No spend months: week 5 review

Now that we are over halfway through we are considering modifying our original no spend challenge a bit. My husband has a couple of weeks of vacation at the end of this month and we are considering using that time to do a whole family cleansing diet. When ever you have detox symptoms from cleansing your body you feel pretty miserable. Doing this diet when my husband is home will make it so that he won’t have to suffer at work, and he can help me take care of the boys if I am not feeling well. We are also going to be adding slightly to our income this month with a few odd jobs we have taken on – my husband’s website work and my frozen meal preparations for a family member. I am hoping this extra income will offset the cost any foods or supplements we purchase when we try out the GAPS or other cleansing diets.

Food

Spent: ~$24.50.

This was our milk & egg order for the week. We are still eating pretty well, though on occasion we have eaten what some consider “peasant food”. We have eaten corn cakes, buckwheat cakes, cabbage soup and bean burgers – all to stretch the pricier foods we consume. I know we’ve eaten a lot of beans when my husband says “I’d like for us to eat less beans and bread.” This from the man who once begged me to make them more often. So I will be adding some more meat to our diet and decrease our bean consumption.

We are also completely out of butter as of the beginning of last week. I am planning on making some butter this week with the cream from our raw milk. It’s a bit more work, but so delicious and healthier.

Car Mileage

Another small gas bill this week, with just around $12 being spent at the pump.

Other Expenses

Spent: $0

I have a student loan bill due this week so we will be putting as much as we can towards that. It is nice to see larger chunks of that loan falling off every month.

Wrapping it up

Total spent: $36.50.

I am more encouraged by this experience every day. It has changed many of the ways I look at buying, saving, and re purposing things. When this is all over I hope to write about how my spending habits have changed and what I got out of the whole experience.

Thank you for joining me for another no-spend week.