January no buy

[hollypoast]

My main problem with it was I was addicted to it! Seriously HGTV or Food network on 24/7. And all those shows did were make me super dissatisfied with what I had. My house wasn't as pretty as HGTV houses. My food was so meh compared to food network. Life is easier without cable lol

Very good point... I think my teenagers could benefit for not having cable for this reason too!

 

[goodmorningbelle]

I want in this month too! I'm planning to go on an Alaskan cruise this September, so I need to really cut back on the discretionary spending. My goal for January is 10 days of not spending discretionary income, but it will also be a tracking month for me too, as I don't know how many days I typically go in a month without spending money. This should be interesting!

 

[kinntj]

I started yesterday and so far it's:

12/28 $18.86 Kroger DH stopped in for misc stuff including sparkling wine
12/29 $95.40 Meijer
12/29 $26.00 feed store
12/30 $0 my first!

Our grocery bill is low this week so the kids could go to The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked yesterday. Thank goodness we had enough to mostly feed us from the freezer this week.

Hit my first $0 day.

 

[charming23]

Our month starts today because it is when my mom got her pension. So we went out and did some damage, lol. We ate a lot out of the freezer and pantry last month so I needed to stock up on grocery items.

12/31- $ 59.09 Aldi's, $17.98 GFS, $18.23 Giant Eagle, $10 GE Pharmacy, $19.87 Loco Leprechaun (dinner), and $10.71 BP (Gas)

 

[Luvdancink]

Today was the day I was supposed to finalize my january no buy plan as it was our last extended family christmas. On the bright side, I got some more gift certificates to use... on the down side I got a flat tire tonight so I'm off to the dealership in the morning. So much for my first day of no buy!

 

[neatokimmo]

Very good point... I think my teenagers could benefit for not having cable for this reason too!

My DD hasn't seen a commercial for a toy in 2 years! Another benefit!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

What does everyone do when they are at home and have the feeling that you just want to go to a store? You dont need anything but you just think you wanna get out. Its cold out so no going to a park for me lol I fought the earge the other day but sometimes you just need to window shop lol

Well, you could go to the store but only take a small amount of cash with you. Or, you could go to a coffee shop with a friend. Or you could surf the DIS. Generally, I think about driving in the parking lot and any urge of going to shop disappears.

Sometimes I go outside even when it is cold, but my definition of cold may not match yours!

We are also reviewing all household expenses looking for ways to cut back including:
-cancelling land line phone and only using cell phones (Has anyone done this? What's the down side?)
-cancelling cable TV and using Ruku box (Hulu, etc.)
-starting auto payments to CC in addition to making monthly payment
-WHAT ELSE? Any suggestions??

We are starting the year off right by staying home for New Years Eve.

We only have cell phones. Downsides could be your monthly allotment of minutes not being adequate. Also sometimes the service cuts out if there is a big event that jams the towers or if there is bad weather.

We have not had cable in years. We have broadcast tv. We get some sports (Saints games), the local news, and the prime time shows. Even when we had cable, we primarily watched the shows on CBS, NBC, or ABC in prime time. I can watch full length episodes of many HGTV shows on their website for free. We will sometimes get DVDs from the Redbox. We do not have hulu, Amazon Prime, or Netflix accounts.

If you have more than one credit card to pay down, you might consider snowballing your payments. You set an amount each month to pay to debt and then pay the minimums on each card, but the card you are focusing on gets the rest of that set monthly amount. For example, if you can send $500/month to CC payments, and you have 4 cards with $50 minimums, you'd have $300 "extra" to send to debt. You would send $350 to the card with the smallest balance and $50 each to the other three. Once the smallest card is knocked out, you can now send $400 to the smallest balance card and $50 each to the other two that are left. Any leftover amounts in other budget categories at the end of the month can be sent on to the CC you are focusing on at the time to knock it out sooner.

As you go through the month and track your spending, other areas in your budget that you can cut back on will become apparent.

 

[annsteere]

What does everyone do when they are at home and have the feeling that you just want to go to a store? You dont need anything but you just think you wanna get out. Its cold out so no going to a park for me lol I fought the earge the other day but sometimes you just need to window shop lol

I go to the library. They have new magazines I can read for free and it gets me out of the house.

I have a list of things I'd like to learn in 2012. I plan to google, go to the library, or find-a-friend who can come to the house and teach me. That will fight off boredom.

 

[kinntj]

12/28 $18.86 Kroger DH stopped in for misc stuff including sparkling wine
12/29 $95.40 Meijer
12/29 $26.00 feed store
12/30 $0
12/31 $0

What are you guys doing tonight? We're staying in and having steaks and twice baked potatoes and salad dinner. We'll try to stay up to midnight, but I doubt we'll last.

