April Challenge coming to a close! BUT you can do it for May, too!

Okay my fellow blog followers....how's that challenge coming? If you remember correctly from this post, your job was to make some financial goals and stick to them for the whole month of April. Mine and Dallin's consisted of eating out less, less/no amazon purchases, and saving at least another $1,100 dollars. I am extremely proud to say that we accomplished (for the most part) these goals and saved MORE than that! We spent about $1,100 dollars this month and saved almost $2,000.

Now, here comes the confession. I had a week where I totally took a nose-dive with our goals. My semester was reaching an insanely stressful point, I was so tired I couldn't think straight let alone cook, so we ate out 3 times that week (youch!!!), AND I bought a swimsuit from ThredUp for our upcoming graduation trip to Florida (woohoo!). My fiscal self regrets this, but my mental self does not. Having to come home, cook, and then clean up a dirty kitchen afterwards probably would have thrown me over the edge of insanity that week. So, Dallin let me relax a little and we went out to eat several times. That probably sounds extreme to some of you. "Of course you should go out to eat!" or "Treat yourself!". Treating myself has turned into something different, though. Eating out is no longer really a "treat" to myself for the most part. Treating myself is watching my bank account grow and knowing that I am financially safe and secure if something happens to us and also knowing that we are getting closer and closer to some of our bucket-list goals. It's the best feeling!!! The bathing suit though...that was just a moment of total weakness. I'm going to fix that this month. ;) For the rest of the month, though, we really maintained our goals, and it feels GOOD. Did your challenge come out well? I want to hear from some of you! If any of you were wussies and didn't do it, that's ok, because GUESS WHAT?! There's another month starting this Sunday, which means you have an opportunity to redeem yourselves and hop on the bandwagon and SAVE. SOME. CASH. Here are some tips that I have for you to help save some money this next month:

1. Like I said in my grocery shopping post, don't go to the grocery store hungry! This can legitimately save you $5-10 every time you go to the grocery store this month. If you're like me and go once a week, that's an extra $20-40 by the end of the month!

2. The weather is getting nice! Nice enough, in fact, that opening the windows to help regulate the temperature of your living space is a much better alternative than turning on that AC unit. Muscle up a little and enjoy maybe a tiny bit of "discomfort"! Dallin and I made a goal not to use our AC/Heat for all of April, and I am proud to report that I only broke down twice. Turned the heat on once and turned the AC on once (both on days when the temperature was fairly extreme). My window has been open every day for a few weeks! Save some money on that utility bill. I saved about $20 this month.

3. Do NOT go to a retail location when you are emotional or tired this month. My most guilty Ross trips always happened when I was down in the dumps. Clothes don't REALLY make you happy. So, drag yourself off the couch, grab your sweetheart's hand, and go for a walk instead. It will lift your mood no matter the weather (I promise!!!), and you won't have to spend any money!

4. REALLY consider whether or not something is necessary for basic living needs before you buy it. I'm not asking you to quit buying bread for your family or let your kids go naked, but do you really NEED that new purse that is on clearance at the store or that new athletic wear you've been eyeing? Unless you use a purse every single day and yours has so many holes that things are falling out of it, you don't need it.

5. Finally, make it a game, and get somebody to do it with you. I'm luckily married, so my husband is my "person" to do this with. We were both skeptical (okay, I was skeptical) when we first started doing this whole "live-WAY-below-your-means-and-go-without-things" thing, but I am 100% converted. Life is better when it's simpler and when you are saving money to make your goals happen.

So, pull out a piece of paper, write down the goals, and tape them to your bathroom mirror. It's time to start making some changes! For those of you who were doing the April challenge (if there were any besides us), props to you! Let me know how it went in the comments section! As an alternative, you can also post in the comments money-saving ideas that you love that MIGHT even sound extreme to help you be motivated this next month
! Isn't that what this blog's about? ;)

Photo Cred: Google Images

Bye bye "budgets" and "diets"

Wait, aren't budgets and diets good things!? No, actually. I don't think they are. What do these two words imply? Well, they imply a sense of time. "I'll do this diet for four weeks and try it out" or "I need to budget really carefully to make it to the end of the month". Wouldn't it be nice not to have to worry about these things? It would, wouldn't it! Well, you can do that. It's called making lifestyle changes. "I'm going to start eating healthier and eating less meat so that I can feel good now and improve my future health" and "I'm going to live way below my means so that I can be financially free and enjoy doing more meaningful things with my time" are much better alternatives!

