Grow Your Fund is a daily post that gives you a chance to win prizes by checking in on all the various challenges you are participating in. You can choose to participate in one, two or even all of the challenges giving you even more opportunities to Grow Your Fund!
The Challenges
No Dining Out: The concept is simple, lower your family’s dining out bill and add the money you save to your fund.
Minniemizing for the Mouse: Get in shape for your trip to Disney by walking at least 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week. The average person walks 8 or more miles a day at Disney World. Your feet will thank you!
Not going to Disney? Don’t worry. You can participate too. Just commit to working out at least 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week!
Budget Challenge: Can your family stay on budget this month for groceries, entertainment, dining, etc? Do you think you could even challenge yourself not to spend a dime 5 days this month? Be sure to report on your spending vs your budget every day. The goal is to be able to add the extra money saved at the end of the month to your fund!
*If you haven’t set a budget yet, you might want to check out this post.
Decluttering Challenge: Is your stuff starting to overtake your house? Do you feel like your kids room is full of too much junk and not enough fun? If so, I challenge you to find a new home for just 25 items a day for the next 30 days. This could be 25 articles of clothing, 25 books you no longer read, 25 toys your kids ignore. Have a box for items to donations, a box for items to sell and throw the rest away! At the end of the challenge, have a yard sale and add the earnings to your fund!
The prizes
At the end of each month, I will pick FOUR winners who will each receive $25 to add to their fund. Look for the winners to be announced on the 3rd of each month.
How to enter
Leave a comment with the title of the challenges it is for. You can participate in one, two, three or even all four challenges. There will be one winner per challenge, and winners can win multiple times! It’s all done by using Random.org, so if your number comes up and you are eligible, you win! In order to be eligible to win, you must actively participate in the challenge for at least FIVE calendar days.
Click below for even more details on each challenge…
No Dining
- Take a look at your current dining out budget. How much did you spend last month going out to eat? That is money that could have gone into your fund instead! Try cutting your out to eat costs this month and adding the difference to your fund.
- Set a weekly dining out budget, if you resist going out to eat, add that amount to your fund instead.
- If you were seriously about to go out to eat (like had your coat on and was going out the door or pulled into the drive thru and then pulled back out), add the amount you would have spent to your fund.
- Going out to eat and using a coupon or paying with a gift card? You could add that amount to your fund too. For example… if you had a $25 gift card to Cracker Barrel and you used it, you could take $25 cash out of your budget and add it to the fund. Or if you used a $10 coupon, you could take $10 cash out of the budget and add it to the fund.
- You must challenge yourself. Try to spend less than you spend now. If you don’t go out to eat at all, challenge yourself to try new meals this month. As long as you are challenging yourself when it comes to your family’s eating habits, you can participate!
- You are allowed 1 freebie meal that you don’t have to count or report back to us about. Please report on everything else though so we can encourage and support one another!
- Free meals do not count against you. This is a challenge to spend less money going out to eat than you usually spend. If someone else is paying for the meal or you have a coupon to make it free, great!
- At the end of the month, you will need to comment on the very last post to be entered to win. I will choose the winner from that post and verify that you have commented on at least 5 days worth of posts. The comments must of occurred on 5 DIFFERENT days. Meaning if on the 30th, you commented on that post and then went back and commented on 4 days worth of posts, you would be disqualified. You must comment on 5 different posts on 5 different days.
Minniemizing for the Mouse
- I need to get fit for the mouse. My feet hurt so bad from all that walking and for once I’d love to experience Disney without being in pain. We are going in November, so I am hoping to make a big lifestyle change between now and then. I can’t do it alone and so I need the help from all of you!
- Check in each day and report on your progress. The goal is to exercise for at least 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week. For those of us going to Disney, walking for those 20 minutes is a great way to not only get in shape, but prepare our feet.
- It really doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are moving!
- At the end of the month, you will need to comment on the very last post to be entered to win. I will choose the winner from that post and verify that you have commented on at least 5 days worth of posts. The comments must of occurred on 5 DIFFERENT days. Meaning if on the 30th, you commented on that post and then went back and commented on 4 days worth of posts, you would be disqualified. You must comment on 5 different posts on 5 different days.
