a phrase from Oprah Winfrey and her Debt Diet Show - I began to live my life "unconsciously."  It's embarrassing to say in a blog entitled "The Path to Frugality" that I began to spend money recklessly and without thinking about what I was doing.  I really don't think that I am alone.  Like on a food diet, I fell off the money diet wagon, got a wake up call and now am back on the wagon. 

So last week I made some conscious changes. I think before I buy.  I know, it is pretty simple.  Maybe I should change the title of this blog to "Just Think."

Grocery Shopping - July 1st and the $150 Challenge

 

$150.00 Challenge

No pictures of the groceries, sorry.  It was too hot yesterday to set all the groceries out on a table to take a picture. Here is what I purchased at Fareway and Hy-Vee and Wal-mart yesterday.

6 pints of blueberries @ 93 cents a pint  - $5.58 - Sale
1 small cantaloupe - .94 cents - Sale
2 lbs. of bananas @ .49 - total 98 cents - Regular price
2 loaves of half price French bread @ .57 - $1.14 - Sale
2 Bags of potato chips @ 88 cents - $1.76 - Sale
2 bags of bagels @ $1.19 a bag - $2.38 - Regular price
2 loaves of Sara Lee Whole Wheat Bread @ 99 cents - $1.98 - Sale
12 lbs. 85% lean hamburger @ $1.79 lb. - purchased 12 lbs. -$21.61 - Sale
Iowa Top Sirloin Steak - $2.99 lb. - purchased about 3 lbs. - total $7.30 - Sale
1 gallon 1% milk - $2.79 - Regular price
Brown Sugar Deli Ham - $2.99 lb. - purchased about 2 lbs. - total $6.28 - Sale
Smoked Deli Turkey - $2.49 lb. - purchased about 2 lbs. - $5.30 - Sale
4 lb. bag of granulated sugar - $1.38 - Sale
3 pkgs. of Hamburger and Hot Dog Buns @ .59 - total of $1.77 - Sale
PB Granola Bars - $2.10 - Sale
1/2 gallon Ice Cream - $1.48 - Sale

Total cost of groceries:  $64.77

As you can see the majority of the items I purchased were on sale.  They were not only on sale, they were a good sale.  The advantage of keeping track of prices is knowing when a sale is a real sale.

Now by way of explanation:  I purchased a total of 4 lbs. of deli meats as they were very good quality, on sale and I would need some sandwich meat for vacation the week of July 10th.  I froze 3 lbs. of the meat for now. 

The ground beef was an excellent deal.  One store had set the sale and Wal-mart and the other grocery store matched it.  There was a limit of 4 lbs. per store. 

The blueberries were in season and on sale at a very low price.  I washed them and spread them in layers on two cookie sheets and stuck them in the freezer for about an hour.  They were then frozen as individual berries.  I packaged them in 1 cup packages ready to use in pies, muffins and coffeecakes this winter.  Out of the 6 pints I was able to get 14 cups of berries frozen.

I don't buy a lot of steak and when I do, it must be a good sale.  This steak is normally priced at $5.99 a lb. so I bought enough for the 4th of July when our son and daughter in law will be over for dinner.

My stock up items were the blueberries, ground beef and the deli meats. 

In my $150 challenge of spending less this month, I want to eat out of my pantry and cupboard and take advantage of that savings.  However I will be flexible with meat sales and produce.  I love having frozen blueberries on hand.  Before purchasing those fresh blueberries I priced a bag of already frozen blueberries.  They were $2.99 for a 12 oz. bag.  So, buying 6 pints now to freeze and use later is a great savings.

As I grocery shop this month, I have made a list of the items that I will stock up on if there is a sale.  They are chicken hindquarters (I cut them into drumsticks and thigh portions), orange juice, ground turkey and chuck roasts. 

How did I do compared to what I had been spending?   Here are my records for January through June of this year of my net grocery spending.  I have put the amount I saved in coupons in parentheses:

January -   $165.00      (coupons - $52.00)
February - $343.00      (coupons - $118.00)
March -     $348.00      (coupons - $98.00)
April -        $281.00      (coupons - $53.00)
May -        $533.00       (coupons - $66.00)
June -       $449.00       (coupons - $76.00)

My average net spending per month for groceries was $353.00.  My average coupon savings per month was $77.00.

Okay, this is not bad.  But it was the miscellaneous spending over the past 6 months that did me in. 