So, when you decide you want to hop on the healthy green fiscal machine bandwagon, don't view it as a new "budget" or a new "diet". These things we are talking about here need to be LIFESTYLE changes, and ones that don't go away! They will make you happy, but they can only do that if you are really committed. Who doesn't want to have a really nice retirement (maybe retire early?) and be healthy in their later years?! I don't know about you, but I don't want to be sitting in a nursing home playing cards or having to use a walker to get around if I can avoid it! I've always been a strong believer that the best things come to those who work the hardest for what they truly want. What I TRULY want is to feel financially secure, have a body that is healthy and functions better than just "well", and I want to enjoy spending time with my family doing meaningful things.

How do we make these lifestyle changes actually happen, though? It's hard, and we all have moments of weakness, but dang it we are adults! We've been taking command of utility bills, car payments, mortgages, school loans, diet, and big decisions for a while now, so it's time to take command of the most important aspects of our lives (health and financial freedom), pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, admit our mistakes, and hop on the bandwagon! Dallin and I have done some pulling up of the bootstraps in the past two years, and we are so glad that we have. This big goal of ours (still keeping it a surprise!) is REALLY starting to look like an actual reality, and I gleefully spin in circles with a big smile on my face when I think about it! We are achieving some major goals, changing our health, and saving way more cash than we thought we could. YOU can do it to. So, read through some of my old posts, find some inspiration, evaluate your own habits, and then make some small goals! Take meat and dairy out of one meal every day this week. Make a commitment not to make any Amazon purchases this week. Don't "treat yourself" by getting that new dress or shirt after you survive finals. Quit going to Starbucks and buy some coffee from the grocery store! Dallin and I started out VERY small in our lifestyle changes, and we have continued to add on small goals, one on top of the other, until we've reached the point we're at now, and we are STILL GOING. We have still had our missteps and made mistakes in the past 4 months, but not nearly as many as we would have had we not really committed to making some legitimate changes in our lives. It's an incredible feeling. Get going! Starting is the hardest part...but I believe in you. Let me know what your goals are!!! I'll help you by telling you mine and we can keep each other honest. :)

Photo Cred: Google Images

Time to whip out the water bottle more and the credit card less....

Water really is a pretty miraculous substance. Just for fun, I looked up some interesting facts about water. Some of the ones that I thought were the most interesting were these: Of all the water that is on our earth, humans only use about 3/10 of ONE PERCENT. That's right. That's a TINY little bit. Our earth has a ton of water!! Our bodies are also made up of about 75 percent water....and that is why we can't go for very long without it! Also, drinks besides water are made of almost entirely WATER (that one's pretty obvious...but good to remember when you read the next part of this post). Water also dissolves more substances than any other liquid on this earth. Go read the other facts form that link that I posted at the beginning of this paragraph! They are interesting!