 

[neatokimmo]

What does everyone do when they are at home and have the feeling that you just want to go to a store? You dont need anything but you just think you wanna get out. Its cold out so no going to a park for me lol I fought the earge the other day but sometimes you just need to window shop lol

I clean house. Obviously by the state of my house now, I shop too much!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

I go to the library. They have new magazines I can read for free and it gets me out of the house.

I have a list of things I'd like to learn in 2012. I plan to google, go to the library, or find-a-friend who can come to the house and teach me. That will fight off boredom.

Ah, the library! I forgot about it because mine is in a small temporary location while they are building the new one. It does not lend itself well to lingering and browsing!

 

[Scraggy]

I am so excited that tomorrow is 1/1.

I haven't gone to any after Christmas sales. We've only been to the grocery store twice this week, and we paid for the takeout for DS's birthday.

My plan is to go 15 days out of 31 with no spending. We mainly do grocery shopping, fill up our vehicles and such on either Friday or Sunday. I'm pretty sure I can do it.

My medications were switched in December to mail order. I can get 3 months of medication for $20 instead of going each and every month for refills. The medication I'm on isn't on the list for the 3 months for $10 thing I saw at Wal Mart. Still I'm saving a lot over going to the pharmacy each month. My DH was just diagnosed with early onset parkinsons and once he gets on a steady medication we'll be able to do mail order for that too. (it's horrible that such a good person could get such a bad disease )

I'm going to try so hard to get my student loans paid off this year. We're done paying the orthodontist in June, so that will free up $165 a month.
I'll just put the ortho payment toward student loans.

I also started an ing savings fund toward a newer car for me. Right now I'm driving a 2002 that works very well, but I wanted a newer style car with no car loan, so I'm going to save toward it. I wonder how long it will take to save up. Probably a loooong time.

We'll file our taxes at the end of January and put all of the little we get back into savings.

I'm ready for January. Good luck to all you savers!!!

 

[charming23]

I am calling it a $0 day. I am not leaving the house today, and we have everything we need for our open house tonight.

Have a safe and happy new year, everyone.

12/30- $ 59.09 Aldi's, $17.98 GFS, $18.23 Giant Eagle, $10 GE Pharmacy, $19.87 Loco Leprechaun (dinner), and $10.71 BP (Gas)
12/31- $0

 

[wlake]

Wow! I drop out for a couple of months, and January is already on pg. 7! I need to go back to no buy for clutter reasons even more than financial reasons. My house is an overflowing disaster. I've been unhappy for the past few months, and I'm beginning to wonder if the state of the house (and the disorganization of my classroom, but that's a whole other ballgame due to sharing the room with 4 other teachers/paras) is causing it.

So, my January 2011 plan:

4 meals out
10 no buy days
0 non consumable items (clothes for the boys don't count as they both seem to be growing!) with the exception of classroom supplies

I've decided not to cut and paste each time I do a new post. It's too much of a pain on my iPad, and I won't do any personal things on my school-issued laptop anymore.

Happy New Year everyone!

 

[mommyof3princess27]

Well I guess i havent started my no buy yet lol I had to get curtains for the basement and if I buy them today I can write them off this year(I am self employeed so I have alot of right offs) as they are needed for my home daycare. Other than that, I went food shopping today and went to the mall(used gift cards) My weekly food budget is $100 and I spent $92.xx so all in all a good day. I did buy some newspapers for coupons(that is a goal to start using coupons)

 

[beaucoup]

I plan on ordering a pet watering dish fountain from Amazon, but waiting till January because my credit card gives 5% back on Amazon purchases in January. Buy it today or wait till tomorrow? What to do? What to do?

 

[figment3258]

My month starts tomorrow but I went grocery shopping today spen 91$/160$ not too bad

Happy new year!

 

[figment3258]

Just thought I wold share this . Tonight at church our pastor said this and it really stuck with me.

Instead of worrying about starting something concertrate on the finish. What will you finish this year?


Happy new year!

 

[poohguys]

I go to the library. They have new magazines I can read for free and it gets me out of the house.

I have a list of things I'd like to learn in 2012. I plan to google, go to the library, or find-a-friend who can come to the house and teach me. That will fight off boredom.

I love the library! Ours has DVD's/Blurays that you can borrow for a week at a time, video games and magazines (I have a weekness for them-lol). We have talked about canceling the cable since they just raised it another $15 a month.

I am in for this Jan. I would like to keep the food at $100 a week or less and try not to spend much on anything else. I can easily spend $75 at Target in one shot! I am pretty good about bringing my lunch everyday to work. Not leaving the house tomorrow so day one should be $0

Happy New Years everyone

 

[beaucoup]

Just thought I wold share this . Tonight at church our pastor said this and it really stuck with me.

Instead of worrying about starting something concertrate on the finish. What will you finish this year?


Happy new year!

PERFECT! This is really what I needed!