January -   $  93.00
February - $  86.00
March -     $166.00
April -        $107.00
May -         $166.00
June -        $242.00

I averaged $143.00 in miscellaneous.  This is fabric, books, razor blades, pet food, flowers for the garden, pillows, sewing patterns and more.  A lot of these purchases were necessary but many were not.  For example, I bought a lot of fabric and have yet had the time to sew.  I could have waited for a clearance sale.  Many of these purchases could have been delayed until a sale or not purchased at all. 

Bottom line, I need to rein in spending and spend more time being concious about what I am spending our money on.

So there it is.  Simple and with no pictures of the groceries and no pdf files (I couldn't figure out how to post a pdf file anyway).  Just the facts that I need to do a better job with the money God has given us and be more accountable to myself and my family as to the choices I make with the money that is earned.

Flag Shopping

Today was grocery shopping/miscellaneous shopping day.  Tomorrow I will post about the deals I got from the grocery stores.

I seem to be spending more time making decisions on how to spend our money with the $150 challenge.  Taking a little more time deciding if I really need something, is a good thing.

I am very patriotic.  You don't grow up in the household of a disabled American veteran without having a love for country and for the flag.  My dad always had a flag on the flagpole, properly displayed, at all times.  We would sit outside and he would look at the flag and say, "That is the most beautiful flag in the world."  My dad experienced the horrors of war that left him disabled, but those disabilities never swayed his love for the country and the American flag.

Our flag had become tattered so we gave it to a veteran's group and they properly disposed of it.   With the 4th of July this weekend it was important to me to buy another flag and hang it proudly from my front porch.  Today while shopping for groceries and other needed items, I priced flags.  I fly the banner flag as it seems to last longer but the price was double - $19.00.  I called around and visited a few other stores, but the flag at Wal-mart was the cheapest. 

I left Wal-mart and went home to think about it.  In late afternoon I went back to Wal-mart and bought the flag.  Why did I have to think about it?  For practice.  Delaying purchasing something does not come naturally to me and $19.00 was quite a sum of money.  In the end, patriotism prevailed and the flag is displayed on our front porch. 

Everytime I look out the window, I think of my father.  He would be proud that I have continued the tradition of flying the American Flag on my porch. 

$150 Challenge and Extra Expenses

                                                     $150 Challenge


When I set up the $150 Challenge I neglected to take a couple of things into account. In July we will be going to New York to visit my mother and our son is scheduled to have his Senior pictures taken in July.

If I waited until everything was perfect to plan a challenge, then it would never happen.  After all where is the "challenge" if I didn't have to deal with extra expenses?  So the challenge is still on no matter what.  Actually the trip money is set aside, it is the Senior pictures that I forgot about.  The sitting fee for the pictures is between $100 and $150 depending on how many outfits my son wears (yes, the photographer used the word outfits). 

It would appear that the $150 Challenge money may be used towards the photographer's sitting fee.  I'm not discouraged.  I'm encouraged as I know I can do it and I also know that this will help our budget by planning ahead, cutting back and saving for that sitting fee. 

This is what it is all about, being able to save money to handle the extras.  As to the accountability factor in this challenge, I will be posting each Monday what I spent the week prior and compare it to past weekly spending. 

$150 Challenge and Utility usage

I love the d.v.d. series Band of Brothers. I know, it is pretty violent, but that is war.  My father served in World War II and became disabled due to his injuries.  I have a lot of respect for our citizen soldiers. In one episode of Band of Brothers, General McAuliffe visits the front lines during the Battle of the Bulge. Our men had very little ammunition and no winter clothing. Also the lines were running very thin with men and they were having trouble holding back the Germans. General McAuliffe makes this statement “Hold the line, plug the holes. There is a lot of “blank” heading this way and with the fog, there will be no drops.”

Our soldiers did hold off the Germans and under very difficult circumstances including very little resources.

What does this have to do with the $150 challenge? I need to plug the holes in our budget. A few months ago I wrote a post talking about the little things adding up and they do.

Utilities are a big part of our budget. We have budget billing and pay the same each month, however, every quarter the utility company reviews our usage and increases or decreases the bill. I know it is obvious, but I never really thought about our electric or natural gas consumption and taking steps to reduce it. That is, until now.

This morning my DH told me that our electric bill for the month of May was the highest it had ever been. We had some very warm days toward the end of May so we naturally ran the air conditioners. I am now pondering ways to save on electricity and I am also trying to figure out why it was so high that month.

1. Turning off lights and TV: I am the one that is constantly turning off lights or the TV. when left on. I know, mothers have been facing this uphill battle ever since TVs and electricity were invented. I hate to nag about it, but the nagging may get worse until the message gets across.