Now, here's what this post is really getting at. If YOU want to be a healthy, green, fiscal machine, you need to start drinking more water and cutting out the other mostly-water-but-not-as-healthy drinks in your life. Don't even get me started on soda and soft drinks...you already KNOW you shouldn't drink those. And if you don't, go read this article about what it does to your body. I am not telling you to never drink it again, but having a soda once a month should be PLENTY. This also saves you money--why pay extra money at the grocery store for something that is practically water anyway but with a LOT of added stuff that is incredibly bad for you?
As far as fruit juice is concerned, skip the juice and just eat the fruit!! This article very succinctly puts why fruit juice isn't as healthy as eating the fruit itself. For those of you who don't click on the link, I'll sum it up. When you drink fruit juice, there are a lot of things that you are missing out on health-wise. For example, the edible skin of a lot of fruits doesn't exist in fruit juice and this is one of the healthiest parts of the fruit, especially for its fiber content! Fruit juice also (generally) contains little-to-no pulp, which is also an excellent source of nutrients and fiber within a fruit. Finally, when you drink fruit juice, you are getting more sugar per calorie than when you eat the whole fruit, so it has a more drastic effect on your blood sugar. Aside from these facts, fruit juice is just really expensive! Here in Springfield, we get charged a flat monthly water-rate fee. So, I can use as much water as I need (and as is available) in that month without getting charged any extra. Our water fee happens to be about $16 dollars a month. If you buy a decent bottle of fresh-squeezed orange juice at the store, you'll pay at least $4 for it, so I can pay for my whole month's worth of practically unlimited water supply for the same price as buying one jug of orange juice every week! I don't know about you, but I don't think that 1/2 gallon of orange juice is going to hydrate my body, flush my toilets, and wash my hair for an entire week. So, DRINK MORE WATER.
Lastly, as far as milk goes, it takes an incredible amount of water by the time the whole process is said and done to produce a gallon of milk, not to mention the fact that dairy really isn't that great for you anyway. Don't agree? I guess you still need to watch the Forks Over Knives documentary on Netflix, then. ;) Milk is also pretty expensive.

Now, I completely understand needing to "change it up" every once in a while, and I do that myself! Dallin and I buy Almond Milk nearly every week because we both refuse to use water with cold cereal (blech!!!), and we have the very rare soda when we go to Firehouse subs once a month or less. Other than that, we both are just content to primarily drink water most of the time. You will feel so much better if you start doing this, your spending will go down, and consequently your savings will increase. Have you opened that Roth IRA with Vanguard yet? If not...it's time to get going! Dallin and I gleefully spin in circles every time we see our money working for us without us actually having to do any work. So, jump on the bandwagon, don't put the soda, juice, or milk in your cart, and start feeling better and saving money!!!

Photo Cred: Google Images

Eating Now For Your Future Self

This post is being written partially out of guilt and partially as motivation to myself to get back on track. This past week has been ROUGH over at our household. First of all, we only have 3 weeks until graduation, and motivation levels are plummeting at a speed faster than imaginable. Secondly, I have had so many tests this week that I cant even think straight anymore. ;) Needless to say, we definitely ate out 2 or 3 times this week, and my body was NOT happy with me for it. We still avoided anything fast-food (I don't know if I'll ever go back to it again), but I was amazed just how much my body has changed since I've been eating better over the past 3 months....and it has changed enough that it was NOT happy with me and my eating patterns this week. So, here's to getting back on track! Before you read any further, PLEASE tell me you've gone and watched the documentary Forks over Knives that I mentioned in this post on either Netflix or Amazon! This documentary was life-changing for me, and still continues to be. It not, WATCH IT THIS WEEKEND! Secondly, have any of you discovered some good vegetarian/vegan recipes you want to share? I'm still discovering new ones, but I always really love hearing what other people have done/discovered, too! Post them in the comments below!!
Now, I want to share some more helpful/motivational tips with you that I've learned (and remind myself of them!) as we have been eating a more plant-based diet. First of all, meat was not the hard thing to remove from our diets. Think about it, if you just steam a piece of chicken with zero spices/flavorings, what does it taste like? Well, not something that tastes good, that's for sure. The thing you REALLY have to make up for in recipes when you omit meat is the texture of meat. That was really difficult at first, but it's getting easier for me. I have discovered that adding a grain (like barley, lentils, brown rice, quinoa, etc) to most things helps make up for the texture immensely! You can also help make up for texture by adding hearty vegetables that maintain their texture well (like broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, etc) to a recipe.
The thing that has been more difficult than omitting meat for us has been omitting dairy. This was trickier than I thought! I didn't realize how many dairy products I used until I actually started paying attention. Milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, sour cream, etc. We started out simply by replacing our milk with almond milk, and both of us actually like it so much better now! We still haven't completely omitted cheese, but we have cut WAY back on that. A great way to help yourself cut back on cheese is by using nutritional yeast. This stuff is SO easy to find, so that's not a good excuse! You can buy it at any major grocery store, and it's available in numerous forms and varieties on Amazon. As far as yogurt goes, we haven't completely omitted that either. However, I know that some stores carry dairy-free yogurt (made out of coconut milk or other things), I just haven't been able to find it here so far. Butter was very easy to cut out, as was sour cream. I just use coconut oil and olive oil in place of butter, and I just choose to not use sour cream!
The other thing that I have heard from a lot of people (women), is that, "I could definitely be vegetarian, I just could never convince my husband to do it!" Well, I was one of those women at first, and my husband was not super easily convinced, but I was AMAZED at his transformation. I genuinely didn't believe I'd ever really get him on board. I really eased him into it at first. Instead of cooking big pieces of meat as the main dish, I started making recipes where I would just use a little bit of meat and spread it throughout the whole dish. Then I slowly just started taking the meat out of things, and finally started removing dairy, too. My husband is now completely on-board with our new diet, and he is a total believer. He loves the way he feels, how he sleeps better, and how his cravings for unhealthy stuff have almost completely disappeared. Don't try to do it cold turkey! They really will dislike you for that, but I am a pretty firm believer that anyone can be converted to this way of eating. Again, WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY WITH YOUR SPOUSE, TOO!! :)

