Tom and Syanna

First, at some point I will address the election results. But today, this week, it is too raw, there is too much I feel I need to do, and I'm so tired  from working through what little I've managed this past week. So, on to lighter stuff. I promised an update on the No-Spend November experiment. We have done pretty good. We did spend $6.35 Wednesday when we took ourselves for a post-election pick-me-up. We didn't feel too bad though because we were able to get two items for the price of one thanks to a really handy coupon calendar that we got in the mail about 6 weeks ago. And the good news is that we have enough rewards points for another buy one, get one free deal that we will probably use sometime next month for an FHE activity. Tom also, suddenly, really wanted to see Doctor Strange, so we did. I'm not counting this against our no spend attempt because we didn't use any additional money for it, nor did we have to use additional money to keep food on the...

One of those "useful things" I've always tried to do and never been terribly successful at it meal planning. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of it, helps with grocery shopping, saves time each day because you already know what to make, etc. I just have never been good enough at following through. But no time the present to try and be better. I was reading an article today where the author was claiming that they were feeding themselves and their partner on only $120.00 a month with food planning. No I don't think for one minute that I could get us down to 120 a month because, well, sometimes I need convenience food and cheese. But if I could even shave off some of our normal monthly food expenses I'd be a very happy person.  Below is the plan for the month of November. I'll report in later in the month on how it is going, if it goes well I'll try again for December. 1: Skipped 2: Skipped 3: Cafe Rio Salads (this went okay - need to fi...

We just finished out October, which is full of extra spending for us because of the candy and our decorations. We did opt to make most of our decorations in an effort to spend less money and end up with a product that would last longer then a season or too. Here are the pieces we made: These 3 are actually ones that we copied from Old West cemetery's. I also got a head start on some of Tom's presents for Christmas. This year we are attending a show for one of Tom's favorite stand-up comedians in December and that is making up the bulk of our "Christmas" budget and is our "joint gift". As such, we are each just responsible for some smaller items to go under the tree. However, this all left me feeling a little wallet poor by the time midnight October 31st rolled around. So, we decided to try No Spend November, which is a small financial fast from things that aren't essential expenditures. For this exercise essential is being defined as our...