That Time I Spent $172 at Aldi

I used to boast that I could fill up a whole cart at Aldi and still come in well under $100. Well, I decided not to shop with a list a couple weeks ago. (That's grocery budget 101 stuff, Ashley!) And when I got to the front of the store and started tossing everything onto the belt, I realized I'd made a major mistake. It was one of those weeks when Aldi had, like, so many cool things that were those limited time buys. So, I got sucked in and stocked up.

And then: $172! Ahhhhhh! I was hoping for more like $100.

Here's what I bought:

I haven't gone over what our weekly food budget is in a while. It's been anywhere between $75 and $125 a week in recent years. As we examine our debt and budget options, we're still trying to figure out a number that would work well for us monthly. It needs to accommodate not eating out, school lunch stuff, and special things for our tiny toddler (because she NEEDS to eat, so sometimes I NEED to get her special stuff).

We've experimented with shopping once a month and had good success . . . so I realize that spending a ton at one time isn't always a reason to freak out. But this time was a mistake. A wakeup to get meal planning again. I do actually meal plan each week, but it's been very rough lately.

Anyway, this story had a happy ending. I was able to get groceries for like $65 this week, making the total $240 for the two weeks -- or -- $120/week. I think this sounds like a realistic grocery budget for us. I may bump it to $125 -- or -- $541 a month. Of course, the pay-off-our-loans girl in me says maybe we can shave it down to $500 a month.

But I need it to be realistic and leave some room for wiggle. We try our best to eat a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, etc. And without eating out, we like to cook a couple "fun" meals each week so we don't feel too deprived.

What I've found in my years of writing about our food budget is that grocery costs vary WILDLY across the country (and world). So, these figures may sound either astronomical to you or like "how can you even feed your family" on that amount. I get that. So, no judgement. I'm just sharing our struggles and triumphs with this stuff.

Whatever the case, I'm glad we're back into the rhythm of buying most everything at Aldi. There are still a few items we cannot get there. Tofu comes to mind. But resisting Wegmans has already lowered our food costs by quite a bit.

Do you have a grocery budget or just buy whatever? How do you figure out how much to spend? Do you end up revisiting the budget often -- like we seem to do?

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Money Matters // An Update

I can't remember where I left off with our debt and repayment + debt-free goals. I made those goals last January and declared we could be debt-free in just 15 months. We were doing OK with our plan of attack for a while, but then summer hit (vacation we shouldn't have gone on, etc.) . . . and then we had thousands of dollars of repairs needed for various things in the fall. And then we planned to be frugal at Christmas, but ended up spending more than we intended.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Major setback is what I'm saying.

I am sharing this post to hopefully keep myself accountable. Stephen and I sat down yesterday and looked at our whole financial picture. That savings we had in the bank has dwindled to just two months of expenses. We needed that money for a lot of stuff, so I get it. And I'm glad we didn't go into debt paying for the repairs we needed for our home and our car. But still! It stings.

Anyway, enough of you (and my friends) have said to look at Dave Ramsey. We were loosely following those goals last year when we started. Mostly, I am afraid to drop our emergency fund to just $1,000 because history has shown that we regularly need more than that in emergencies. I think a cushion of more like $3K would work for us. But -- for those of you who have done this -- is that all the money you have in your bank account? That makes me nervous.

But then I realized we've done so much of this money thing backwards. We actually had like nine months of living expenses in the bank when I left my full-time job to stay home/work from home. We retained that cushion for a very long time because I was afraid of losing work and needing that cash. All the while, if we needed a car or a major something (furnace, for example), we'd finance. Adding to our debt. In a way, we had a very false sense of security, right?

We are now thinking of going through the Ramsey steps. We already have a very good budget that we just need to follow again. It's realistic. It's tight. But it's very doable. We can pitch some of our money in the bank to pay off a few debts from the get-go, freeing up money in the monthly budget to start the whole snowball thing again. And we can kick a lot of our debts out by the summer this way.

