This
month was anything but a money saving venture, but my thriftiness leading up to
this point certainly made everything we needed to do possible. Moving expenses coupled with the back-to-school
expenses made it a real challenge but I'm thrilled with how it all worked out.
I
was able to pay all of our monthly bills and add to our Christmas fund. However, I did not add to my savings accounts. Amazingly, I did not have to move any money
out of savings this month, so that was a relief.
I
used my excellent credit standing to take advantage of some six month and
twelve month same as cash offers to purchase our living room furniture and my
new bed. I used my state tax refund to
pay off half of the living room furniture.
I used my earned overtime to pay off the credit card I used to purchase the
dining room furniture. I paid cash for
everything else.
I
maximized my budget to refill our pantry and freezer by scouting out sales at
three different grocery stores and using as many coupons with those sales items
as I could to bring the costs down even lower.
I stuck to our meal plan, jostling around those meals based on what we
had purchased each week so I didn't feel the need to make additional purchases
and thereby spend more money on things than I wanted to.
I
did some investment cooking too by making a good sized batch of chicken broth
and some refried beans for the freezer.
I find that investment cooking is a great way to inexpensively and healthfully
add basic staples to our food storage. I
saved money by making bread and buying less of it from the store. Homemade bread is so much better anyway and I
enjoy making it.
We
were careful to use up our food and leftovers before any spoilage occurred and
avoided a lot of food waste. Nothing irritates
me more than to toss out food. To me it
is like throwing money right into the trash.
I
carefully kept track of all my spending and regularly kept tabs on my bank
account to avoid overspending. I also
made sure I didn't put anything on my credit cards that I didn't already have
money to pay it off with when the bill came due.
To
top things off I switched over from the temp agency to a permanent company
employee. Instead of getting paid weekly
I am now paid semi monthly. My first
paycheck was mailed to me on the 19th of August but didn’t make it. Buy the time they reissued it I had gone
almost four full weeks without a paycheck.
Now my direct deposit is set up and we've had not paycheck problems,
thankfully.
My
much shorter commute meant I filled my gas tank once and despite the fact that
I had plenty of errands to run I still ended the month with a quarter tank of
fuel! Not to mention how much extra time
I have in the mornings and evenings now that I'm no longer stuck in traffic.
So
that is pretty much it in a nutshell. As
I look back on the month I am amazed I accomplished as much as I did with as
little as I spent. I feel truly blessed
too.
You had a great month. I am always inspired when I read your blog :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Theresa. Your kind comments keep me inspired to keep on trucking!
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