2. Hanging clothes on the line: This week I started hanging our laundry on the line with the exception of my husband’s dress shirts and pants and towels. I have noticed that when I dry clothes it is taking a lot longer to dry them in the dryer. Could it be that the dryer is not performing as well? That would be the natural answer. Then the more I thought about I realized that the new washing machine had a larger tub and I was trying to dry too large a load in the dryer. The solution: I can split the loads of towels and dry half at a time. However, I do believe the next time I will dry them on the line and then while they are still a little damp, toss them into the dryer to fluff them. As to my husband’s dress clothes, when dried in the dryer they do not need ironing and that is a big plus to me.

3. Energy Efficient Lightbulbs: The dollar store has energy efficient light bulbs for only $1.00 each. I plan on replacing all of our light bulbs over the next month with energy efficient bulbs. We have some lamps that we only use once in a while, so I will leave the incandescent bulbs in those lamps for now.

4. Start unplugging: Today I am unplugging lamps and other electric items that we leave plugged in all the time that we don’t use daily.

5. Not using as many lights: It is okay to use the natural light coming through the windows on a cool day as your only lighting. We get too used to flicking a switch to turn on a light and it isn't necessary most of the time.

6. Air conditioners and fans: When we run our air conditioner we already have the temp set at a higher setting and I always keep the drapes closed when the sun is pouring in the house on those warm days. On the cooler summer days, how many fans do we need to have running at a time?

I remember reading somewhere that a woman did all of the above and she saved close to $30 a month on her electric bill and she lived in an apartment.

Our budget utility billing is reviewed every quarter and goes up or down according to our usage. I know that July and August are prime months for air conditioning in our area and I won’t turn off the air conditioning when it is very hot. I will make as many changes as I can to take the edge off of high electric usage months so that the bill won’t go up and over time, it will go down.

In September we will need to be more diligent about winterizing the house by caulking, weather stripping and putting plastic on windows.

Anyone have any other ideas for reducing utility bills?

Finally .... Sunshine!

We have had so many rainy days in the past month, that when I heard the forecast for this week I thought it was a mistake.  I'm not kidding when I say that it has rained practically every day and the ground is very saturated.  I have downplayed it.  It has stormed - lightning, thunder, tornadoes, straight line winds and hail over the past few weeks.  There are places in Iowa that are facing flooding.  Corn fields are looking like rice paddies. 

Today it was sunny, a breeze was blowing and the high was around 80 degrees.  It was a perfect day to finally be able to hang the clothes outside to dry. 

Now imagine my 17 year old son coming home from a student council fundraiser to see his underwear hanging on the line.  He was a little unhappy about that.  It would have been worse since 2 hours earlier the student council members were at our house painting the school mascot on our driveway.  Thank goodness I didn't hang out the clothes then.  He would have been totally embarrassed. 

After supper tonight my DH and I sat on our back deck and drank a cup of coffee.  It was nice and cool.  We sit out on the deck a lot in the evening and I enjoy sitting out there in the morning drinking a cup of coffee and watching everyone go to work.  That is so sweet. 

Today I headed to the grocery store for some milk.  When I walked into the store there was a grocery cart filled with bags of stuff (I couldn't see what it was from a distance).  There was a sign on the cart that said "50 cents."  I had to see what it was.  Hershey Kisses!!!! Yippee.  Nothing speaks to a woman like a bag of chocolate at a reduced price.  I bought 10 bags.  My DH took two to work to put in his candy dish and I took a bag to a neighbor lady who is in her last three weeks of pregnancy.  Yes, I do believe that chocolate is the best way to soothe even the final weeks of pregnancy.  The rest I will  hang on to and use in some baking and snacking.  The candy was discounted as it had an expiration date of July 2010. 

My Hershey Kiss bargain got me to thinking about the grocery stores I shop.  They are both located 1 block from each other and they are about 7 blocks from my house.  One store discounts meat while the other store discounts produce.  Perhaps I need to go to those stores more frequently so that I can take advantage of the discounted food, especially the produce.

I take a walk every day and I could include the grocery stores on my route. I could stop by one of the stores on my way back home and alternate the days I go to each store.  It would only take about 5 minutes to go in the store to check to see if they have anything reduced.  Another advantage to doing this is that it will soon start to heat up again and stopping by an air conditioned store on the way home from my walk might be kind of nice. 

It's just something I am pondering.

