My no spend experience....

Well here is the update on the December 2017  No spend month.
 I started off great.  I had all of Christmas bought and ready because I was prepared for this.  I did have a few things left to get but they were small things.  I had been planning out meals that I could use our food storage and freezer stuff.  I really wanted to clean out the pantry stuff and it went well for a good 15 days.  That is impressive for me.
I did use a lot of food in our freezer and pantry.  We have had some really good meals out of what we have come up with.  I have started to use more of our wheat as well.  I add wheat flour into everything I make now since I have an endless supply of it.  A lot of things are surprisingly tasty with it.   It makes me feel great to know I am using up stuff I already have.
  I love seeing my freezer getting a little less cluttered.  I really need to defrost it this spring/summer. So this is a great project to have for the next few months.
Going 15 days of not spending anything was a great accomplishment for me.  I am a big impulse buyer so this was a great start.  I don't remember what exactly happened. I think I went to sams club with my husband and we bought some stuff that we didn't really need and didn't qualify as groceries so that is what started it.

I still count it as a success, just not a full success. I didn't make the goal but I did do pretty well for me.  It was an improvement for sure.

So here is what I took from that.....

I have made a chart for this whole year 2018 where you just mark the day off if you didn't spend anything.  If you did spend you leave it blank. I like being able to see it and its a fun challenge to see how many days in a row I can mark it off with a green pen.  I don't count groceries or bills, normal budgeted stuff in it.  This is just extra stuff that I don't really need.  I feel like I am a pretty hard judge on myself so I can be strict. 

I do find that I save up the stuff I want to get until a day that I know I spent on something else I will just say I already don't get to mark it today so I will just buy this too today.  I need to be better at that.  I guess that is good in one way.  I have time to really think about if I really need it and sometimes I take it off my list of things to buy.  I think about why do I want this?  is it just to satisfy my buying want? or is it really a need?   It has helped.

We are really trying to save back up after all of the house remodeling and upgrading.  We need to build our savings back up.  Especially since we have more projects we want to do in the back yard as well.  That is a great thing to motivate me to think about my purchases more.  Do I want this or the basketball court, horse corral in the back yard? 
I also told Max about saving money so we can build a basketball court out back and he likes to remind me to save money when we are at the grocery store. Its cute and he make me accountable.
I am excited about this Less spending year, is what I am calling it.  Since I am making a conscious effort to not spend as much and mark as many green days as I can.  I love using up our freezer and pantry food that is one of my favorite perks about this.  I find it fun to come up with random meals we can use the older food with.