March No Buy..Rolling Into Spring!

[SunnieRN]

Sorry I am so late, Virgderon, CONGRATULATIONS on your new job!!!! Enjoy your trip so Chicago!! Good luck on selling your house!!! Are you going to downsize? Did I miss this in my benadry haze? If I did, I apologize!!

Charming, keep up all the hard work!! It will pay off!!

IMALOVINDISNEY, so sorry about your basement and I hope it's all cleaned up now!! I am also glad that your losses were relatively small, but I am sure annoying!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful day, I have to go to work tonight so I am going to rest. Try to stop sneezing!! lol.

 

[QVCshopper]

Just waiting on two RSVPs, ironically they are family. Congrats on the job, Vigerdon. Keep up the good work, everyone!

5/15 no-buy days

3/1-$45 Wegmans, $6.50 Acme, $24.50 CVS prescrip, $17.50 Kid's Trips/Girl Scout Cookies
3/2-$0
3/3-$0
3/4-$0
3/5-$14 Sears, $23 Costco, $26 Hallmark, $25 VS (but got a $10 coupon), $5 Build A Bear
3/6-$18 Wegmans, $20 birthday gift
3/7-$0
3/8-$0

 

[charming23]

Another no spend today. My allergies are acting up so I just stayed home and did some more job hunting. Tomorrow my mom gets her money so we will go grocery shopping and get gas. It will be a big trip as I have a ton of coupons for household and beauty items we need.

March 2011 Budget
Grocery/Household- $300/$218.54 Left
Car/Gas- $50
Eating out -$50/$31.30 Left
Entertainment/Misc- $100/ $89.75

Total- $500/$389.59 Left

Goal of 15 No Buy Days

Week One
3/1- $75.27 Giant Eagle and $6.19 Drugmart
3/2- $18.70 Loco Laprachaun
3/3- $0
3/4- $0
3/5- $0
3/6- $10.25 Pat Catan's
3/7- $0

Week Two
3/8- $0
3/9
3/10
3/11
3/12
3/13
3/14

5/15 No Buy Days

Coupon/Store Savings- $43.38

 

[Tiggerish]

The March budget is $700 with 12 no spend days.

Auto $50
Eating Out/Entertainment $100 / $78 left
Giving $10
Groceries/Household Goods $250 / $223 left
Medical $25
Misc. $75 /$48 left
Set bills $205 / $175 left

No spend days 12 / 4
Coupon savings $15.55
Christmas 2011 $8
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2/1 $0
2/2 $0
2/3 $0
2/4 Misc. $27
3/5 Groceries $22
3/6 Set bills $30 (church); Eating out $4
3/7 Eating out $18
3/8 $0

 

[Tiggerish]

nunzia - It was a charity thing but related to my job at the time and it was actually her husband who I was trying to get to come so I had to play nice. I decided to go ahead and list them both in my final head count which was risky because you pay by the number of plated dinners my put in. She and hubby did show up but with 2 guests! Fortunately the banquet people planned for that kind of thing. Then they did not bid on any of the silent auction stuff; did not make any contribution and she told me that the items were tacky and the food not quality. However, the next day her husband sent me a thing of flowers and a big check so I am guessing he knew what a brat his wife was.

 

[3goofyboys]

I'm in for the month! This should be a good month. No birthdays, baby showers, weddings, ect! I am hopeful that we will be spending a bit extra on moving, but we'll see if our current house rents soon. We did move back our move date to May 1st, so we have a bit more time.

I'm going for 14 no buys this month.

March 1

March 2 $31 groceries, $40 gas

March 3 $20 groceries (why is there always one more thing to pick up?)

March 4

March 5

March 6 $273 groceries- that will hopefully keep us in food for the next 2 weeks and it includes a baby shower gift (apparently I spoke too soon when I said we didn't have any this month) and dollar bills to play a shower game.

