We made it. The final day!

Good morning! And Happy Friday!  I hope you all have had a fantastic week.  I am super stoked because today is the last day of our spending fast!  We have made it!!  31 days of spending almost no unnecessary money!  Sure, we had a few slip-ups here and there, but I am counting this month as a success!  I am so proud of us!!!  And you know what?  This feeling makes me want to do it again!  And the balance in the bank account makes me want to do it again!  But I think maybe I'll wait a couple of months.  There are a couple of people I want to spend some money on in the next couple months.  E will turn 2 in February and I am throwing her a sweet little "You are my Sunshine" party.  I have formulated a plan in my head during this month of no spending and now is the time to put it into action.  And in March the hubs and I will celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary!  Definitely a time to celebrate, if I do say so myself.  We have already booked a bed and breakfast in Eureka Springs and we are going to enjoy a few days away from it all, just the two of us.  I am so excited!  I cannot wait!  So maybe in April we will revisit the spending freeze.  We'll see. 

So, remember all that cooking I did on Sunday when I had a couple of hours to myself?  Well, I made a big pot of potato soup for us to have for lunches this week.  It was delicious!  (regardless of what A said) And there was going to be enough for lunch for both me and hubby for several days.  I ate it for lunch on Tuesday and then that evening I came down with a stomach bug.  I won't go into the details, lets just suffice it to say that I won't be eating potato soup for a while.  So far no one else has had a problem, so I really don't think it was the soup.  Kevin and E both ate it and they were fine, so I apparently caught something.  Unfortunately, there was more soup than Kevin could eat on his own and I was heartbroken at the thought of throwing out perfectly good food, so I ended up putting it in the freezer.  I'm not sure how well it will freeze, but I figured it was worth a shot and if it didn't work then I wasn't out anything more than I would have been if I had thrown it away today. 

I had to go to Wal-Mart yesterday to pick up a couple of things that I needed to make some cupcakes for my boss's retirement party and I saw something that really made me what to break my spending fast.  I mean really made me want to break it!  It was a super sweet yellow sparkly dress that would be perfect for a little sunshine on her big day!  And did I mention that it was only $9???  But a little voice inside my head said "Put the dress down and step away."  And somehow I managed to comply.  Yay me!  But I do plan on going back to get it.  I mean, I can't pass up a $9 party dress, can I???  That would be irresponsible of me.  Really, it would. 

I wanted to give you all the run down of our spending these last few days.

Jan 28 - $0!

Jan 29 - $34.98 for gas for the RAV4

             $21.49 for a few last minute groceries

TOTAL for the month = $523.03

I know that still sounds like a lot, but consider this: in December we spent $599.39 in groceries alone!  And in November we spent $546.36 in groceries and $402.12 in gas (this was life before the Prius)!!!  So we managed to cut our grocery budget down enough to cover our gas for the month.  Jackpot!  When you look at it like that, it looks pretty darn good, doesn't it?  Yeah, I thought so too.  :)  So even though we may have not stictly adhered to the "NO spend" I am still going to declare this month a victory!  Yay!  I LOVE winning! 

Thank you sticking with me through our little adventure.  I am planning a post very soon with a list of the things that we have learned from our spending fast.  Come back and check it out!  And who knows?  Maybe I'll keep blogging even after our experiment is over.  You'll just have to come back to see...  In the meantime, have a great weekend!