Wrapping Up A Thrifty August

Oh my goodness, what a month!  Where to even begin?  When August began I wasn't too sure how things would go, but I have to say I'm pretty impressed with how things ended up.  I'm always amazed at what can be done when you set your mind to it.  We have, or had, loads of projects needing to be completed around this house and not a lot of time or money to get any of them done.

I didn't need to drive much, other than my short commute to work each day.  I began the month with a half tank of gas in my car and didn't need to fuel up for three weeks.  I had $35 in my checking account, some cash in my wallet and plenty of food in the fridge, pantry and freezer.  A very good way to get things started off.  On the payday I paid all of our monthly expenses and added to my savings and retirement accounts.  Then with my next paycheck I paid our mortgage two weeks early and added some more to my savings and retirement accounts.

I knew it might be a tight month as school would be starting up again and high school registration was looming.  Yearbooks and activity cards are true budget busters, but I had been working some overtime so I had the money to cover it this year without it coming from our regular budget.  We had gone through both of my daughter's clothes and shoes finding they both had more than enough.  Our school supply bin was stuffed and both girls have backpacks and lunch bags that are still in very good shape so we were well covered there too.

I had two big home improvement projects to do this summer which I managed to do with virtually no budget at all.  The first one was to renovate the master bedroom and the second one was our main bathroom.  Amazingly, we managed both of those in record time and by using gift cards I'd saved up to pay for all the supplies we needed.  I bought new carpet for the bedroom and decided to put it on my PayPal account as I get six months with no interest.  I've already made the first payment early so I'll be a payment ahead each month.  Paying it off in six months should be totally doable.

We were able to do a much needed bonus project as well, which was a complete surprise and a lot of hard work, but so worth it.  In one weekend we managed to procure most of the wood we needed to renovate our garage and add some much needed storage.  A post on that will be coming, but we got 90% of the wood from the FREE WOOD bin near my work and then I used the tail end of a gift card plus $10 cash to buy six 2" X 4"s to complete the job.  My neighbor lent me his ladder too so no need to purchase or rent one.  I'm excited to share this project with you next month.

I have one more project ahead which is to renovate the upstairs hallway and replace all of our doors with new ones.  We are hoping to knock that one out over Labor Day weekend and I'm super excited about that.  We've been without doors upstairs for a few weeks now.  Good thing for us we are all girls and we haven't had any company come to stay.

A super thrifty, super productive month, to be sure.  Yes, I'm a little bit tired from it all, but so very happy with all that we were able to accomplish and for as little money spent.  August far exceeded my expectations.  It was an amazing month for us.