Did I mention you should watch that documentary?

Oh, yeah, btw,  you should watch that Forks Over Knives documentary.

Anyhow, after you watch the documentary, get going! You CAN do it. It seems overwhelming and difficult at first, but it's really not as hard as you think. Yes, it does require you to spend more time actually cooking your own food instead of going out to eat or buying pre-packaged things, but you will realize (after you watch the documentary!!) that it really is an incredibly important investment into your future health, and your health right now! That guy in the picture above knows whats up! We pay good money to go to the doctors and take time to do that...why don't we take time to stay healthy in the first place by cooking and eating right? Quality of life is EVERYTHING, and I think health is the number one contributor to that. So, gear up, look up some vegan recipes on pinterest, go to the grocery store and buy some veggies, and spend some time in the kitchen! You can do it!!!!

Photo Cred: Google Images

Time to Get down and Dirty with your gardening tools....

You know, I personally hate the whole "I don't have a green thumb....I couldn't grow anything to save my life!" excuse. Both of my thumbs are normal colored....and I have grown lots of things successfully. I didn't even grow up in a farming family! Having a garden can save you an incredible amount of money, and let me attest to you that the taste of home-grown, vine-ripened veggies is a BILLION times better than just about anything you can find at the store. Not to mention the fact that it's healthier! There are other benefits to having a garden too (like helping to save our bees) that I'll discuss later in this post, but first, the savings!
Gardening does not require a ton of space in the backyard. Having 5-6 garden boxes or a small corner of the yard functioning as your garden can produce LOTS of fresh, healthy food. However, when planting things in your garden, consider the veggies that you are planting, as well--is it cheaper to buy potatoes at the store (whole 5lb bag for $2) or spend an entire summer caring for them and using up garden space to plant them...for me, personally, I will never plant potatoes in my garden. The cost is not effective! However, with things like squash, tomatoes, fresh green beans, spinach, kale, bell peppers, etc, the cost of growing vs. buying these items is VERY much cheaper!
As far as supplies go, this is another place that you can save some money. You COULD buy that expensive rototiller to till up your dirt, but if you're just starting out and have a small gardening space, water your garden with a little extra sweat and pull out the old shovel to churn some dirt! Also, not buying veggie plants from the store is a very easy way to make your savings even better....one decent tomato plant will run you $2-3 (sometimes even more at smaller nurseries), whereas an entire packet of tomato seeds would ring up at just under $1. Be brave! USE SEEDS! You have the internet...there is no excuse not to learn how to start seeds on your own. They are much easier to grow than babies...and lots of you have done that so far! ;) As far as water goes, there's no good excuse to complain about water usage. Water is dirt cheap! If you are fortunate enough, you may have a secondary water source available to you, which is EVEN CHEAPER.