This weekend I did get a few great bargains at each grocery store:   90% lean ground beef for $1.69 lb., 8 oz. bags of shredded cheese for $1.00, 15 - 32 oz. bottles of Powerade for $5.00 (my DH is a runner), store brand cereals for $1.00 a box and I received a free seedless watermelon with the purchase of 4 liters of Diet Coke.  The Diet Coke was on sale for 50 cents.  But the best deal by far was the $10 grocery gift card we received from our local newspaper just for signing up to have the payment directly withdrawn from our checking account.

I am on a tight budget right now and will be for the next 6 months.  Now is when my stocked pantry and freezer will be put to good use. 

In setting the $150 challenge I realize that I have probably set it a little low, but I would rather set it low and be successful than to set it high and fail miserably.  My hope is that I can increase the challenge by $25 a month until I have found the point that I can't cut any further.  For me it is about the baby steps in making changes in my life.  Today was one of those baby steps. I have never hung the majority of my laundry outside to dry.  It was tiring as I was on my feet a lot today but I kept thinking this will save some money and my clothes will smell fresh. 

I'll be giving weekly updates on where I am on the $150 challenge.  I have 9 months of spending records to refer to along the way.  I know every penny I have spent over those 9 months so I will be able to calculate my savings and I have targeted the categories that I have been overspending.  Yuck - I hate to admit it but I got into a habit of picking up a $5 item here, spending $10 there and before you knew it, I had blown through $100.  It's very much like a food diet.  Sometimes you eat the ice cream sandwich and then you have to get back on track. 

I had a great day.  While I hung the laundry out I listened to some great music on my Mp3 player, day dreamed about ways to save money and made a list of projects we need to get done on the house.  It was one of those days that makes me happy I am homemaker. 

Picking up the Pennies

Am I the only one that is willing to bend down to pick up a penny?  I always do because it makes me feel happy.  Yeah, I know, it doesn't take much to make my day.  Sometimes we forget that pennies are not worthless, they are valuable when accumulated.

As part of my $150 challenge, I will be trying out some frugal tips and I will post what has worked for me.  Just like reaching down to pick up a penny off the ground, I will take those pennies (frugal tips)  and watch them grow into nickles, dimes and dollars.

$150 Challenge

As I have been working around the house this week I have been doing a lot of pondering about money and specifically how to spend less and save more.  I am being drawn back to the basics of living a more frugal lifestyle.  I bought Amy D.'s first "Tightwad Gazette" book back in January 1993 when our youngest son was a newborn.  I also have her two sequel books.  A few years later I bought Jonni McCoy's book "Miserly Moms."  I have started to re-read these books to bring me back to where I need to be with living on one income. 

I have become complacent in the last few months and have been overspending.  It's time to renew my conviction to live frugally.  It's not just saving for an emergency fund that has brought me back to the reality of our life, but it's wanting to meet other goals that I have set for our family. 

Next year our youngest son will graduate from high school.  He has a profound interest in politics and government.  He plans to major in government/history in college, so our plan is to go to Washington D.C. next June for our vacation. 

My DH comes home for lunch each day.  (He works only 4 blocks from our home.) Today we were sitting on our deck and we started to talk about the trip to D.C. and how we would be able to afford the trip.  He had been thinking about it and had a plan already put together along with having money for an emergency fund.  He made this statement "it is the day to day expenses that are hurting us."   Hmm.  That had been on my mind all this week and it felt good to hear it from him.

It is time to get back on track and back on budget.  No more running to Wal-mart to pick something up and then walking around to see what else is on sale. 

I have been following the "Trenches of Mommyhood" and the challenges that she has set forth for herself.  I have also been following "Moderate Means" and how she is being challenged to see if they can afford to live on one income sometime in the future.  I'm not alone in living below our means and trying to live within a budget. I follow these blogs, and a few others, as I don't have one other person in my life that is doing what I am doing.  In fact, I have been the recipient of a few "cheap" jokes in the past year.  I always feel as if in the end I am the one who is living her dream and the rest of them are not.  

The challenge I am making for myself is to reduce our miscellaneous and grocery spending by a total of $150 a month.  It will take some planning, but I know I can I do it.  It will be the small things that will add up to the savings. 

As we sat today sharing our lunch, my DH reminded me that one year from now our only debt will be my car and our mortgage.  It will be like having a second income.  So I will continue to make laundry soap, use rags instead of paper towels and hang clothes on the line to lower expenses.  And one year from now I will be in a hotel in Washington D.C. celebrating our son's high school graduation and living my dream.