Day 9

$5 donation to a friend's son who is walking to raise money for his school.

$36 on Flip organic nighttime inserts.  Cotton Babies was having a seconds sale and I've recently heard good things about the nighttime inserts.  Pair that with the fact that Adam pees through 10 layers of bamboo AND a hemp babies doubler at night, we need to explore other options!

And finally an Aldi trip (weekly trip made by Tom) with a few extras for Adam's baptism weekend. $65.92 :(

Day 8

$2.35 spent at Jewel on asparagus and broccoli

$3.53 spent at the thrift store on a cute shirt for Adam with a guitar on it and new flannel super cute fabric

It's blurry but cute :)

Day 7

$0. Yay!!

Day 6

Oops. Forgot to blog on Sunday. Probably because we didn't spend any money!!' Yay :)

Day 5

Ok at least I warned you yesterday about our Target trip today.  I decided to do the grocery deal again (there was a coupon for $10/$50 worth of groceries, then you could use other coupons on top of it) and we got Tom 3 new polo shirts for work.  Total was $60.67 and saved $63.91. We got A TON of stuff, I didn't snap a picture. 

Also spent $12.75 to ship a package to Tom's sister who had surgery last week. 

Day 4

Only mildly better today.  Adam had his 9 month pediatrician appointment so we made a few stops afterwards.  He was a rockstar.

We stopped at Salvation Army because I'm never down that way anymore, and I've found a few good deals there in the past, AND a local babywearing mama found not only a brand new Didymos woven wrap there but also a ring sling.  I haven't been as lucky.
I have most of Adam's summer clothes (or at least I hope I do, size wise), but I've been wanting to get him some T-shirts because how cute will he be running around in his cloth diapers and T-shirts?!  For some reason the t-shirts were decently priced so I got 9 of them for $7.33.  On a sidenote/rant they totally jacked up their prices. They moved to a new building, and things are seriously waaay too much for a thrift store!  I found a brand new package of sandbox toys, with the Target price of $2.50 still on them, and they were asking $3.99!!!  Um, what??? No. 

9 T-shirts for $7.33!!

Anyways, then we stopped at JoAnn Fabrics because I needed some invisible zippers for some pillows I am making (Kelly I PROMISE I am making your pillow soon, but I'm not sure if it will have a zipper because they are kinda tricky on a curve, oooh, actually unless I put it in the middle of the football on the Iowa side of the fabric, let me know).  I used 3 50% off coupons and spent $5.43 for 3 zippers. 

And I'm giving fair warning that tomorrow is going to be bad.  Tom needs new shirts so we're off to Target.  At least there is a $5/$25 coupon available!

Day 3

Ugh. So I got these free "well loved" diapers from Cotton Babies last November when they sent them to me by accident instead of the diapers I ordered. They just told me to keep them, so I thought "Sweet free diapers!" although they needed some work. I had to replace the elastic in each leg and the back of all four diapers and the velcro was shot and nasty, so I decided to remove all of the velcro and convert them to snaps.  I have some snaps, but I didn't realize how many I needed, so enter today's first purchase, $9 spent on snaps to convert these diapers. (Although that's not really bad considering each diaper new costs $18 and I'm converting 4 for $10 total (estimating elastic cost of $1).

Then Target had another awesome deal I couldn't pass up, so I ran in quick on the way home from an EI kid. Spent $11.35, saved $32.01, and received a $10 Target giftcard. Bought 1 pack of Charmin, 2 packs of Bounty, and one Degree deodorant.

Day 2 AND Deal of the Week: Target

Y'all.  This is bad. Yes, I said "Y'all."  That's how bad today's spending was.  It started off innocently enough, a nice little morning trip to Target, which was awesome by the way. I now never want to go to Target any other time than at 8 am. 

Spent $19.49 
Saved $41.35

We dropped Bailey off to get her teeth cleaned at the vet, and that was quite expensive, however that was kind of budgeted so I'm not going to include that in our totals.

I had been eyeing this storage ottoman from Amazon for some time now.  We don't really have any extra space in our living room for a giant ottoman, but Adam's toys are quickly growing out of control (and have already outgrown my DIY storage area, but I still love it and will continue to use it).  So anyways, it went on sale, and we had a giftcard we had been saving, so it ended up being $92. I was hoping to use $30 worth of rebate prepaid cards I had but apparently Amazon only lets you split the payment between one giftcard and one credit card, so I will have to use those cards for something else.  The ottoman retails for $250 though and will hopefully be a permanent fixture for many years to come so it was well worth it. 

I feel like the last 2 days are a pretty inaccurate portrayal of my spending. I mean, yes, I've been spending more, but I promise I usually don't drop over $100 a day ;)

Today's totals - Day 1

Yikes!! Day 1 was terrible :/

I finally ordered the fabric and sling rings for the ring slings I'm going to make for myself and a friend.  The total came to $31.60 (I bought an extra pair of sling rings so I can use them instead of tie offs when wrapping Adam.   After her share of the goods the total comes to $17.80

Then I stopped into Jewel on the way home from seeing a couple of EI kids. I only intended to pick up some bread and Drano, but instead also purchased chicken (on sale for $1.99/lb), beer (because if you bought beer with the chicken there was a $2 off coupon you could use AND we need beer for the baptism weekend), and toothpaste ($0.50 so that wasn't a deal breaker).  Total came to $32.84.

Okay and finally, this last one I'm really frustrated by and technically it shouldn't count because I'll be able to write it off in my taxes next year. I had to buy the updated billing forms to bill for a patient I see that has private insurance and the insurance company does not do online billing.  I got 50 forms for $18.71 shipped.  Anyways if I want to get paid for my services, I didn't really have a choice. I'm just hoping this insurance company reimburses at a crazy high rate ;)

Spending Challenge

Okay, it's no secret that we are bringing in way less than when I was working full time. I've been managing our budget, and doing OKAY, but I still seem to be spending money like I was when we had two full time incomes coming in, and I seriously need to scale it back. I need some accountability.  My plan is to post here every day for a month, exactly how much money I spent that day.  Bills don't count, rent doesn't count, and that's about it. I'm hoping this will give me the accountability I need. 

I'm a little nervous about sharing my spending habits with the world (ha, and by "world" I mean all 2 people who read my frugal blog ;)  But in all seriousness, it's going to take a little extra effort to come here and post every day.  Especially since my To Do list these days is never ending.  I need to get my spending in check though so I'm going to try and make it a priority.

I feel that I need to add a disclaimer before we even start....Adam's Baptism is in 2 weeks and the weekend after that I have friends coming to town. No doubt the spending will be a little high on those weekends, however I really don't feel like delaying this any further, so that will just have to be taken into account. 

So far I've started off well. I haven't bought anything today ;)  But I've been meaning to order some fabric and sling rings to make water ring slings for myself and a friend, so if I get around to that tonight it may be my first purchase.

Deal of the Week: Target

The little dude and I walked to Target last week to pick up a few goodies :) Ignore the 2 empty yogurt containers. I got a little hungry before I could take a picture ;)

Spent $12.64
Saved $34.07

Brought the stroller just in case - it came in handy to hold our bags :)