Milestone: Stephen and I each now have less than $5K left in student loans. This is HUGE, as we both started with more than $30K.

But our total debt right now is sitting at just about $25K. That's an improvement from last year's $34K, but we did add to our debt by incurring credit card debt on vacation and buying a washer + dryer set via a Home Depot card. It's 0% for that last debt, but it's still just sitting there. We should have purchased them with the money we had in the bank.

OK. I hope to update you more as we go through the steps. I know many of you have gone on your own debt-free adventures. Are we on the right track? Is it just a matter of moving forward? I don't know how we fell so far off from our goals. Any suggestions on that? And is anyone else starting this journey . . . or starting it again, like us?

The idea of being debt-free is so liberating. I know it will happen eventually, but we definitely have some savings goals in mind and would love to lighten up a bit. You know, take a big trip or do something FUN with our money again. I can't wait to get there!

I'm off to my Excel budget spreadsheet! You can read more of my debt-related posts here.

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Frugal Accomplishments

I popped into Walmart this weekend because I needed sugar and was traveling in that part of town. I had a couple last-minute things on my Christmas list too, so I had to trek over to the toy section. I was absolutely flabbergasted with the number of people trolling the aisles. They were basically ripping toys away from one another in the quest of getting their shopping done. I mean, I get it. We all want to be done shopping, but being rude to a stranger about a plastic doll isn't going to magically make it all better. But that's not really the point.

In this time of excess, I'm trying to keep a level head. We're still dealing with a good deal of debt and always striving to be more frugal than not. So, here's some of the things I've done lately to stay in the green, so to speak.

// Thrifted Decorations, etc.

One of the best places you can find holiday decor is at the thrift shop. Sometimes you'll luck out and find stuff that's brand new. I got a tree topper for a dollar and a package or ornaments for a couple bucks. I also found some cute beaded Santa boxes to use as wrapping/gifts. Ninety nine cents each. A steal, right?

I didn't need too much, but I found nativity scenes, outdoor decorations, garlands, faux trees, and more. It's definitely worth a look if you want to add a bit more cheer on a dime.

// Thrifting Running Apparel

Speaking of thrifting, I've been looking for a decent running coat to add to my collection. I have a bunch of old ones that don't fit well anymore. I was able to find a nice, basic fleece Columbia number for $4.99 that also happened to be 70 percent off. No holes, rips, stains, or other defects. The only catch is it's a weird shade of green. I run mostly in the evening, so that doesn't matter!

I decided to take a look around and found a new Nike running top (short sleeve -- so for treadmill time) for just $3.99. I also snagged a nice pair of yoga pants for a few bucks. Now my athletic clothing is refreshed! I wish my motivation would do the same . . . 

// Lice Spray

Last year there was this little girl in Ada's class who ended up having lice the entire year. I decided to mix up a batch of homemade lice spray . . . and, guess what?! Ada didn't get lice once. I've made it part of our morning routine now, and I have to say it's working. Ada has my type of hair -- very fine and stands straight up with static. I had lice often as a kid despite being well groomed and taken care of. 

Anyway, I'd say a spray bottle of this stuff lasts several months. I just spritz it through her hair each morning before she goes to school. Bonus is that I swear is makes combing her hair easier.

Combine:

• 10-15 drops lavender essential oil
• 10-15 drops rosemary essential oil
• 10-15 drops tea tree oil
• 5 drops peppermint oil
• Fill the rest with water

Combine everything in a small spray bottle. Mine is 4 ounces -- an old lavender room spray bottle. FYI: I use all Aura Cacia essential oils that I buy either on Amazon or at Wegmans. I've used them since I was in college!

// DIY Table Runner

I wanted to mention this frugal thing I did at Thanksgiving. We don't have tons of fancy linens and such to use when we celebrate holidays. I wanted to dress up the table a bit, but also make it fun for the kids. So, I rolled a bit of paper lengthwise across the table and gave Ada a bunch of markers and crayons. She drew pictures, wrote little sayings, and it kept her occupied while we cooked. I plan to do the same thing for Christmas. 