Now, I mentioned earlier something about saving our bees. How is YOUR garden going to help save the world's bees? (Have you looked into that? They are dying faster than they should be, and we COMPLETELY rely on them for every fresh thing you see in the grocery store...and even all of the canned things, too!). Most of the farming that occurs in the united states today is what we call monoculture farming...this is where farmers grow one thing on a HUGE piece of land....for instance, Joe only grows soybeans on his 300 acres, and Fred only grows tomatoes on his 150 acres. This farming practice is a double edged sword. While it is efficient in producing a lot of one product, these farms are a terrible place for bees to reside. Think about it...if you have 300 acres of tomatoes, they ALL bloom at the same time for about a week or two, then the blooms are gone....when the blooms are gone, the food for the bees is gone. Did you know that most of the bees in our country actually get shipped (from Florida) around the ENTIRE country during the growing seasons of different monoculture farms for most of the year? That's right...the bees go from Florida (on trucks) all the way to California for Almond production, then they head as far as the east coast for cranberry production (and other things). This is INSANE! We have to ship bees around the country to feed ourselves because we can't locally sustain the bees (there are some fascinating documentaries on Netflix about this...go look them up! I really liked "More than Honey"). So, now does it make a little more sense why having your own garden helps our bees? Just think, if everyone grew the majority of their own fresh produce during the summer (then lived off of their canned goods from their garden during the winter), we would not only lessen the need for monocultures, but we would also provide the bees with more polycultures....Polycultures are what they need, and ultimately, they are what we need if we want to continue to be able to have fresh food.

So, BEE brave, go buy some veggie seeds, and START THAT GARDEN! Now is the time to get them going! You won't regret it...I promise. :)

P.S. Check out this lady's article...she tracked her actual savings from having her own (small) garden (as opposed to buying her veggies in the summer) for 3 years. Awesome!

Photo Cred: Google Images

Zero Shame in My Thrifting Game!!! Featured (new favorite) Company....

One of the things I like to occasionally do on this blog is feature a product/store/company that I absolutely love, and today is ThredUp! This company is awesome! Basically, it's like a really nice online thrift store that helps you save money by buying gently-used, inexpensive items, and it helps the environment by not promoting brand new production of clothing that we don't really need to produce. The best part about it?! They have GREAT Prices! My grandparents (for our graduation gift) are taking Dallin and I to the beach in a few weeks, and I was in need of a swimsuit. Due to how picky I am with swimsuits, I was having trouble finding one in the stores around here that was in my price range (definitely NOT going to pay $55 for a swimsuit!!!). So, I skeptically decided to check out ThredUp, and I found EXACTLY what I wanted.....for ELEVEN DOLLARS!!! It is in beautiful shape for being a used item (sometimes they even have new-with-tags items on there!). My package should arrive tomorrow, and I am stoked! I ordered a dress from them on a previous occasion, and it came promptly and fit exactly as expected. So, with graduation coming up for many of us, don't be stupid....skip the expensive department stores! I saw some BEAUTIFUL fairly formal dresses on there when I was perusing the site a few days ago. They also sell childrens clothing....we all know that kids ruin clothes anyway, so why buy expensive brand-new ones?! These look brand-new, but are half the price.
The other great part about this company is that you can sell your clothes to them and they will pay you for them (similar to Plato's Closet). I highly recommend this website...if you're like me, you like clothes, but you don't want to pay the typical ridiculous prices for them. Plus, it's a great feeling to know that you are recycling something that is in perfect condition and getting the same usage/value out of it as if you bought something new! One of the company's main goals is pursuing sustainable clothing practices..."sustainable clothing practices" sounds stupid, but it's something we should be aware of and try to promote. How often do you throw something away that is still in decent shape? I have been guilty of that...although, I do usually donate most of my clothing. So, give consumerism the cold shoulder and start using ThredUp....you really won't regret it. :)

Photo Cred: Google Images

Long lost blogger has returned with more advice, and the challenge is still on!