Budget Challenge
- Everyone needs a budget. Budgets will help you to be in control of your money without your money being in control of you. You dictate where your money goes and how it is spent.
- Don’t have a budget? I’ve written a few articles that should help you set one… How to Set a Budget and How to Set a Grocery Budget. You’ll find even more helpful advice under Getting Started Couponing and Your Fund.
- Each day, check in and let us know how much you spent the day before and if you stayed under budget or not. We aren’t here to critique your budget (unless you ask!), but we are here to support you in staying on track!
- Also feel free to include bargain brags. Did you find a great deal or do something creative to save money, be sure to share it with all of us!
- At the end of the month, you will need to comment on the very last post to be entered to win. I will choose the winner from that post and verify that you have commented on at least 5 days worth of posts. The comments must of occurred on 5 DIFFERENT days. Meaning if on the 30th, you commented on that post and then went back and commented on 4 days worth of posts, you would be disqualified. You must comment on 5 different posts on 5 different days.
Decluttering Challenge
- It doesn’t take long for the stuff to start taking over your home. The kids rooms start overflowing with broken, neglected and just plain weird no idea where they came from toys. Your stockpile starts to spread from the kitchen, to the hall, to your bathtub. You start finding that the home for more and more items is the middle of your living room floor. Etc!
- It can be overwhelming to take on the task of decluttering your home, but the end rewards are so worth the effort. To make the process easy, I challenge you to find just 25 items every day to find a new home for. Get a box labeled donations, one labeled to sell, and one for trash. Go through 25 items a day and either put it in one of the 3 boxes or find a new permanent place for it.
- At the end of 30 days, you will have an organized home and you can have a yard sale to add more money to your fund!
- Be sure to post every day that you have gone through your 25 items and found a new home for them. Don’t just put them back where they don’t belong.
- At the end of the month, you will need to comment on the very last post to be entered to win. I will choose the winner from that post and verify that you have commented on at least 5 days worth of posts. The comments must of occurred on 5 DIFFERENT days. Meaning if on the 30th, you commented on that post and then went back and commented on 4 days worth of posts, you would be disqualified. You must comment on 5 different posts on 5 different days.
Good luck!
Dining Out: Cooking at home this week. Crock Pot roast last night. Yum!
Minniemize: Looks like I gained a little from last week’s vacation. Back on WW now so we will see Friday when I weigh-in.
Budget: Only spent 1/2 of my grocery budget this week! Awesome!
Minniemize-walked 5 miles at lunch and ran 5 in the evening.
No dining out-had lunch at cafe rio. yummy.
Declutter- nothing today, out if town
Minnie- walked 3 hours at the outlet malls and only bought a $2.20 bottle of my favorite scent of Bath and Body works body wash. Went back in the evening and walked around just for “fun”
No Dining Out- breakfast: toast & eggs, lunch: sandwiches & fruit, dinner was leftover night. Love leftover night, cleans out the fridge and no cooking in this heat!
Decluttering- went through boxes of clothes and priced for our garage sale.
No dining- We have been doing well except on Sun. we did go to Culver’s which we originally had not planned on doing,but it got so hot we didn’t do the picnic thing we had originally planned and we wanted to take our son to see Winnie the Pooh as a special treat as he loves him so.
Minniemize-Have been doing a ton of walking and cleaning,but haven’t broken out the dvd yet,but probably will tomorrow-will be glad when this heat wave is over. Eating well.
Minniemizing – Nothing here but shopping for back to school items!
Decluttering – We take Sunday off from working.
Budget – Did GREAT on back to school items! Got 25 packs of index cards for 1 cent, 25 packs of pencils (8 in pack) for 1 cent, and 25 packs of Sharpie Highlighters for 1 cent for a total of .75! Bought printer paper for $5.00 to meet $5.00 limit but will submit for rebate so will only have $1.00 out of pocket for paper.
No eating out – Blew this one! Had supper at Moe’s after shopping yesterday.