You can use any paper (see my photo, above), but we happened to have a roll of Melissa + Doug easel paper on hand. It was perfect!

// TTC Tricks

Oh, gosh. If you've ever been deep in TTC (which I'm not yet this time around -- just saying from experience) and spent literally #allthemoney buying pregnancy tests, ovulation strips, supplements, and other stuff -- save yourself. Since I take progesterone, I have to pinpoint my ovulation day, which means either taking my basal body temperature or using ovulation strips. I choose to do both, as my temperatures are quire erratic (thanks to waking up often at night -- my own doing, Eloise sleeps great).

Anyway, I finally bought one of those sets with 50 LH strips and 20 pregnancy tests for just $20. I used to spend that much just buying a couple pregnancy tests. It seems like a silly thing, but I know many of you are trying to conceive, and month after month . . . it gets expensive. Do yourself a favor. The LH strips work really well for me -- I get clear positives (line darker than control) and the pregnancy tests are apparently as sensitive as First Response. I personally got a positive on one last time around when my HCG was like 12 coming down from my D&C.

I love sharing frugal accomplishments. What are some of your most recent wins?

Till next time! 

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6 Debt Lessons from Readers // Debt Free

I wanted to take today to thank all of you for your advice on our money situation. So many readers have either commented on the blog or Instagram, or sent me private messages about what they did to start their own debt-free journey. It’s helpful for a few reasons. First, it makes us feel much less alone. I don’t know why, but we sometimes assume we’re the only people dealing with money issues. We see people jetting off on expensive vacations, buying much fancier houses, sending their kids to snazzy private schools, living vacation fantasy lives, etc. and we assume we’re the only people in the red.

But you know what they say about when you ass--u--me things.

In the end, it’s good to focus only on us because that’s what will get US out of debt. I think focusing on other people can only be harmful in some ways because -- despite how we’re pretty good at avoiding this trap -- there’s this whole peer pressure component to life, right? Keeping up with the Joneses, even if you aren’t in that game. It sort of filters into the subconscious. Of course my kid should have X, Y, and Z. Of course we deserve X, Y, and Z. But a lot of this stuff means living above means, etc.

As a silly example, Stephen and I are both feeling like we should not have immediately gone out and replaced our central air system last year. I know why we did -- we had just brought Eloise home, my hormones were saying YES WE NEED IT NOW, and we had grown accustomed to having it, like many other people have in our area. But if we’re being honest, we could have popped a few window units in the bedrooms and probably been fine. After all, that’s how I grew up. That would have cost a few hundred versus a few thousand . . . and we may have been able to borrow some from family or friends for a year or two while we surveyed the options.

I digress.

The second reason it helps to hear from you guys is because some of you have DONE it. You’ve gotten out of debt, gone through the trials, and come out the other side to tell the tale. Hearing success stories and the hard work it took to get there is inspiring. Anyway, I wanted to condense some of the best tips/advice we received into a nice 6-point list.

// 1: Do get creative 

One reader pointed out that her house went up in value significantly since she bought it. She considered selling and using the profits to pay off debt. This is interesting because it’s something we’ve considered doing as well. We love our home, but we often feel like we could be happy in a smaller, less expensive house. That said, our own property value has stayed relatively stagnant, so I don’t think we’d gain much this way. Regardless, I thought this example was interesting. If you’re really in debt, you can do creative things . . . and even turn your thinking upside down about life. This is one reason, for example, the tiny house movement is so popular.

Other readers warn that investments like houses may be good ones to hold onto, especially if getting rid of your home significantly affects your quality of life. It’s a hard balance to strike. And this is just one way of getting creative. We’ve experimented with becoming a one-car family in the past. It’s something I wish we could stick to, but our area isn’t exactly pedestrian friendly and Stephen is gone a lot of the time for coaching.