March 7 PLUS, I actually won all my dollar bills back plus $36 at the shower last night. That was enough to cover my baby shower gift. Hooray!! I did pay tuition for my guys today, but that comes out of a separate account, so I'm not counting that.


March 8 $40 gas, $11 landfill run. I also got my hair cut, but I paid for that out of my shower winnings!

4/14 No Buys

 

[fairyprincess1]

Hurray - my first no buy day of the month!!! DS just wanted to stay home today - so he had a pajama day!! Love it...

2nd no buy On Sat!! Hurray!!! Today will probably be #3! I am on a roll

 

[wlake]

Well, my goal to buy no non-consumables has hit a stumbling block -- books! DS had a book order from school, and I hate to deny kids books! So, I ordered two for him and one for a holiday toy drive, which I'm not counting as it's going to be a gift. A gift that lives in my closet for 8 more months, but still!


3/1:
3/2: $26 groceries
3/3:
3/4: $35 after school care, $540 brakes (ouch!), $12 dinner, $16 skate night
3/5: $13 Christmas Tree Shop (candy for basket raffle, cupcake liners, and replacement garden clogs), $23 Yankee Candle (candle!), $24 Michael's (gifts for parties the boys are invited to), $51 gas and $16 Walmart (groceries and a dry cleaning kit I have a rebate for)
3/6: $35 dinner out to celebrate DS8 scoring two goals in his indoor soccer game today (he's not terribly athletic, so this is huge!) and the end of indoor soccer season (DS5 played too, but he's very athletic and usually outscored the other team) as well as $49 on groceries. A little more bragging here: I saved $30 on that grocery bill between sales and coupons AND walked out with coupons for a free box of frozen fish and a free gallon of milk. I'm pretty proud of myself!
3/7:
3/8: $6 groceries (well, ice cream after a tough couple of days) and $5 books

no buy days: 3/12
longest streak: 3
meals out: 2/5
days without dinner out: 2
longest no dinners out streak: 10
non-consumable items purchased: 2/0 (2 books)

 

[ronnmel]

Ran lots of errands today, but all wedding related.

I'm not entering all of them here, some go in my special wedding budget. Not sure what to do about the passport though, I guess it's sort of like a bill, but you pay only once every 5 years? For now I put it in the non-necessities, but I feel like it doesn't belong there.

No Buy Days : 5/12
Gas : 38$ (max 120$ Raising the max due to higher gas prices)
Groceries : 0$ (max 250$)
Eating out (and snacks) : 40$ (max 100$)
Non-necessities : 180$ (max 300$)

03/01 : 45$ (gas + pharmacy)
03/02 : 0$
03/03 : 0$
03/04 : 0$
03/05 : 0$[
03/06 : 95$ (canadian tire + dinner)
03/07 : 0$
03/07 : 118$ (dinner, passport, and a few little things)

 

[h2oophelia]

Goals:
No buy: 12 days
Eating out: no more than 4 times
Groceries: $250/$160.84 left
Entertainment: $75/$66 left

3/1 $0
3/2 $9 for two Fandango movie tickets @ livingsocial.com
3/3 $0
3/4 $182.00 for 2 tickets to Wicked. $40.41 oil change for the 'ol Saturn
3/5 $89.16 groceries
3/6 $0
3/7 $8.70 for lunch at Subway
3/8 $0

No Buy days: 4/12

 

[lattemomof3]

Where are you? I have not had a Runza in years (almost worth a no spend day for one )...since I left my home in northern Colorado after graduating from college and moving to Texas! My only solace is that I make runza every few months from scratch!

We are in Nebraska (go big Red!), Runza's are yummy, that's for sure! I made them once, it took forever, but they were so good, I should try that again! We vacation in Colorado, it's such a beautiful place, we rarely eat at Runza when we're out of town, though, just because Runza, Mcd's & a Mexican restaurant are LITERALLY the only places to eat in our tiny town, so we get our fill.

