Save every dime I can by not spending.

Saving has become very hard lately. I seem to have no extra money and I have had some big expenses. I guess this is the ebb of the ebb and flow of money.

Today I spent absolutely nothing. I bought nothing. No food, no art supplies, nothing. I have also begun tracking every penny I spend again. I write it on a page in my day planner. Everything in and everything out.

Today I went to garage sales, something I do rarely. I found a box with wooden rods in it which I suspected was a laundry rack of some kind. I came home and researched it. New ones cost $55 or so. I went back to the sale and checked to see if all the parts were there. The sellers said to take the box for $1. I did, brought it home and began to assemble it. Turns out there were two wheel shaped laundry racks, made of wood and completely intact. So I got two racks for $1. This means that I can dry clothes in the house during the winter in front of the fireplace and not have to use my dryer all winter long. I will save hundreds of dollars in the next year. This absolutely made my day !

For the past three weeks I have made a conscious effort to stay under or at $100 a week for food. That is to feed four people. I have done that and it feels great. It meant that I did not make a single extra trip to the store regardless of what we thought we needed. I waited until Saturday to do the next round of shopping. Nobody complained or went without. If my daughter counldn’t figure out a snack I would suggest some ideas and she was happy with those. I concentrated on using up everything up in the house before buying more stuff. I made mayonaise, broth, and salad dressing. I had to really think twice a couple of times not to go to the store and I am so glad that I did not.

Yesterday I cancelled our XM/Sirius radio plan. We listen to I- tunes radio and I-pods and the radio was a duplication of services. We will save $696 in one year by doing this. Yeah!

Friday was a tremendously busy day that just never seemed to end so the concept of starting dinner for the family was stressing me out. There is usually nothing in the house so I decided to get pizzas even though each time I have done that it costs me at least $30.00. INSTEAD, I took a deep breath and decided to create a great meal out of what I had in the kitchen. I just couldn’t rationalize the thought of spending that $30 on lesser quality food. I am all better now and $30 is still in the bank.

Today was a little test. I had nothing of interest in the house to take to work for lunch and I considered buying a small lunch for myself. Then I thought about the extra gas to buy the lunch, the money it would cost and the bother of doing it at all. So instead I took three old granola bars, an apple, and a banana to work and called it lunch. It was just fine and I am not hungry at the end of the day. I figure I saved around $10.00 today.

Today I am purchasing staples in bulk and setting out a place to store them. I have found some good sales and I don’t think food prices are going down anytime soon. These are all items that I consistently use in the kitchen and that can be stretched into many recipes. I figure I am saving by taking advantage of sales and buying and holding and not paying a higher price six months from now.

I actually made my day better yesterday by depositing some money into my savings. I felt a sort of elation at taking control of my money in this way. I will consider this goal met when I saved and look forward to saving each month.

I saved $27 at the grocery store out of my budget by really streamlining our meals. I am adding that to my account.