No Dining Out: didn’t dine out yesterday
Did all of my errands today! Deposited money into Disney fund…we now have $115.65 in it. Picked up a new heater coil to fix dryer…hubby thought part would be around $75, instead it was only $38. He is going to put new part on tonight. I can finally do some laundry. While doing errands, fought the urge to stop at Chick-fil-a. Instead..I ate Lance crackers and Skinny Cow candy that I bought on sale and with coupons. I ate left overs when I got home. If it wasn’t for Kristen and her idea of savingcouponing for Disney, I would have spent around $5 eating luch out today. Got another rebate of $15 for Dr.’s apt. in mail today.Tomorrow I am packing my lunch ..I have to go to a teacher’s conference. Two other teachers are carpooling with me..we are going to share in the parking fees and gas.
Congratulations on your Disney deposit! :)
No dining out yesterday, I was too exhausted for any thing.
Which means no exercising either. :o( I did take my daughter to the zoo tho, so I walked quite a bit there even tho I wasn’t feeling the greatest.
I gave away 2 small boxes of clothes my daughter doesn’t fit any more, so they are not cluttering up the storage space any more!
No Dining Out: Packed my hubby a lunch made lunch for the kids and I and cooked our dinner! :)
Minimize: Stuck to my diet all day (for a whole week now actually :) and I did 45 minutes with my Wii Zumba!
Budget Challenge: Having a hard time sticking to my budget this month (had to buy presents and a special day for my son turning 4 this month :) I have a baby shower gift to buy for the weekend but I’m gonna use Q’s on diapers and Target gift cards that I still have from last weeks razor deal :)
No Dining Out: Packed breakfast & lunch & snacks & drink for work today
Minniemizing for the Mouse: Walked during lunch with a co-worker
Budget Challenge: saved 24% on my food bill this week with coupons and sale
Decluttering Challenge: parents coming in 3 weeks….decluttering like mad
No dining out for us, we let the crockpot cook dinner since it was so hot!
no dining out- went to put in bay yesterday so mini vacation so we dined out lunch and dinner
minniemize-walked alot yesterday and did yoga this morning
declutter-nothing decluttered
budget- found icecream packets for my new icecream maker at .62 just add whole milk at Target today but all the other picnic stuff gone
No Dining Out
Fri-ate lunch at BK $4
Sat- DH and I went to lunch had a bogo $20
Sun-non
Minniemizing
Ate pretty well all weekend, portion control
Budget
Went over on groceries, but otherwise did pretty good.
No dining out:
Went to Alabama for a wedding this weekend, so we ate out quite a bit. But, we got to eat at the rehearsal dinner and reception! :)
Minniemizing:
Well, as the busy matron of honor, I just ate when I had time. Unfortunately, that was usually cake lol.
Decluttering:
About to start unpacking and doing laundry.
Budget:
oh dear
Heh, I like how your budget just says “oh dear”. :)
Budget
Doing good, the next 4 weeks will be a challenge as I’m not in school but DD is so I have my days allot freeier. I did really great on my back to school shopping, and Saturday I pulled out what I had already bought for Operation Christmas child and determinied we could support 6 boxes so I made a list of the school type supplies still needed for those as well
Minimize
WHile I have not lost any weight, I’m feeling better and enjoying my workouts, with DD back in school that’s at least one good walk a day (t’s frankly to hot here to walk home from school right now)
DeClutter
Things are in good shape but with DD in school and me off for 4 more weeks I can start deep cleaning/declutter in earnest. Thursday is windows and screens
No dining out yesterday–we were home for a lazy day and I cooked!
decluttering-i started this process! I have a HUGE pile of clothes that me and the hubby aren’t wearing anymore to the the goodwill! I need to do more than 25 a day, in 2 weeks i will have a house full of ppl here for my daughters birthday party!
minnemizing-i chased my almost 2 year old around alll day at the beach….and it was squishy sand. haha does that count!
no eating out- we went ALLLL weekend without eating out! and neither of us eat out during the week either, so thats going better!!
