**Week 5** January Freeze

[closertofine]

It's the home stretch! How are you doing? Would you declare your freeze to be a success? Care to share numbers with us?

Stay strong for the next four days! And depending on your location, stay warm this week.

[raangoli]

We did well last week. I went into the office, so I bought lunch which I had allowed myself to do. We spent less than $30 on getting BB a book for her birthday and taking her our to the science center to celebrate this weekend (yahoo for free admission with MH's employer ID). I had already bought her other gifts throughout the year and had saved them in addition to cashing in the Pampers points for one of her gifts.

I haven't bought anything extraneous all month. I was joking with MH that I need to buy more face wash and I will wait 5 more days to get it, but he said that is need not a want. I still might just use a gift card to buy it.

We didn't eat out except for the lunch at the science center, so that was great too and balances out the eating out twice last weekend.

My personal Amex for the month is $40. I call that a win!!

[konapoppy]

I had Starbucks once (work travel), but I still consider that a win! The habit has been broken.

I didn’t place any amazon orders at all this month (H placed the order with the fee essentials).

I did buy the girls a few things this weekend - some art supplies since they love art and we didn’t have any that were washable, and wooden condiments because they fight over the incomplete set we have all the time.

No clothes for me or the girls, and no makeup, all month.

Our trashcan hasn’t been nearly as full because we don’t have nearly as many packages and are eating out way less.

[aspentosh]

My main goals were food, clothing, and house stuff.

Food- between groceries and eating out, we spent $651 which is easily $200 less than we normally spend. It's not uncommon for months to be flirting with $1000. So that is huge huge huge. And with the meal I cooked last night and what I'll make tonight we should be good for the remainder of January.

The only clothing purchased was a belt for H because his broke, so 100% necessity. And it was less than $20 so yay for that.

As far as house stuff goes, I've just been creating a list of things we need (entry table, blinds for basement) rather than buying them. Now that I've got a list I'll work my way through over the next few months or year. The only thing purchased for the "house" was DD's annual photo book, and that was only because blurb had their big sale in January.

I was able to clean my closet and really pare down to what I love. This was a great exercise to do doing the spending freeze because it made me realize there was nothing I needed. I have been pretty aware of what I bring into my closet for the past year so there wasn't a ton to get rid of.

I did the same for DD's clothes and ended up making a couple hundred on sales over the last week. Still want to work on H's closet this week.

DD's party was more expensive than we were hoping for (almost $200). Oh well.

Our biggest expenses by far this month was our Ireland flights and lodging. But now that those are taken care of we won't have any more expenses until we get there.

So yes, big success.

[covergirl82]

The credit card was half of what it usually is (billing cycle started just before Christmas and ended 1/23), so that was a win for the month. We have eaten out less, which is reflected in the credit card bill being much lower.

I need to email the school accounting department as we haven't received $60 in refunds for aftercare due to school closure days.

I did buy a few pairs of next-size up pants for DS from Gap because they were such a great deal ($12 each, and usually $30 each) and I used $25 in rewards.

We've had bad weather, so I haven't tried to sell anything else on the FB yard sale. I still have a few items I'd like to get $100+ each for that my friend offered to sell on Ebay, I just need to get them to her so she can post them.

I'm hoping in February to continue eating out less, focusing on buying necessities, and selling some items.

ETA: School has been closed all week so far (through Thursday) and I've been working from home all those days, plus DH WFH 2 of those days, so we've saved at least $50 in gas and DH not eating lunch out those 2 days. Yay!

[gt7301b]

The main category I focused on was groceries and eating out, which got out of hand towards the end of last year.  I have $8 left in my grocery budget for the month, so hopefully we don't need anything.  I am good about only going to the grocery once, but if my husband "needs" something who knows what he will come back with.

I started writing down the things that I throw out in my planner, which has increased my focus on the waste.  I did some little things like using up the last of the small taco shells for mini-enchiladas rather than forgetting about the taco shells and ending up throwing them out.  

I'm going to try and keep up the limited freeze into next month.

[minzy]

Thanks for setting this up closertofine!

Moneywise, this past week I did pretty well.  I used grocery points for 60 cents off per gallon of a full tank of gas, bought some kid underwear for 70% off, all Target expenses were with a gift card, we're stopping piano lessons for now so that's a savings (sigh, I got tired of begging them to practice), my husband is tweaking my cell phone plan to make it cheaper, and I got reimbursed for a few things I spent money on in December.