// 2: Do give up extras

This is one area where I feel like we cycle between good points and bad. When you’re paying off debt, just cut the fat already. Stop going out to eat. Stop buying random stuff to fill your house or that emotional void (emotional shopper here!). Do pitch everything you can toward debt -- even if that means using Christmas money, etc. for a while. This isn’t to say you can’t EVER enjoy the finer things in life. But I know myself, and I often give into the whole “I deserve this” because of some insignificant accomplishment or pure laziness. Make meals at home, seek out free entertainment, keep your eyes on the debt-free prize.

// 3: Do remember that “small sacrifices add up”

I suppose this extends on the last tip, but it’s a different way of looking at just denying yourself things. A reader shared on my Instagram that “small sacrifices add up” and I liked that train of thought. It’s more positive than STOP ENJOYING EVERYTHING. Even if you can piece together one additional payment through giving up your daily coffee habit, it’s worth it. Gather together those pennies where you have them to save.

// 4: Don’t deplete savings. 

One of the popular debt-free methods encourages people to completely pay all money to the debt monster. But many of you shared that keeping zero or even just $1,000 in the bank for emergencies seemed like too little, especially with a family or house, etc. I agree.

How much should you keep? It’s personal and depends on where you live, your life situation, etc. Some say to keep $3,500. Others like to have a $5,000 safety net. We personally have about three months of our living expenses in our bank account. The reason for some much is because my income is variable. It’s tempting to shift this money around . . . but I feel like we’ve run into bad luck and needed these funds.

// 5: Do consider getting help

One reader mentioned that she and her husband see a financial advisor. I don’t know why this isn’t something we’ve considered in the past. But the advisor helped them figure out a game plan for attacking debt according to interest rate charges. Not only that, this advisor was also able to help the couple allocate funds toward their 401K and pay minimums on debt . . . but through some financial magic earn more interest on the 401K than was being charged on the debt, if I’m explaining that correctly.

// 6: Don’t get discouraged

This might be my favorite piece of advice. Don’t get discouraged if progress is slow. You may not be able to pay off massive amounts quickly. I feel like we’ve all seen the stories of paying off $100K in like six months. For many most people, this just isn’t feasible. Heck, we don’t quite make that much money . . . in a year. So not amount of scrimping or saving would give us that type of wild success.

Another reader explained that debt ebbs and flows throughout different stages of life. Don’t look at all setbacks as failures. I think that’s a good point to end this post on. If you have more to share, I’d love to hear you thoughts in the comments! I would like to add more of the tips into a part II post -- the next one will be some more specific things people shared about their debt-free adventures.

Happy Wednesday!

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Debt Confessional // Our Progress (or Lack Thereof)

Remember when I told you guys how we’re carrying $34K (not including our house) in debt? Yeah. Not much has changed since I last wrote. We did go full steam paying all extra money we had toward this number for a few months. Then we fell off the wagon. We had to buy a new washer and dryer. Our car needed new tires. You know, stuff happens. So, while I don’t have the exact number . . . we haven’t made a ton of progress in this department.

As you remember, without aggressively paying down the debt (paying only minimums), we’d be paying bills for the next 78 months or -- gasp -- 6.5 years. If we allocated all my freelance income plus the minimums, we had the potential to be debt free in just 15 months. Fifteen glorious months that would we would have already been six months into paying.

Nope.

Here’s the problem -- that plan was too aggressive for us. My freelance income isn’t always steady. Emergencies come up. And -- yes -- weakness does set in even if you have the best of plans. I think the new debt plan will have to be a mix of pay more when we can, pay less when we’re dealing with other financial stuff. (Like summers! How did I not plan for summers with no paychecks?! Fail.).

I’m interested in those of you who have followed the snowball debt repayment -- did you really deplete all the money in your bank account to pay off your debt? I see this being a good or potentially bad thing. On one hand, with most of the debt, you’re paying interest rates. Some high, some low -- but that’s added money you don’t HAVE to pay if you get your act together. Depleting savings makes sense in this scenario.