 

[lattemomof3]

I'm jumping into March, borrowing an idea from some of you, I'm not going to count groceries with my no-buy days. I'm finding out that groceries are a bit like medical expenses (which I also don't include in my no-buy), when you need them, you need them! With that change, I'm upping my no-buy days to 15. I need to get ds8 some new shoes, dd11 needs some church clothes, as she has 6 communion classes approaching. We have family coming to stay for several days later this month, so the grocery bill will go up also.

My other goals are to keep paying cash (envelope system, we don't really do the Dave Ramsey program, but I like keeping track of the budget with the envelopes), and to keep recording everything in my budget notebook. It's nice to see old friends, and new ones too, good luck with March, everyone!

March 1 - birthday gift

March 2 - $0 (groceries)

March 3 - leapster game for dd5 (she payed for half), dinner at Runza with grandma after ds8's wrestling match

March 4 - $0

March 5 - $0

March 6 -DD11 & I were on the hunt for her church clothes, unfortunately all she got was a pair of sandals, she is starting to outgrow the kids section, but is still too young for juniors, & we don't have many options near us. Also bought a dress for dd5, dance clothes for dd11, b-day gift for dd's friend, brought home Kentucky Fried chicken for dinner.

March 7 - $0

March 8 - Dh is taking the 2 older kids to Mcd's, as it is teacher night, dd5 & I will have leftovers.

 

[Virgderon]

Dh wrote the check for bowling tonight. I did get a paycheck, but did not get my commissions for the last month. I guess I should just be grateful for what I got and move on.

Running Total: Spent $125
$900 budget... $775 left
$0 Days: 3
Goal is 8 or more!
coupon/sale savings :43

Groceries budget- $250-3-52= 195 left

March 1: 22
March 2 : 0
March 3: 52 ( groceries)
March 4: 0
March 5: 11 ( Walgreens pop, cooking supplies)
March 6 : 22 ( cleaning supplies )
March 7 : 0
March 8: 18 ( 13 Walgreens, 5 snack at bowling)

 

[A.Mickey]

Running Total: Spent $953.29
$0 Days:2/14 Got 13 no buys last month, trying to up it to one more.

Groceries ($279-$9/day)- $82.90
Eating Out ($217-$7/day)- $92.68
Misc. (Shopping/Entertainment) ($806-$26/day) two trips by train, Great America season pass installment, 2nd half of our airplane tickets for October $688.02
Gas $250- (3/1-$23.69), (3/6-$28.55), (3/8-$37.45 $3.64/gal)= $89.69

WEEK 1 BEGIN:
1- $15.76 (Dominick's-Groceries), $31.02 (Target-Pictures), $23.69 (Gas)
2- $0
3- $9.26 (Walgreens-Groceries), $2.85 (Meijer- Groceries), $3.97 (Dominick's-Groceries), $26.58 (Jewel-Prescription), $12.46 (McDonald's-Eating Out)
4- $0
5- $11 (Zoo Admission), $16 (Eating Out), $37 (Chinese- Eating Out-we bought food for 5 people), $3.91 (Home Depot- Misc.)
6- $196 (Spring Awakening Tickets-Misc. Weren't expecting this, but we are sitting 2nd row center and it is our 7 year anniversary of knowing each other and it is the last performance of the show in Chicago...I forgot that my husband wanted to see this, he wanted to go to two shows and sit in the cheap seats, but for the price of sitting in the 2nd to last row for two nights it is the same as sitting in the front row for one performance, so we opted for sitting close, since our broadway series shows are for the cheap seats), $149.41 (Cedar Point Hotel-Misc.), $31.75 (Driver's License Renewal),
$126.11 (Sears Essentials-Misc. husband wanted a Logitech harmony remote forever! and it was more than half off in liquidation sale), $20.63 (Culver's-Eating Out), $2 (Dollar Tree-Papers), $6.96 (Dominick's-Groceries), $12.50 (Meijer-Groceries), $82.73 (Printer Ink), $27.51 (Amazon.com-Veggie Cages and hiking book)
7- $5.18 (Trader Joe's-Groceries), $24.33 (Joe Caputo-Groceries)
8- $.59 (Dominick's-Groceries), $1.50 (Meijer-Groceries), $6.59 (Chipotle-Eating Out)
9- No Buy?
10-