Carbonwise, I think a month of really thinking about consumption has been great for me.  I will do a separate post on it soon, but in the meantime, new stuff in the past week:

- I volunteered with our library friends group to sort books for their used book sale.
- After talking with one of my friends a few weeks ago, she mentioned she hasn't bought a new article of clothing (less underwear/shoes), in two years, and that got me thinking about a clothing swap.  I mentioned it to her and she had already thought of it, and now we may try to get something like that off the ground with some other friends. 
- I bought gifts for a couple of kid birthday parties.  Both kids are getting a gift card to a locally owned ice cream place, and then one other small thing.  For the one, it was a unicorn shirt at H&M, but I took in some stained (and partially cut up for rags) textiles for recycling, and got 15% off the purchase.  Both gifts will be delivered in my revolving stash of gift bags; at this point in parenting, gift bags are practically a closed loop, I never buy them.  I've recently learned about the concept of furoshiki, the Japanese tradition of wrapping gifts in cloth, which sounds cool and something to consider.  I also came across an article about the concept of "fiver birthdays" where everyone gives the kid a five dollar bill and it totally cuts the crap.  Although I'm not huge on dictating gifts, I plan to discuss with my older daughter the idea of having a "no gifts" or charity donation for her next birthday.
- As room parent, I'm starting to plan the Valentine's day class party, and am thinking an edible craft again instead of a junky one, so it's less shit in the houses of 26 other sets of parents.  
- I carpooled to yet another meeting with yet another friend, three weeks in a row now.
- I had a big stash built up, but finally fixed holes in a coat, PJs, camisole, yoga pants, kids leggings, running gloves and a sleeping bag.  I knew I could probably send the coat and sleeping bag out under their warranty policies, but after thinking about the packaging and gas for shipping, I decided to fix them myself.
- I paid $35 to repair the soles of my three or four year old $90 boots, rather than replacing them.
- Tiny things but I manually pushed the door at Target instead of using the electric one and air dried my hands rather than using a paper towel.  I cleaned lint from our outside dryer vent and used Dawn soap to clean the lint trap. 
- I changed my 2 week contact lenses at the one month mark again.  It's probably not medically advisable, but I've been doing it without issue for years.  I also read an article about a contact recycling program they're trying to get off the ground in the UK. 
- We clipped off pieces of a philodendron plant, placed them in clear containers and placed in each kid's room.  My primary interest is in having the kids watch the root systems regenerate, but that they're great for indoor air cleaning in a different part of the house is another plus.  
- I weighed our family's weekly trash again, 16 pounds this week.  I don't know if the decrease is due to luck or my vigilance ("If we don't eat these grapes in the next few days, we're going to have to pitch them, and they're heavy"), but I like the number going down!

Some "fails":
- Husband says he's noticed colder water when shaving, so we undid my second turndown of the hot water heater.
- I very briefly considered not dying my hair and letting my "silver sparkles" grow out, but I'm not there yet.  I'm inspired by the #grombre community, though (and I did recycle what I could of the kit).
- I used a few paper towels cleaning up painting and the Foreman grill.  

[minionkevin]

I was under budget at Costco yesterday even after buying 2 impulse items that DH wanted to try. Simialrly, I did my grocery shopping online to avoid buying a bunch of things we didn’t need and spent less than expected.
I got a late start today so I wasn’t tempted to get breakfast on my way in and I already have a bunch of soup to choose from for lunch.
I have all of our dinners planned out for the week, so no last minute grocery runs or takeout.
The only planned large purchase, which we probably won’t actually buy until maybe Presidents weekend (in hope for a sale) is furniture for Kid1’s room so we can pass down the crib and dresser to Kid3.

[raangoli]

minzy, I am also inspired by the #grombre movement. Partly out of laziness and partly out of my frustration that I feel like society is more "tolerant" of men graying while women are viewed as old and haggard if they are grey. Maybe that is just my perception, but I'd like to embrace the silver/grey.

It's hard since my hair is blacker than black naturally, so this as been an interesting personal experiment for me to see how many effs I don't give while also saving money and using less chemicals.

[Roc A Bee]

So I didn’t buy anything on amazon, no clothing or home goods from TJ Maxx, and I feel good about that.

I feel like my food expenses were a little out of control, but I don’t really track that.

