Timetobeme's Blog

My husband David and I have set a year long challenge for ourselves. 12 months of being very careful with our money and breaking our bad habits.

We eat out entirely too much and spend way too much impulsively on stuff we really do not need, both at the grocery store and out at yard sales, t hirft stores and places like Target or Walmart. Wants versus needs.

We used to be very frugal out of necessity when raising our four kids,  but as money was not so tight we developed extremely bad habits, and now it is time to break them.

I saw myself do it at the grocery store the other day, adding this and that, but made myself put each of them back. It would have  added twenty wasted bucks to the grocery bill for things we did not need.  We have been doing this for years now and it is time to stop it. I am tired of living check to check and not having any savings and we are frankly getting too old for this kind of irresponsible behavior.

David retires in just over twenty years and so that means we have only  twenty years to set us up for our retirement. We do  have some money in our current 401k and we need to keep uping the percent of his check we contribute, there is no match whatsoever. He will get a small pension, just over a thousand, but that is not much, so our work is cut out for us.

We also have a lot of weight to lose, around two hundred between us, or just under. I have to lose around 120 and he has to lose about 60, so around 180ish we have to lose, a large person, what he should weigh between us.

So, we have started our challenge and I will keep track of our progress on this blog. I will add a catergory for our budget goals and monthly spending.

One of our  goals for this year is to stop eating out almost entirely. So far we have allowed my birthday in june, his in August and our anniversary in November. That is it. Far cry from 200 to 300 a month. Some months are even worse than that !!!

Our next goal is to cut our grocery bill way down. We have been spending as much as a grand a month for us and sometimes for the kids , our daughter and her  husband and kids live with us. So, we are chopping it down to between 200 and 300 a  month, period.  Buying only for ourselves for this year. Once every few months an extra hundred or two to go to Costco and split the cost of all the non grocery items, t paper, paper towels, dish soap, etc, along with some  grocery stock up those months,  with the kids, and I think our youngest daughter might go in on it with us too.

Yard sales and thrift stores are our entertainment, our favorate thing to do and I am even writing a book on having  yard sales because we are very good at it, both having and shopping at them, and only because of  some research photos this summer,  we decided on on trip a month with a limited budget for that one yard sale day a month, and that is it. Thrift stores probably the same. After we hit some  bill payment goals this June, we can budget in maybe on trip a month for the thrift stores too, but only as the budget allows and very limited spending. If we try to cut it too much, down  to zero, we will set ourselves up for failure. We do want to try for zero visits to thrift stores though if we can but will allow the one a month IF we really feel we want to go that badly.

We are also going to be starting our eating plan tomorrow. Really cutting back to healthy eating and more excercise.

So,  a twelve month challenge. It will be hard and it will be a challenge, but I am really excited about it and hope we can even do zero eating out for the year and zero thrift stores and only the four or five yard sale days for the year,starting after June 1. I would say NO yard sales, but I do have to get p ictures for the book, but we will take budgeted money only and forty or less for the day, but still push ourselves to not spend it , just research !!!

So I want to use this blog for my benefit to keep track of all the things we are accomplishing.

I decided to put this in its own category too so I may do all my posting here, but will see. 

So, day one started yesterdsay and of course we are on plan at day two, lol !!

Will post daily and will be brutally honest with how I am feeling, what we talk about and how we are doing and if we blow it. Which I am determined we will not.