At the same time, then things come up like needing new tires or a hot water heater, etc. (ugh, yes -- my birthday present -- and then some -- this year was a hot water heater). If you have nothing in the bank, what do you do?


Ultimately, we need to figure this whole thing out sooner rather than later. We’re wasting money on interest . . . we’re feeling the weight . . . we want OUT. I get so inspired by the stories I read of people who have come out of debt, but many times I feel like they are about credit card debt. For us, the student loans have really limited our available funds for other things. Then car payments (stupid, STUPID cars, right?!) Credit cards weren’t much of an issue.

I suppose I could look into a blended approach between the debt snowball and debt avalanche. There are really so many approaches.

To recap today, here’s what went wrong:

We made too aggressive a plan that didn’t leave room for any error. As a result, instead of sticking even remotely close to it, we got overwhelmed and almost rebelled at the whole idea. Thinking, “this is ridiculous -- we can’t even BEGIN to follow this plan.”

Area for improvement: 

Get over it and keep moving forward. We may try to do HALF of my original plan. Use half my freelance income and go after our car loan first. From there, we’ll get ONE of our debts totally paid off, feel accomplished, and then be able to pitch that money toward the next debt.

I’ll be back soon with some notes on how we’re hoping to cut our budget further in the fall. These will be specific, seasonal tips . . . and I’m excited to share them with you. I’d love to hear what things you’re doing recently to save money. We joined Sam’s Club a couple weeks ago, so I have a lot of good, bad, and ugly to write about that.

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Making Sense of Our Debt // Plan + Numbers

Have you ever had one of those crazy Ah-HA! moments? Like, you've been doing it all wrong this whole time? Yeah. This post is about one of those.

Warning: I'm going to get a little TMI. A little taboo . . . and I'm going to share a few details about our financial situation. Honestly, it's embarrassing. But at the same time, I've learned so much from other bloggers and vloggers who have done the same (one of my favorites is Pennies Into Pearls). 

And -- really -- this is only the beginning of what I am hoping will be a major success story.

Also: I'm not subscribing to any particular school of thought with budget matters. I know there are some big names in this area with detailed plans to boot. The whole snowball debt thing is even taken directly from Dave Ramsey -- but I don't agree with all of his practices. 

So, much all of my adult life, I've been saddled with debt. Like, a lot. Stephen and I both have been. Student loans for private liberal arts education are killer, you guys. I think I brought something like $33K to the table when we got married. That was after my parents generously paid half my way. I worked a lot (two jobs) during college as well. I also got a nice grant. Still, I was $33K in debt by age 21.

Stephen also brought his graduate school loans which amounted to about the same. We've dutifully paid the minimum of these loans since we graduated school. We've picked up a few cars along the way. And then there are things like when you furnace or air conditioning dies or you want new carpet in your basement, etc. Thankfully, we never really got into credit cards.

The thing is, I've always just paid minimums. Seemed manageable enough. Try not to think about interest. Break it down monthly, and those gigantic numbers didn't seem so frightening. Keep the interest rate a vague number so you don't think about how much you're throwing away in the long run. It was a system that worked. It works for many people. Not all debt has to be bad. But when it starts to mount, it's not something that makes it easy to sleep at night.

Anyway, I had more compelling financial things to take my attention. Like saving 3 to 6 months of our monthly budget to have in our bank account. My focus has been entirely on building this number for so long. We did have 6 months at one point right when I had left my full-time job. In those last five years, life has happened. We've had to dip in for various reasons. We have about 3 months of our budget in savings currently. I am not thrilled it's only 3 . . . but also not saddened by that number. It's solid.

Then, I had this moment. I found out that my interest rate on my student loans went up very minimally when the feds increased the prime rate. It prompted me to take a look into my account beyond just paying my bill. I started to think we could do better. Maybe we SHOULD try to pay off some of this debt faster. I mean, we can't have TOO much more, right? So, in the new year -- I set this as a goal. At least to LOOK at how much we still owe and think about tackling it a bit faster.