Budget: $1552....61%
Month: 8/31: 26%
No Buy: 2/14: 14%

My savings from coupons and sales: $454.40

 

[Orangewolf]

March 1st: (Gas)$61.90 - (Groceries) $60.13 - (Household - vitamins, shampoo etc) $28.59

March 2nd - $0

March 3rd - Tickets To WDW $1243 RT for 5 people from MSP.
(Groceries) $38.02

March 4th - (Pharmacy) $9.17 - (Groceries)$4.14

March 5th - (Groceries) $119.29
(Household) $13.05

March 6th - $0

March 7th - Post Office - $8.80 - book of stamps

March 8th - $0 - AND I got "free" gas! My Dh needed to borrow my van cause his car wouldn't start and he filled for me - with his cc that he pays with expese money his company gives him! - (they pay his miles) Yay for a fill in my van that didn't have to come out of my budget!

$221.58/$425 Groc.
$61.90/$150 Gas
$48.04/$75 Household

 

[Debbie]

Quick catch-up before school. Today will not be no-buy. It's DD's 17th birthday, and she has asked for pizza from the local Mom pizza joint (we rarely buy pizza from the pizza place), and an ice cream cake.
Here's my plan:
1. I will only track PoS transactions-cash, cc, or debit-usually, groceries and gas, although this month there will be a couple of birthday gifts, and my running shoes need to be replaced [there goes $200]
2. Bills paid regularly, including all charity, not included, nor all items that are budgeted for (eg. DD's music trips....money is already set aside-I'll note them, but they don't count)
3. Whatever 'fun' money DH spends i.e. junk food, on himself....not counting
4. I anticipate some eating out this month-birthday and March Break
5. Gas....there is no telling!
6. I would like to aim for 10 No Buy days. Something to shoot for.

Great start.
Mar. 1: DH took the car in for a needed oil change. Found other issues (I knew there was something) Maintenance $434, gas $40
Mar. 2: $0
Mar. 3: $0
Mar. 4: $0
Mar. 5: Mom paid for the hospital parking and supper, but went to Costco: $90 for DD's gifts (birthday), $20 for odds and ends
Mar. 6: groceries $98, gas $47 Music trips that are b$5udgeted for: $125
Mar. 7: medical co-pay , groceries $16
Mar. 8: $0

NO BUY DAYS: 4/10

 

[nunzia]

nunzia - It was a charity thing but related to my job at the time and it was actually her husband who I was trying to get to come so I had to play nice. I decided to go ahead and list them both in my final head count which was risky because you pay by the number of plated dinners my put in. She and hubby did show up but with 2 guests! Fortunately the banquet people planned for that kind of thing. Then they did not bid on any of the silent auction stuff; did not make any contribution and she told me that the items were tacky and the food not quality. However, the next day her husband sent me a thing of flowers and a big check so I am guessing he knew what a brat his wife was.

Wow..the wife sounds pretty..well...
At least you got a decent donation in the end.

 

[nunzia]

Here we go:
Mar 1: 56.07 Birthday gifts for DBIL and DN, $12.20 for Amazon peanut butter (seemed like a good deal)
Mar 2: Not starting out very well! have to get past these birthdays...$98.34 groceries (bday dinner for 13, dog food, beer..etc), $46.00 DH gas (some will be reimbursed..he has to go to a town 90 miles away for a continuing ed class)
Mar 3: $2.42 for movie rental and a coffee, $9.00 dinner out with friend
Mar 4: DH got $23 reimbursement for the gas, so Plus that..then minus $10 to the church rummage sale (cool pedal car for DGD and really neat vintage desk for DGS), $9.48 Dollar Tree
Mar 5: $0 yea!
Mar 6: $7.43 WalMart (clearance toys..from $6 to $2 for Easter gifts & Sharpies on clearance) $2.19 Dollar Tree...needed 8x8 foil pan for a dessert I have to bring somewhere and got 4 at Dollar Tree for $2 instead of 3 at WalMart of $3)
Mar 8: 24.34 Amazon (2 pop up Harry Potter books and baby gift..had $10 off coupon
Mar 9: $20.00 gas..ack, $3.67 PhotoPass pictures developed at Walgreens