I only charged $33 this month. I’m normally charging 200-500! Even though I pay it off monthly, this is a huge savings for next month! I call that a win!

[dellabear]

I’ll have to go add it up and come back and report. I haven’t been as good as most of you but I still feel like I saved a lot this month. I’m going to keep going in to next month to save a little extra for our ski weekend at the end of February. The light at the end of the tunnel, ha

[sadlebred]

I think I'll come out as a net zero spend/savings for the month. I had a couple of unexpected expenses, but I made some money by selling items that I don't need. My grocery bill was less than it normally is, and I didn't spend as much on gas for the car by parking it 1-2 days/week and driving less on the weekends. I didn't buy any clothes, shoes, or anything that was not needed.

[konapoppy]

Thank you for bringing MM back to MM, closertofine!

[gt7301b]

Jan 28, 2019 10:14:48 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

The main category I focused on was groceries and eating out, which got out of hand towards the end of last year.  I have $8 left in my grocery budget for the month, so hopefully we don't need anything.  I am good about only going to the grocery once, but if my husband "needs" something who knows what he will come back with.

I started writing down the things that I throw out in my planner, which has increased my focus on the waste.  I did some little things like using up the last of the small taco shells for mini-enchiladas rather than forgetting about the taco shells and ending up throwing them out.  

I'm going to try and keep up the limited freeze into next month.

Welp, last night the dog ate the leftovers that were supposed to be my lunch today and tomorrow's dinner.  Not a huge deal, but not the ending of the week I was expecting.

[bostonmichelle]

We did pretty good for the month. We had some unexpected expenses and did a few things around the house that we’ve been procrastinating on.

[melmel48]

Last weekend was terrible! I spent so much money at restaurants. My friend did pay for my beer and fries when he asked me to go out... but I had just spent $45 while out with a different friend. The next night I spent $22 on a goodbye party for a friend.. and Sunday I spent $9 on lunch. 

This week I am trying so hard to just eat whatever is in the house.

[jamaicam]

minzy, I'm really enjoying reading about your environmental efforts!

A random idea - my dad loves having super hpot water for his shave. So he bouht a small electric kettle to keep in the bathroom. He heats up enough for a sink of water and shaves from the sink, rather than having running water and turning up the heater. May be something for your husband to consider?

Also, I use monthly contacts and change every 5-6 weeks - maybe look into monthly not fortnightly ones next time?

Your idea of weighing your garbage is a great one and one I need to get on.

[minzy]

Jan 30, 2019 11:54:46 GMT -5 jamaicam said:

minzy, I'm really enjoying reading about your environmental efforts!

A random idea - my dad loves having super hpot water for his shave. So he bouht a small electric kettle to keep in the bathroom. He heats up enough for a sink of water and shaves from the sink, rather than having running water and turning up the heater. May be something for your husband to consider?

Also, I use monthly contacts and change every 5-6 weeks - maybe look into monthly not fortnightly ones next time?

Your idea of weighing your garbage is a great one and one I need to get on.

Good ideas! I will ask about monthly contacts next time I have a checkup, thank you!

[claudiakishi]

My goal was to spend $500 or less on groceries and I came in a little over. However, the over amount was some stuff for a weekend of out of town guests, so I kind of don’t want to count it 😂

It wasn’t that hard to do and I’m going to keep on doing it next month.

I also barely had any unnecessary purchases and it made me realize how many dumb and/or Amazon impulse buys I make. Going to keep this up as well.

[IrishBelle]

Overall it was a good month. We did have some unexpected expenses this week. DD2 has been invited to a birthday party this weekend for twins so I picked up gifts yesterday at Costco.

DD2 ‘s own birthday party was last weekend but we held it at our house and expenses exams from our weekly grocery budget.

For a MM win - we head out of town in a couple of weeks for a tournament for DD1. I had booked our room back in October. I checked the hotel’s website again today and for the two nights, it was $100 less so I cancelled and rebooked at the lower rate.

[xctsclrx]

Well even though this month had some unexpected expenses. Car battery, signing kiddos up for sports and a few others, I was able to bring my CC balance to 0 and had money left over. So I call that a success.

[ellipses84]

I did really well even though this January felt like the longest month ever! Better than the past couple spending freezes and I’m glad we had so much board participation. Thank you for arranging it closertofine.