At age 33, our family is carrying about $34K in debt.

Breathe.

Almost half of this amount is in student loans. There is an amount we had to take out to pay for our air conditioner that broke on one of the hottest days of summer last year when Eloise was a few days old. There's a bit left over on a 0% financing deal for when we moved and got new carpeting in the basement (worth every penny we are paying, IMO). And the rest is the worst of all -- debt on two used cars (UGH! We have the worst luck with cars, too). One of the loans (I'm looking at you, van) is higher than either of our student loans if you break them out.

Yikes.

So, $34K. That sounds super overwhelming, especially considering all the interest we're thrown away in the last decade just paying minimums. I maybe even feel some judgement from those of you who are smarter with your money. It could be worse, but the more I read into it . . . we probably could have paid off all of this YEARS ago if we had been smart. If we had buckled down and spent less. If we had just paid attention at all.

And that's what I think we're going to do in 2017.


There's no how-to in today's post. This is just my declaration that we are committed to using the snowball technique to pay down this debt as quickly as possible. Thing is, I do not want to deplete what we have in the bank to do it, which I think deviates from Dave Ramsey. It might not make the best financial sense, but I do want to retain a large cushion because my income is somewhat volatile.

That being said, we are going to try our hardest to live on Stephen's salary alone and use all my freelance money to pitch toward the debt. As much as possible.

If we start in February -- in just a week and a half -- with our smallest car loan and progress by using my freelance income + minimums, etc., we could potentially be debt-free (OK, not counting our mortgage) in just 15 months! Fifteen months! That's just over a year. Holy moly. Now, I know Ramsey says to pay off the smallest debt first, but we aren't going to do that. Our smallest debt is also our smallest monthly payment with 0%. We'll let that one wait.

Instead, we're hoping to do them in this order. This list takes into account paying minimums on all loans each month BUT adding my freelance money to the first loan, and then adding the minimum money we put toward the FIRST loan PLUS my freelancing income PLUS the money for the second loan toward the second loan, and so on.

Does that make sense?

• Car (3 months)
• Van (7 months)
• Stephen loan (2.5 months)
• Ashley loan (1 month)
• Air conditioner (1 months)
• Carpet (will basically be paid off)

= 15 months total

Without this plan, we wouldn't be totally out of debt for like 78 months. How many years is that? Oh, it's 6.5 years. I'll have an almost 12-year-old Ada by then. Now, that isn't the norm. On average, the length we have left on our loans if we just pay the minimums is 36 months. Our student loans don't have terrible interest, but it's just darned silly to be paying long loans on used cars. We did what we had to do, but it's something I don't ever want to do again moving forward.

The best part of all of this is that when we're done, we'll be freeing up $1,100 a month that we currently have built into our budget to pay off all this debt. That is SO much money to us. And it's that kind of stuff that makes the whole having-a-third-child conversation less scary.

Obviously there's more to this conversation. How will we modify our budget to live on just Stephen's income? What will we be giving up? What happens if we feel we can't be this aggressive? There are many more things I'd like to cover another day. But I feel good getting this out there. Motivated. I sort of don't care if people judge us. We have a plan. The debt is what it is. There's no changing it at this point.

In the wise words of Hamilton's Aaron Burr: "I am the one thing in life I can control."

(BTW: My brother-in-law and sister-in-law saw Hamilton on Broadway last night. I'm green with envy. Hamilton tickets, though. That's definitely one thing I will NOT be purchasing in the next 15 months!)

