Spend Less: Well.. we were doing ok.. nothing extra spent (other than a $3 movie & game rental), and even spent less on our weekly grocery trip... then it happened. I told Drew to start researching ideas for his upcoming science project. While he was online looking through some lists, I made the mistake of looking over his shoulder, reading the line "What types of food does a mouse respond best to?"... and then saying to my son, "Hey you should do this one. We could totally have an itty bitty little mouse!"... He turned the laptop off, I grabbed my purse and we headed straight for the pet store. An hour and $71 dollars later, we are now the proud (and poor) owners of 2 adorable little mice..... Let's hope I can make it through the rest of the month without any more bright ideas.
Stop Eating Our Money: Surprisingly we've done great at this one. On the way home from my sisters at 7:30am on New Years Day, I made the decision that we were starting our journey home with trip to Starbucks. My little man objected saying we'd be breaking the rule of eating out.. but I found a loop hole to this one.. I had 2 Starbucks gift cards burning a hole in my wallet. So yes, technically we did eat out.. but it didn't cost anything so in my book it doesn't count.
Vacation in San Francisco: I went over this plan with Drew again the other night.. and now he's not so sure he wants to go anymore. He still wants to see the bridge.. but doesn't think there's anything else he'll want to do there. So we might be going back to the drawing board for vacation ideas.. but still saving for the trip.
Stay Home: I hate this one. Our house is boring.. and there are 100 things staring at me begging to be cleaned.. but we've done it.. pretty much (aside from the mouse & movie shopping trips).
Pay Off Car: Man, I can NOT wait until this is done. I went over my statement last night and was just disgusted. I had horrible credit when I bought my car and my interest rate is ridiculous... I do want to buy a new car. I do NOT NEED to buy a new car... but I know it's going to be SUPER hard not to buy one once this one is paid off... Wish someone would have given me some self control for Christmas...
So we're not off to the greatest start so far...
But I'm not giving up yet.
My plan for next month is to do some serious research into investment options. Mostly for Drew's money that's barely earning anything in his savings account... but if it works out ok, I plan to start doing more investing than I am now with my 401k and IRA.
Now if I could just squeeze a maid into my monthly budget things would be fantastic!!
** Snuck in an end of the year expense of new pictures before we started our 2012 goals.. (this is a phone pic of the actual pictures).
I love the picture! Staying home can be tough. What I have done so I don't binge later is take all the things staring me in the face that need to be done. List them. Take five things a day off the list and do them each day. After thre days "reward" yourself by going somewhere, even if it's the dollar store.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea where you live so I have no vacation ideas for you. Sorry.