No Dining Out- We had date night on Saturday. (We HAD to get out- I was going stir crazy- it is JULY and it has been RAINING and been horrible all week!) We split a meal and went to the early show. Can’t remember the last time we went to a movie …
Budget- ok. been trying to cook gluten free for hubby- WOW is that spendy! Helps with no eating out but blows the grocery budget. May need to readjust that.
Minniemize- Wii with kids. Need to do more.
Declutter- Kitchen counters cleaned off. Now if they can stay that way… Have been working on maintaining entry/living/dining areas. Trying to enforce the 10 minute tidy before bed.
Special diets can be very expensive. :(
DINING – Complete fail this weekend! Saturday we got 2 Papa Murphy pizza’s – they were BOGO so it was $14 for 2 and it did dinner and will last the rest of the week for lunch. Sunday we went to Culver’s for dinner with friends – I shared a meal with DD and DH & I used a BOGO coupon so $10.15 for all 3 of us.
MINNIEMIZE – I did great getting my water down on Saturday! I used to drink a ton of water and now I realize I sometimes go a whole day and drink nothing. Not much walking in though.
BUDGET – Bought a new coffee table but that was a planned purchase (we sold our silver bars to buy new furniture but I just couldn’t find a good table to match the couches).
DECLUTTERING – Nodda – this week has to be better though, I have people coming over on Thursday and don’t want a complete mess!
No diningd out
We didn’t eat out all weekend. Which was a great accomplichment. I made enchiladas last night for dinner and hubby is taking leftovers for lunch all week.
Minniemize
I am doing great. I exercised this morning and will again after work. I am noticing that clothes that didn’t fit me anymore are fitting again!!!
no dining out, no decluttering, on budget, no exercise
No Dining Out – We ate in for breakfast. Lunch was hot dogs at Ikea and dinner was Panda Express. But we ate in for one meal! (-;
Budget – No household budget money spent yesterday.
Decluttering – I’m not sure if it counts as decluttering, but I’ve been taking everything off the walls and out of the rooms in preparation for painting. We’re also going through everything as we move it and getting rid of anything we don’t want/need anymore
No Dining out: We did really good this weekend! Ordered delivery pizza with a group of family members! So it was not expensive at all!
Minnimize: Swam everyday this weekend and very busy with household items. Even cut back on the diet coke alittle
Budget: I think we did good this week! I have not put it to paper yet but have a good feeling about it!
Decluttering: Went thur pool stuff and threw alot of aged stuff away!
No Dining Out: Didn’t eat out yesterday. Cooked on the grill :)
Minniemize Me: Had a lazy day yesterday and stayed in and watched movies all day.
Budget: Made my new budget and only spent $13 on gas and sunday papers :)
Declutter: Didn’t get around to it yesterday
No Dining Out: We didn’t eat out yesterday! Woooo.
Budget: We did well on the budget for the weekend, though we spent a little more on concessions at a baseball game than I had anticipated….
Minniemize: Got in 2 hours of walking/hiking at a historic battleground nearby! YAY for exercise.
No dining out: We had Baked Lemon Cod, brown rice, tomatoes, cucumbers & watermelon.
Minniemize me: Cheated & had a slice of cheesecake. Totally worth it.
Budget: $2.36 spent of newspapers.
Cheesecake sounds sooo good….
No Dining Out- Spent $20 on lunch yesterday.
Budget- Spent $20 on lunch and $20 on gas.
Minniemizing for the Mouse: I have been doing stomach crunches every night for 3 hours during every commercial break. I have been doing it for 2 weeks now.
Great idea I love this! I may try it tonight! Thanks!
NDO – We’ve been sticking to our once a month dining out budget! It feels GREAT! Tonight home made grilled pizza – yummmmm! :o)
minimize – 15 minutes on treadmill & 45 minutes with weights
organizing back to school shopping – pre-made kits would be $150 (for three kids). Curious to see how my morning shopping goes! Thanks for all the ad postings!
You did awesome on your minniemizing! :)
We had an open house to go to yesterday so we had a free meal and no dining out.
Today for our grocery budget I am going to try to go coupon crazy!