April Challenge!!! and a sneak-peak into our finances

I hope your week has been a bit lovelier than mine....I came down with a viral infection and had to take a couple of sick days this week, but I am on the mend and feeling a little better. This illness couldn't diffuse my elation though....want to know why? Dallin and I went over our monthly finances this week and we saved $1,100 dollars this month! No, that's not adding up all of the  "you saved this much on tonight's purchase" numbers at the bottom of my receipts, it's an extra $1,100 dollars sitting in my bank account right now. How the heck did I do this? Well, Dallin and I took some semi-extreme (but are they really all that extreme?) measures this month because we have a big goal (surprise for a future post! and no...it's not a baby haha) that we are wanting to accomplish at the end of this upcoming summer. Want to hear how we did it? Well, I'll tell you.

When we went over our finances last month, we realized that we had spent quite a bit of "fun money" at the movie store, going out to eat, etc. So, we decided we either had to cut Netflix or trips to the movie rental store out of the routine, and we opted to stop going to the video rental place. That saved us probably $15 this month. We also spent a TON of money going out to eat in February ($130....ouch), so after the first week of March we made a lofty goal to not eat out for the rest of the entire month. I am insanely proud to say that we made it!! Not even one dollar menu item was purchased for the last three weeks of March. Savings? I can't tell you exactly because I don't know how much we would have gone out to eat, but it was definitely a big savings compared to last month!!! This was not an easy goal/challenge. We had to turn down offers from friends and family (which is not super fun), but it REALLY ended up being worth it.
The other goal we made for the month of March was no little "emergency" runs to the grocery store. I am particularly good at convincing Dallin several times a month to drive to the store late at night for ice cream *guilty face*. So, we cut those out entirely. I just really had to make sure that when I made my weekly grocery store run that I had a list and was prepared! (Have you read THIS post on that? Check it out!) I was AMAZED at how much our grocery budget went down this month....We saved roughly $100-120 by just cutting out those little extra trips.

We also cut down pretty significantly on Amazon purchases....it's so easy to order stuff that you don't REALLY need off of Amazon....not having to leave your house and give any more thought to purchasing the item than the click of a button. I am proud to say that I have not gone without any needs in March by not buying things off of Amazon. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Amazon, I am just more careful now to consider needs vs. wants.
The rest of the savings came from Dallin doing a little extra work this month and I got an extra symphony gig, so that helped us to stock away a few extra $$ as well. The trick there, though, was putting it AWAY, not spending it on "things". Dallin and I don't make a lot of money right now, we have just learned how to be wiser with it in the past few months, and we are starting to see some of our goals come to fruition. I'll let you know about that big one when we get going on it....for now, make a list of goals for yourself for April, and SAVE SOME MONEY!!! Our goals are to continue all of the above and save at least that much again. You can do it, too!

Photo Cred: Google Images