Woodwater Farmhouse

No Spend January - Monday Check In Happy Monday. It's Monday which means check in time on the  No Spend January !  How are you doing on the #NoSpendChallenge?  We are in the home stretch now! We had some highs and lows this week... Highs: - Credit Cards:  nice to see a zero balance on the credit card this month!  - Planned out our meals and packed for vacation. Instead of eating at the lodge or out all the time, we have a full kitchen so made homemade muffins, banana bread and stuff for lunches (1 dinner - out the other two) for vacation.  - Already planned dinner for the night we get back so we don't order take out!   Lows:  - Broke down and bought wine for our vacation (leave today). 8(  It's a vacation afterall 8) - Over on my $ 100 food budget for the week due to buying a few things for the Superbowl that were on a great sale and some vacation extras.  It's been a good No Spend January.  The ...

Happy Monday...or is it?  lol...my son says that all the time.... It's Monday which means check in time on the No Spend January !  How are you doing on the #NoSpendChallenge?  We are half way done now!  We had some highs and lows this week... Highs: - A friend asked us over Friday night to their Family Night in the Barn.  They have a big screen TV in their barn/garage. Also a ping pong table and a wood stove (toasty!) .  They asked us to join them and they ordered pizza!  Which was a treat since we are not ordering "pizza guy pizza" this money.  Fun and games and fellowship! - We had to pick up my husband's new car on Saturday and the dealership had a nice area for the kids and I to lounge while we waited for all the paperwork to be signed.  They offered us fresh bagels and cream cheese!  It was a nice treat...again since we are not spending money on these luxuries this month.  - We received a property tax credit refund...

It's Monday and time for the weekly update on the No Spend January #nospendchallenge.  How are you doing so far?   I have been food shopping twice in January and sticking to my $ 100 budget was not hard.   Week 1 : I spent $ 107 at our local Shoprite  ($ 1 of that was a donation to the local food bank and the other $ 6 was a rotisserie chicken)  I had Molly add things up as I went along and somewhere she omitted something because we should have been right on.  You might ask HOW can I make it on $ 100 for a family of 5 for a week.  The answer - meal planning and not buying items that were not on my list.  Week 2:  I spent $ 89   This was between two items at the Dollar Tree, $ 7 at the local bread store outlet and $ 79 at Aldi's.  Again the key was meal planning and making sure I only bought what I needed.  Hubby had to go to BJ's (every 6 weeks) and get our water for our water cooler and a few other paper prod...

Can you believe we are in the home stretch!  Only 6 days left!  Can I get an AMEN!  How are you doing?  Has the challenge been hard?  Did you find it easy so far?  What have you done without? For us, the biggest challenge has been the weather here in NY - sounds strange I know.  It has been a rainy month which mean we don't get outside much.  In the past, that would bring us to the mall or out to lunch a few times to break up the mundane of the house.  However, with no spending, that was not an option.  We have had snow the last few days and expecting a real ringer of one Monday - Tuesday, so they have been skiing (season passes) and sledding a lot over the last few days. I wanted so bad to "redo" my laundry/boiler room but had a zero budget this month.  When cleaning out the closet I found a gallon of white interior paint. BINGO - painted and did some rearranging, moving around and "Shopping" from my other rooms...

Hi there and Happy Monday to you. We are observing Martin Luther King, Jr Day today with limited school and loving on daddy since he is home too!  If you are here for the first time, I suggest you go back a few posts and check out what came before this post... No Spend Challenge How did you do last week with the cut your grocery bill in half challenge?   Were you able to do it with ease or was there a lot of sacrifice?  Our Challenge Update:   So last week the boys (hubby and son) needed hair cuts. Something we don't do for the boys at home. Cost $ 40 total with tip (yikes seems like a lot to me...)  Also Zachary needed a protractor for school. Would you believe I checked the Dollar Tree and Walmart, neither of them had one. So I ordered from Amazon (at least Prime and free shipping) . Of course THEN the day after I get my $ 5 STAPLES reward emailed to me...geezz...timing huh. That's it so far...we are doin...