Are you asking for a CHALLENGE!?!

Oh, strongbad...

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So, I've decided this year to do a 30-day challenge every month.  It's fun.  wanna try?

The month of January was the financial Ramadan, and by that I mean that the challenge was to spend NO money (except the absolute necessities: food, limited gas, bills).  It was harder than I thought it was going to be. 

I chose this challenge for a few reasons:
-there are only so many ways I can contribute to the family finances.
-I thought it would be a good reminder to me of how easy it is to slip into a habit of spendiocity (yes, I did.)
-I wanted to get a good idea of my wants vs. needs spending.

I have to say it was harder than I thought.  By a lot!  I did fail a few times, like the week I had all my kids home with Strep throat and didn't have much by way of crafting supplies stocked up.  So I jumped the gun on a craft-closet revamp I'd been planning.

And we might of gone on a few more dates than was neccessary last month, but Spencer paid for those :)

But groceries, that is where I excelled.  I wrote out a detailed menu plan, wrote shopping lists for those, and stood my grounds on my list.  NO IMPULSE BUYS!  And that felt good.

So in the end, did it benefit me?  Well, yes, even though I failed a little here and there and I hated it most of the time, I'm really glad I did it. 

It DID open my eyes to how my spending habits have gotten more lax than they need to be.  It did make me grateful that we are no longer starving students.  It did get me in the habit of menu planning and it did get me out of the habit of impulse buys.

It did NOT get me new boots.  It did NOT get me new red pencil pants (although February is a new month!).  It did NOT get me the new photos and frames I wanted.

But I think it was worth it.  A good reminder of what things are worth waiting for, how spendiocious I'd become, and all that good stuff. 

So yeah, it was worth it. :)

and February's challenge...bum bum bum....get up and at 'em before the kids 6 days a week. 

This is a particulary hard one for me.  I sleep better in the morning so Spencer has been doing the morning shift.  But I know my day will go more smoothly if I start earlier.  So here goes.  I've been doing it since Thursday and so far have been really grateful for this challenge.  But we'll see what happens when the kids keep me up all hours of the night.