I will probably continue it into February for no online shopping, keeping the grocery budget under control and avoiding eating out. There were a lot of times I wanted to grab the kids dinner on the way home but I held strong and didn’t do it (DH did a couple times and was not as good at the spending freeze as I was, but I’m glad he tried).

[closertofine]

I realized I didn't update my own info. I saved about $500. I probably could have not spent another $100-150, but oh well. I am planning to continue until Feb 19 to see a full month's cycle on my credit card. The medical bills have started to come in (which is why I was doing the freeze in the first place). I've been able to pay all through my hsa so far, but the next batch coming soon will be oop. I should not have to pull from savings. I also paid for my daughter's week at sleep away camp this summer now ($500) rather than when it is due in May. Also did not have to touch vacation savings.

This weekend may be a free for all though. Between the flu and cold, the kids and I have been home this entire week. We are going stir crazy. But ds and I are still sick, so not doing anything today. Hoping to break out by Sunday. I'll start with the library bc free, but food will be involved.

[mccallister84]

Feb 1, 2019 8:43:14 GMT -5 closertofine said:

I realized I didn't update my own info. I saved about $500. I probably could have not spent another $100-150, but oh well. I am planning to continue until Feb 19 to see a full month's cycle on my credit card. The medical bills have started to come in (which is why I was doing the freeze in the first place). I've been able to pay all through my hsa so far, but the next batch coming soon will be oop. I should not have to pull from savings. I also paid for my daughter's week at sleep away camp this summer now ($500) rather than when it is due in May. Also did not have to touch vacation savings.

This weekend may be a free for all though. Between the flu and cold, the kids and I have been home this entire week. We are going stir crazy. But ds and I are still sick, so not doing anything today. Hoping to break out by Sunday. I'll start with the library bc free, but food will be involved.

You are probably already planning on doing this by just to be sure - as long as you haven’t maxed out your HSA contribution you can put post tax dollars in there to cover the new bills. And then I’m pretty sure that it helps you out come tax time - we had to do that last year because I had a baby in June and H’s payroll deductions wouldn’t let him do more than the max/26 so we didn’t have enough to cover the deductible by the time I had the baby. We are doing it again this weekend because even though we maxed it out last year we were only able to carry over like $500 after all of our medical expenses were said and done and of course DD2 was hospitalized last week and we have been at the pediatrician like 8 times already since 1/1 so we are out of money in there. Obviously it’s still OOP now but at least by running it through the HSA first we get the tax benefit eventually (disclaimer: not a tax expert so I could be wrong in this but this is how it was explained to us - its only our second year with an HSA bad I just did our taxes last night and it did ask for our post tax contribution in turbo tax).

[mlkgls]

Thank you for posting this closertofine!

My main goals were to rein in my food budget and food waste and I would rate it about 80% successful.
- Success: <$400 for groceries, household goods, eating out
- Partial success: I did reduce our food waste, but illness and laziness got the best of me last week. I think I may try to use your method gt7301b, to keep me more accountable!
- My only non-bill purchases other than food were a pair of warm slippers (I’m cold 24/7), paid for with a GC, and new legos for DS, paid for by selling his Duplo Legos.

I also made the switch over to cleaning rags and cloth napkins. The linen napkins were my grandmother’s and I absolutely LOVE that I can incorporate them into my daily living, especially since my grandparents played a defining role in how I view and handle money.

This month was eye-opening for me regarding the amount of money left over. I ran across my set of Dave Ramsey CDs during a closet purge and have been listening to them on my daily commute this week. I don’t subscribe to it 100%, but one thing that struck me was the notion of giving every dollar a name. I’ve relied on my innate frugality to run my finances, but it looks like I need to decide how to allocate leftover money better, whether it be increasing 529, 401K, mortgage principal, or investing.

[hurricanedrunk]

My overall goal for the month was to rock it at YNAB, which was a success. Surprisingly H got on board quicker than I thought and was helpful in tracking and talking about our spending. One more month and we'll be off the credit card float and ready to kick some more ass on our savings/ debt payoff goals. I've had a couple of what the heck is happening moments with the software but managed to work through them.

I didn't buy myself anything for my birthday and my parents took us out for my birthday dinner so win/win there.

I did put off a lot of purchases that will have to happen soon but it also kept me in check with Amazon and other online places. I had no purchases in the month of January from Amazon, who am I? The two runs that we made to Costco were also successful sticking in to the list.