No Spend January - Week 1 - fails and wins

Hi friends - WELCOME!  If you are on this No Spend January journey with us, how's it going? If you are not, maybe you want to jump right in!  You can find out the "guidelines" at this post. 

As promised, I am back today with an update on our first week of No Spend January with our fails and our wins!

First let's talk about what categories we spent money on:

• Mortgage
• Kids Classes (sewing and martial arts) - these are part of our school curriculum and are part of our "fixed" outgoing. 
• Gas
• Propane delivery 
• Groceries- see the breakdown below - if you remember my own personal goal (since this is the ONLY area of our budget I can control) was to stick to $ 100 or less each week in January. 

GROCERY SHOPPING 101 - HOW I DO IT!


This week I have had several people message me and ask in person, how can I feed my family of 5 (with 4 of us home all day) on $ 100 per week and eat healthy!  I have 3 tools I use that are a MUST for me to be successful at this goal. 

1.  Shop at Home (a service offered by several grocery stores in my area) - zero impulse buys and I know what my bill will be ahead of time and also saves me time.

2.  Meal plan and no stock ups.   At this time, I am not allowing anything in the budget for stock up items.  ONLY what we need for the week. 

3.  NO going to the store in between the next weekly shopping! THIS IS A MUST!  YOU WILL PURCHASE ADDITIONAL ITEMS IF YOU ONLY GO IN FOR 1 THING!  

So those are my "secrets"!  

I am shopping weekly this month, sometimes I do every other week, but for total control this month, I am going weekly.  Usually I do the "shop at home" option from our local Shoprite grocery store. The fee of personal shopper is $ 4.95 and that outweighs my impulse purchases that I would have done if I went to the store myself to shop. 

Saying that, this week I did NOT do shop at home from Shoprite BUT I did it from Walmart.  I got a code for the  Walmart Pick Up service (see a special code for you for $ 10 off your FIRST order)  for $ 10 off my first order and NO pick up fee. However, the Walmart is 15 mins away as opposed to the Shoprite is only 5 mins away. So there was some additional gas used for this pick up. It was nice not to get out of the truck in the minus zero degree weather. I pulled up, "checked in" on my phone and they brought the bags out to me and loaded my truck up.

YOUR CODE:    http://r.wmt.co/gxcpZ   (first time pick up clients only get $ 10 off first order)


Here is a picture of my food this week from the Walmart pick up.  NOTE:  We needed no personal items or paper products this week. Hubby usually does a BJs shopping once a month for paper products and water jugs. THOSE are NOT included in my weekly grocery budgets. 

TOTAL $ 85.87 (remember - no coupons used and no personal care items bought this week)

AND

I SHOULD HAVE saved in Ibotta $ 4.95 (but found out IBOTTA does not  accept computer printed "pick up" receipts, must be original only)

Familiar with Ibotta? Here is a code to get you started and you get $ 10 back immediately!  THIS IS A NO BRAINER and I HAVE EARNED over $ 100 already and cashed that in for Gift Cards and cash! 

CODE to get you signed up!

https://ibotta.com/r/gvtgncu

I do my meal plans a little different from others....putting down all my dinner options but not necessarily assigning a day to them. Saying that - here are my choices this week using what I picked up at Walmart and a few staple items I had at home:

Tacos - ground turkey with brown rice and all the fixins
Chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, green beans, mashed potatoes and roasted sweet potatoes
Meatball Stromboli with salad (make my own dough)
Veggie LoMein - recipe here 
Meatloaf with waffle fries and corn and applesauce
Spaghetti with turkey meat sauce and salad
Leftover day

Sides always include apples and bananas also.

Snacks - granola bars, fruit, ice cream, cookies or brownies, crackers with peanut butter, yogurt, smoothies and homemade banana bread.

Breakfast - bagels, eggs, English muffins, toast, cereal and I make muffins and banana bread (I do go to our local discount bread store every 6 weeks or so and spend $ 12-20 and stock up on bread items)


Lunch - homemade soups, canned soups, "happy hour" type lunch (what we have on hand), tuna, grilled cheese, PB&J - hubby brings leftovers each day for work.

WHAT WE DID THIS WEEK:

We were snowed in pretty much for the better half of the week.  The temps were extremely cold and no one wanted to really venture out much. 

Friday - We did make it to the library on Friday for the girls homeschool presentation day.  We signed out some movies (new ones!) - zero cost entertainment and some books.

Saturday night - we were invited to a friends house for Barn Night - games and food and fellowship.  (this is THE ONLY family who ever invites our family over and we are so grateful for them) I did not have to meal plan for Saturday!! We made brownies and these gluten free cookie bars (totally awesome) to bring to share and had all the ingredients in the house. They had wine too!!! Win for mama!

Sunday - church and then we picked up a used 10 ft pre-lite Christmas Tree that a friend wanted to get rid of!  Score!!!  Zero cost!  Football, taking the big tree down and playing games with the kids was our afternoon.

GAS usage - we did real well last week and have over a 1/2 of a tank left for this week coming up. 

NO CASH spent week one at all! #winwin

PERSONAL HIGHS AND LOWS:

We did not stock up on wine at the house (purposely) and had zero in the house as of the 1st of January.  THIS HAS BEEN HARD.  It's better for us physically and I have felt great in the mornings, but I do miss my glass of wine at night. 

My husband has been working 12 hour days, 7 days a week with this sub freezing temperatures (he is in the energy industry and manages power plants through out the US and has been over the top busy with this cold weather). I have not seen much of him and we are not used to that.  We will be planning a few date days soon!

Working out and calorie intake. I have been way too relaxed and given myself too much grace over the last 6 months with diet and exercise. I got back on track this week and worked out 3 times (hurt my back shoveling on Thursday 8( ). Also sticking to 1200 - 1300 calories per day. 

So one week down...how are you doing?

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