Good golly! I can't believe it's been 10 days since I posted on this blog. Where did the time go? I hope you are all staying strong on your April financial goals! Dallin and I are still doing really well! We are right on track and I LOVE watching the cash flow into the bank account, and then not flow back out again.
My discovery of the day is not long or incredibly life-changing, but it's definitely money-saving! How many of you are getting more and more creative with cooking at home in an effort to save some money?! The one thing that I have begun to discover is that having fresh herbs to use in cooking makes a DRASTIC difference in the taste of your food. Who knew! Dried herbs are an excellent resource, but fresh herbs are just out of this world. Unfortunately, to buy like three fresh basil leaves at the store will run you about $2.50. I don't know about you, but that could buy me 2 1/2 pounds of apples to last me a week or so, and the basil leaves just start to look a little wiltier once I look at the price tag... ;) So, for the past two summers, I've planted my own herb seeds! They were a great success last year, and I'm still encouraging the little seeds this year to sprout (I just planted them about a week ago). According to my calculations, I'll probably get 10-15 grocery store "packages" worth of herbs out of my little (like, really tiny) herb garden. How much did it cost me to plant those herbs? Well, I'm estimating about 30 cents in seeds...since I'm still using up my seed packets from last year. Thirty cents to plant in comparison to probably $40 in herbs at the grocery store! I don't know about you, but those are some fiscal little herb seeds sitting on my front porch! They are practically making me money just sitting there growing their little green selves (the picture above is my sprouts from last spring...aren't they cute?!). Anyhow, I would encourage you to plant a little herb garden or even get really brave and plant some veggies in your backyard. The taste is so much better and the fiscal savings are OH so much better! Need some advice as a beginner? I found this article to be pretty helpful. Growing plants is so much easier than most people make it out to be....try it! You can't really go wrong when you're only spending 80 cents on a packet of herb seeds. ;)

The high that comes from putting things back on the rack...

As many of my Facebook friends know, I've been granted a Graduate Assistantship to assist me in getting through the next two years of grad school (wahoo!). After I received my official letter about being chosen for the assistantship, which entails teaching two sections of a freshman music theory lab course, I decided that I was going to *need* some more business-y like clothing to help me look the part for this new position. I quickly hopped in my car and went down to my favorite thrifty store, Ross, to look for the needed items. I overfilled my cart with all sorts of things and went to try them on. Some of them fit, some of them didn't....I kept looking for a while, and at the end of the trip, I ended up walking out of the store completely empty handed and very much happier than when I walked into the store.
The part about this story that I DIDN'T tell you beforehand is that I already have 3 pairs of dress pants in my dresser at home, and many sufficient shirts/blouses to help me "look the part" for this new assistantship, but I thought that with this new distinguished position I'd gotten, I needed to look even newer and more distinguished by buying more clothes. I realized by the end of the trip though that I would look just as good in the pants I already had (which are not worn out in any significant way)! As I put stuff back on the rack in the store, I walked out happier because I didn't buy things that I didn't really need. Some people would say to me, "But you should treat yourself a little! That's a big accomplishment!" Well, I think I treated myself in an even better way. I treated myself to knowing that I have more than enough money for groceries, car expenses, utility money, and other such necessary things to REALLY maintain my true quality of life. All of the nice business clothes in the world can't cook me a nice, healthy, vegetarian dinner, pay to keep my house cool this summer, or put gas in my car, but the money that I save from not buying the unnecessary clothes CAN. On the other side of things, had I bought those clothes, I would have also had to work more hours to earn the money back that I spent on something unnecessary so that I could continue to pay my bills and put a decent amount towards investments and savings ventures. Those extra hours of working keep me from spending time and creating memories with those I love and care the most about.
So, for those of you who are going out into the "real world" to start jobs after graduation or even going on to continue your education, start heavily considering wants vs. needs and the things in life that will truly improve your overall quality of life and happiness, hence the wonderful high that comes from putting things back on the rack. For those of you already in this stage, start thinking about how early retirement funded by the savings from not buying unnecessary stuff could improve your quality of life (Have you hopped over to Mr. Money Mustache's blog? He retired at age 30!!!!). I'm starting to find mine, and I hope you'll join me and find yours, too!

This guy really makes me happy!! ^^


P.S. Have you made your April goals list yet for the challenge?! Get going on that! These are serious savings that we are talking about!!

*Photo Cred: Google Images (top left), Holly Hunt (Bottom center)

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