Image credits here and here

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The "B" Word: Budget

Seems like all the buzz since the beginning of the economic downturn has been about cheap or thrifty (perhaps the more popular term) ways of doing anything from remodeling your kitchen to reinventing your wardrobe. Stephen and I are certainly not immune to tight financial situations. Living in New York State isn't exactly a treat right now. Especially considering that we both work FOR the state which is in billions upon billions of dollars in debt (set to double by this time next year) and cutting programs and jobs left and right. Beyond this fact, we've been on the conservative spending side of things since college ended thanks to the 4 most glorious years of our lives -- and an added one for Stephen's graduate work -- at a private school with little $$$ assistance. Add a car loan, home loan, some credit card debt (though, not too much, thankfully), and lots of dinners out, and we really don't have much saved.

There's good news! We're realizing now that despite it all, we FINALLY have the power and the motivation to start saving, even if it's only a tiny bit. And when we passed the 25-year mark in our lives . . . we realized we needed to grow up a bit.



For instance. Wii. We love you dearly. But seriously? You come out with a new game every millisecond -- and Stephen just can't resist you. Just look at him, absolutely addicted to DJ Hero! J. Crew, West Elm, Anthropologie. Please. Stop sending me your gorgeous glossy catalogs every month. I can't resist, and I've taken to having Stephen hide my credit card like some pastel Easter egg! Beloved house. Home. Roof over our heads. I beg of you. Stop presenting problems like poor circulation of heat in the master bedroom . . . a broken garbage disposal/clogged kitchen pipe . . . and who knows what else is next. And just so you're aware, I'm growing tired of your color scheme! So much paint! And then we'll need new curtains . . .

Why rant online about money woes? I guess what spurned it all is that EVERYONE I know seems to be having babies or announcing their preggers status these days. Which is great and lovely -- and I'm excited for all my dear friends. And not that we're thinking of starting a family in the near future, but it'd sure be nice to know we could someday possibly afford a crib for the kid to sleep in. And maybe some food for the poor little thing. Oh, baby . . . but we have a long way to go to build up to that point. Ultimately, we've discovered that our mid-twenties are turning into late-twenties, and fast. This means we're adults, PEOPLE! Though buying our first house was a small step in the right direction, the thought of eventually bringing about new life somehow pushes the (lack of) Benjamins right into our faces.

Well, we've done something about it all today. I drafted up a new and improved budget -- complete with savings projections through this time next year! And it looks positive. What does this mean for the neverhomemakers' household?

Some changes effective immediately:

1.) We've been inspired by Katie over at Making This Home to embark on a "no new clothing" challenge. She's already made it over 7 months. We're just two days and counting, but I'd like to see us go at least three months to start (hopefully more) . . . and then see how it goes from there. This sacrifice, if you can call it that, will likely be difficult for me . . . but it means much more wardrobe remixing!

2.) We're capping our grocery and dinners-out at a much, much lower number. As runners, our favorite non-running activity is eating -- and lots of it. We basically LIVE at Wegmans . . . and consume so much food even a competitive eater would be shamed. But we're creative in the kitchen -- so we're looking at this one as an opportunity as well. Of culinary proportions!

3.) We've given each other an allowance. Each month, instead of loosely-monitored personal spending for things we "need" (like shoes, video games, magazines, cookbooks, power tools, you name it) . . . we are allowing a certain dollar amount for a "treat" -- and we're sticking to our guns. Can't afford the pretty Tiffany key pendant this month? SAVE IT UP, girl! Maybe next month (or the next). Can't quite make the change for that custom Guitar Hero guitar (carved out of exotic beechwood)? You'll just need to wait, buddy!

There's more . . . but it's 8 minutes after my usual bedtime (again, I'm NOT a 12-year-old!). If you'd like some quick tips on how to look at your own budget and possibly pinch some pennies, check out these 9 tips on how to set up a budget. And stay tuned for more of our personal budget modifications. It means a lot less spending and a lot more contending with our home projects (etc.) with little or -- GASP! -- NO money at all.

If you have tips and tricks of you own, feel free to share. We could use some free advice!

Like what you just read? You can subscribe to the feed of these posts and be the first to know what the (never home)makers are up to. And we’ll love you forever <3

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