$531.86/$800.00 remaining

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

March 1-$0
March 2- Met my wonderful hubby for lunch. He needed a break, and we had a $5 off coupon. My lunch was only $7, so we figured $2 for me to eat and I brought home enough for us both to have lunch tomorrow. Then I spent $4 on new gloves (8 pairs) for the kids, they seem to lose them like crazy. Hubby and I went to a prescreening of a movie tonight, it was awful, but he liked it. It was called Cedar Rapids. We didn't buy anything there. I did buy groceries as well. Will record those tomorrow cause I need to dig out the receipt. I got a call while we were at the movies that I don't have to work tomorrow after all. So happy about that, have lots to do in the morning tomorrow.
March 3-$0 Have a busy evening ahead, but made dinner in the crockpot this morning so we are good there. My DD9 has a field trip with Brownies to Bruster's ice cream, but if I report a no spend day I won't get an ice cream. And that will be good for my wallet and waistline.
March 4- DH told the kids we'd go out to dinner. It was kids eat free, but still was $23 with tip. I also had to go get DD16 tights for Model UN and some meds, $20ish
March 5-$0 Went to the gym with DH, he is allowed to bring a guest for free. Then spent the day massively cleaning, more to be done but made a big dent.
March 6-$6 dinner for the kids, $15 dinner with hubby (B1G1coupon) and $24 bowling. Starting the week on a good note...priceless!!!
March 7-$0 Can't catch up now, DD11 has a "surprise" band concert tonight. They said it was a possiblity in September but never mentioned it again and I forgot. Apparently a note came home back when I saw sick but it is MIA. My DD forgot about it too, she said the band teacher never said a word till today. So I have been scrambling to get her clothes together. We are headed out in a few, will catch up tonight. Hope all is well...
March 8-$0 I did have to go pick up DD11's allergy meds, starting early this year. But I don't count meds. $13

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

No Buy Days- 5/18

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Groceries- $60ish
Gas-

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Back in 2011 cause I'd miss you all so much!
January-25
February-15
Longest Streak-19 (but I was sick)

Joined No Buy as a New Years Resolution in 2010 and did pretty well-
January-14 Days
February-13 Days
March-17 Days
April-15 Days
May-15 Days
June-8 Days
July- 6 Days (only in town and only recorded half the month, probably had about 7-8 no buys while away)
August-15 Days
September-15 Days
October-13 Days
November-6 Days (only kept track till November 16th cause we were in Disney the rest of the month)
December-10
Longest Streak-4 Days in a Row

 

[angierae]

3/1: $1.59 @ CVS
3/2:
3/3: $3.17 for the "free" photo notepad through Walgreens that was advertised here on the Dis.
3/4: $2.60 for a coffee and a donut at Tim Hortons. I really wanted a treat.
3/5:
3/6: (Went grocery shopping, but stayed within my budget ($100 a week)
3/7: $30 for discount Disney on Ice tix.
3/8: $12.57 for clarinet reeds for DD16 while she was at her flute lesson (which was prepaid by Grandma as a Christmas present)
3/9: Already spent $1.60 at Tim Hortons for a coffee (Darn you, double doubles!) and $5 on shipping for sales on Amazon Marketplace. Also, DD16 needs new jeans, so we'll be hitting Kohls or Target or something tonight.
3/10: Hoping the parking fees at Disney on Ice will be our only spend.