Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Another Spending Update - The Trip Out of Failure

This no spending thing is really hard. I have been suffering from pressure in my head and ears for about five days and decided it was time to head to the doctor. Plus none of us have been out of the house in three days. Getting a little cabin fever. But I should know that trips out of the house equals money. Here is our day in a nutshell:

Lunch Out for three people - 16.87

Doctor's Office - 20.00 co-pay

Wal-mart - Shampoo, conditioner, soda, milk, cheese, cereal, eye drops, firestarter sticks, popcorn and poster boards for upcoming science fair project, toilet paper, and art supplies for hubby's art piece - 41.34

Produce Store - bananas, apples, lettuce and flat of eggs - 11.30

Grand total - 89.51

I challenge myself to spend no money for the next five days except hubby's gas to get to work.

3 comments:

Frances said...

Sorry you had to spend, but when you are sick, the doctor is a necessary expense. Too bad the office wasn't the opposite direction from WalMart. :-)

Hope you are feeling better.

Annie Kate said...

It's hard, I know. There's so much you absolutely need. On the other hand, there are some things you can do without.

Here are two ideas that work for us.

I never take the kids out to eat; we have disposable plastic cups and spoons in the van for an emergency picnic of grocery store food, if we forget to take lunch along. Since I have hypoglycemia as well as celiac disease, I rarely travel without an emergency gluten-free breakfast bar, just in case.

I only buy candy if it's on sale or if we need it for a birthday party or other event.

We have some great picnic memories as well as less junkfood pounds, AND we save hundreds of dollars a year.

I don't know if these suggestions would work for you, but they do for us.

Blessings,

Annie Kate
http://homeschoolblogger.com/reviewsandmore/

Leigh said...

I thought about you when our electric bill arrived yesterday. $200! I was shocked.

The problem with trying to spend less is that I find I'm always in a spending rut so to speak. I'm just used to buying certain things and just keep on buying them, even though we could actually do without. Then unwanted expenses like illness come along!

For myself, I have to work on changing my money habits. I'm forcing myself to look at what we buy and trying to find alternatives. Why buy rice when I still have a huge box of our garden potatoes in the fridge! Like I said, habits.