No spend months: week 4 & month 1 review

It has been one month since we started this no-spend challenge, and we are halfway through. I feel like I have gained so much perspective from this experience. In considering purchases we want to make in the future I want to be more mindful. I am reevaluating our budget and how much we really need for the basics. I have broken myself of the habit of just running out and buying something. While I didn’t do that often, it is better not to have that option at all. This week was a really good end to the first month, let’s take a look…

Food

Spent: ~$6. I had no expenses for milk & eggs this week because we stocked up last week. While my father-in-law was here he did some grocery shopping at the health food store we normally shop at. He agreed to barter some pre-made food that I had in the freezer for a few items from the grocery store that we might need. The $6 is the amount of cash we had to pay on top of our bartered items for the grocery store items. We enjoyed a lovely no-spend Thanksgiving meal (besides the disastrous cake) on Thursday and on Friday we received our bulk food order that we purchase around once per year. This contained dried beans, millet, cans of coconut milk, coconut flakes, dried apples & raisins, bulk spices, nuts & seeds, peanut butter and sesame & olive oils. So we are set on pantry items.

Here is the tally of fresh items remaining for December:

• 1 quart of applesauce
• 5 onions = 1 onion/week
• 5 heads of garlic = 1 head of garlic/week
• 1 cabbage
• 1 bunch of carrots
• 1 head of celery
• 6 winter squash

It is time to start getting creative with the dried and frozen goods in the house!

Car Mileage

I forgot to get the receipt from my husband for this week’s gas purchase. I believe we spent less this week than last week, so I will put it at $11.00.

Other Expenses

Spent: $0

The only bill we paid this week was rent for the month of December.

Laundry

Still not finding the time to hang up laundry. I hope this changes soon, but there are just too many other things to keep up with right now. Like my over flowing diaper bucket and a kitchen stacked with dirty dishes.

Wrapping it up

Total spent: $17.

I’m really happy with this number and am encouraged to see that I think we will make it through December without having to make any unnecessary trips to the grocery store. Hopefully by the end of the year we will be paying a big loan payment.

How is everyone else doing?

We begin week four.