My January Challenge...

Can we go a month not EATING out?


Can we go a month not buying Lulu Lemon, Lucy, honey any extras?

No, but really have you checked out Lucy Perfect Core Pant here?  They are amazing!  Honestly they are the best pants ever...they hold you in right where I want and need to be held in.  I have had the black for a while and got the heather gray a few months ago...I live in them!

Ok...see that's my problem!  I love something and I keep getting more!  When will it stop?

We don't live high on the hog, at all!  But we do spend money.  Does that make sense?  We don't go on vacations and if we do it's cheap, like we use miles for our flights, stay at a friends place or something like that to save money.  We don't buy cars we can't afford or big ticket items (well, except for when I decide I need a bike for tri's, but that's for health...it should be a tax-write off.  Don't ya think?).  But we always seem to go through our monthly cash.

Loren is the cheap-skate, the clearance rack purchaser and would never dream about shopping at Nordstroms.  He isn't a saver, but isn't someone to ever pay full price.  I am not a HUGE spender, but for sure justify way more than I should and spend more than I should on clothes, boots, shoes, boots...ok, so you see the problem?  I'm glad we aren't both spenders, but it would helpful if one of us was a saver!

Before I was married I kept great track of my money.  Wrote my bills out on the first of the month and then used whatever I had left over, which was not much.  Getting married changed all that due to two people using the same account.  It was hard to predict and track what we were spending.  I used to use MONEY software which I LOVED.  It tracked everything and it told me when a bill was due, if I overspent and much more. I loved the end of the month/year reports.  Oh it was AWESOME...so ORGANIZED and pretty.  It was very time consuming and when we had kids...I could not keep up.

The problem is, if we have money we spend it, we eat out, go to movies, I might purchase a lulu top which blows anyone's account and so on!  Oh and have I mentioned, I'm not a cook...I never know what to make for dinner or if I do, we never seem to have what I need in the house.  Which made picking up dinner on the way home so justifiable!  It all adds up and quickly... grab teriyaki to-go, stop for pizza, grab food when we are running errands, grab lunch with a friend...you get the idea. My kids started asking to go out-to-eat all the time...that bothered me and it was time to re-evaluate.

January is usually a slower month for Real Estate so I told Loren...lets see if we can go a month without eating out and without buying extra's...like stuff we don't need.  **Note to SELF...don't pose a challenge like this and then in the same month decide you are going to do triathlons.  You will be frustrated that you can't buy many things that you NEED want.


To others this might seem like a breeze, but to us...this would for sure be a challenge. I wasn't entirely sure we could do it, but I wanted to do it.  I knew if we tried...it would be better than nothing.  This also meant I would really have to think about preparing dinners ahead of time (THANK YOU PINTEREST & KRAFT FOODS!)  A few days after we agreed to do this, I got invited to dinner with friends?  Ahhhh, how can I miss out?  Well I decided to pass on dinner, but felt like next month we would have to address these type of situation...but I really wanted to stick to our plan.

I know...your on the edge of your seat, aren't you!  The anticipation...DID WE DO IT, DID WE DO IT!

Well I have to say, we KNOCKED it out of the park.  There were a few things we couldn't control, like our  trip to Vegas for hubby's company meeting, lunch when my mom was in town and a ice cream after Cole's school program.  Other than that, we shocked ourselves and honestly it wasn't that hard.  I didn't even think how much healthier it would be fore us too.  Eating out typically is not ever going to be as healthy...all the fat and sodium.  That was a bonus, I'm pretty sure I dropped 20 pounds...ok, no, no I didn't...but it was still much healthier, I do know that.

I didn't buy any new clothes, oh shoot...I did buy 2-boat neck t-shirts in Vegas...but that was pure necessity and we were on vacation, but that WAS IT!  No Lulu, no Lucy, no running tights, shoes or socks!

It really made me think about things way more than I typically would.  It opened my eyes to how much money we waste.  How much money we could be saving just by being more conscious about what we are spending.  Isn't that a concept?   

I think we are going to keep doing it, but give ourselves a budget for dinner out with friends, date night, special occasions.  I think we will really limit when we eat-out as a family.  Maybe pizza night once a week on the weekend or something.

All-in-all this has been a great challenge for our family!  I'm proud of what we did and wish we had thought about this earlier.  We are committed to paying of our credit card debt this year and this will sure help us if we can stay focused!  Sometimes just being more conscious about something can make a HUGE difference.





Do you eat out?  
Are you more of a saver or a spender?
Do you pre-plan your meals?  
Do you even cook?

Oh how I wish money really did grow on TREES!