Another Christmas is come and gone and it's now 2014!
As usual, we’ve been spoiled, by others and by ourselves over the holidays and the last year. All this luxury combined with the sizable dent the furnace replacement put in our plan to save money, along with other influences like our book club FREE: Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most and a faithful following of the Mr. Money Mustache blog, made Tory end up sending me this email on December 30th.
His email sums up the premise. The quick decision gave us a day to hunt and gather, which was good because even with that day I feel ready for a minor apocalypse.
Here's what we did to to prepare:
Bought $275 worth of groceries, including lots of dry cat food and toilet paper. This is plenty of food but we’ll probably still have to get creative later on in the month and eat what we have instead of refilling up on the easy options, which is the goal here.
Filled up both cars with gas.
Ordered a $25 bus pass online - enough for me to get to and from work for two weeks plus a little extra just in case. Tory commutes 50 miles round trip to work so we expect that his week to drive the carpool will clean him out and then some.
Bought postage online for a package I knew I had to send in January.
Ordered a $25 bus pass online - enough for me to get to and from work for two weeks plus a little extra just in case. Tory commutes 50 miles round trip to work so we expect that his week to drive the carpool will clean him out and then some.
Bought postage online for a package I knew I had to send in January.
Tried to order winter tires for our road bike but it is too old and no one makes them anymore.
Cancelled our Amazon prime free trial.
Paid remaining credit card balances for the month.
Things we already had:
Even more food, including beans, cooking oil, rice, flour, and more.
Our nutritional supplements for several months worth.
Plenty of canned food for the cats - and they might kill us if we didn't.
Vertical Endeavors climbing gym memberships.
Vertical Endeavors climbing gym memberships.
General abundance of clothes, shelter, transportation, and luxuries.
Some early realizations of what this means:
1. Our choice to do a spending freeze could put more weight on our friends to make up for our inability to go out, if we can’t make frequent visits across town, and not being able to drive anywhere that requires paying for parking. Hopefully this issue can be worked around.
2. We might have to bike in the winter to work/carpool!
3. This will force us to plan ahead for lunches for the week since we've removed the easy back up options.
3. I have to postpone my ordering of 2013 Year in Review! Which I was working on tonight and just occurred to me! Bah!
4. These kinds of little spending desires are going to keep happening... they are not all bad but it's good to keep them in check.
5. We very much want this month to have a feeling of abundance around it, not scarcity. We have so much.
I plan to adjust but not eliminate things from our normal lives, and find a way to do the things we value, just without money. Kind of like a life puzzle. Keeps things interesting! Here goes day three...
3. This will force us to plan ahead for lunches for the week since we've removed the easy back up options.
3. I have to postpone my ordering of 2013 Year in Review! Which I was working on tonight and just occurred to me! Bah!
4. These kinds of little spending desires are going to keep happening... they are not all bad but it's good to keep them in check.
5. We very much want this month to have a feeling of abundance around it, not scarcity. We have so much.
I plan to adjust but not eliminate things from our normal lives, and find a way to do the things we value, just without money. Kind of like a life puzzle. Keeps things interesting! Here goes day three...
