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!
Minniemize-ran 3.5 miles this morning.
No dining out-not doing well here. Hubby took kiddos to Mcds while I was packing up the house for our upcoming move.
Minnie- nothing today, taking care of sick little girl
Declutter- went thru my school supply cabinet and threw out torn folders, used broken crayons to make 2 few big crayons, tossed broken pencils and got it ready for a new year. We start back on Monday!
I hope she feels better soon. :(
budget – place $718 in a vacation account. still have yet to have our yard sell, but can’t wait to add more!
minniemize – got in 8000 steps today. made every effort to walk an extra few steps.
declutter- cleaned off a table full of papers. most were filed, but many were shredded for compost
no dining out – ate homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes.
That is an awesome deposit into your fund! Congratulations! :)
No dining out: Yesterday we did great. I took a sandwich to work for lunch, and made corned beef and cabbage for dinner. No dining out today either. Lean Cuisine for lunch and frozen pizza for dinner.
No Dining Out: I didn’t eat out yesterday at all! I brought a lunch to work and ate chicken strips & fries for dinner! <3
Minniemizing: did stomach exercises and ran outside with my dog
Decluttler & Budget: still working on, declutter will happen tonight, sometime, I hope! Lol. Budget = I haven't spent any money, so that's probably a plus! Lol.
No Dining Out
We went to the science museum today but brought our lunch with us. Tonight we are eating leftovers.
Minniemizing
I’m on my last week of the Insanity program. Plus all the walking at the museum helps!
No Dining Out: Spent $2.12 at McDs for dinner on the road last night–stopped myself from spending more.
Minniemize – ran this morning with a friend – early enough to kind-of beat the heat.
Budget – Put back 3 items from my cart before I checked out at Target yesterday. The bill was about $30 – a little more than I had planned, but at least I had the will power to not buy a few impulse things.
No dining out – Ate all 3 meals at home yesterday
Decluttler – Still working on this – hoping to have a few bags next time the Kidney services has pick-up in our neighborhood.
No Dining Out
Yesterday was good. All meals ate from/at home. DH made tri tip for dinner.
Minniemizing
Skipped dessert again YAY me!
Budget
$0 spent yesterday.
No Dining Out: We did good! Ate DELICIOUS grilled chicken (I’m having leftovers for lunch today, woot woot!)
Budget: Spent a few bucks on amazon for kindle books, BUT….it was all “free” money thanks to swagbucks and my surveys, so OOP spent $0.
Decluttering: Added a few items to the GoodWill box!
Minnimize: Did a few crunches and toe touches and did some weeding in the garden for exercise :D.
Isn’t it so much more fun to spend “free” money? :)
Decluttering Challenge—-going to clean my disaster zone of a house today—-we have been at Day Camp at our church all day for the last 3 days so the house now looks like a tornado went through it—–sure I can find AT LEAST 25 things to throw away today!!!
Budget Challenge===spent $6 today at Kroger to get some pizza bites & tortilla chips (to eat with our leftover FREE queso from Moe’s yesterday)—-then went to CVS & paid $7 to get a bottle of Sweet Oil to treat earaches for both me & my daughter
No Dining= making all meals my self. no issue i am a chef. lol
Minniemizing for the Mouse= walking for 30 mins a day allready did it for 2 days so for
Budget Challenge= i need to save 5,000 im up too 2,000 now
Minniemizing for the Mouse—gonna get a good workout today trying to clean up my disaster zone of a house!!
No Dining Out—–none for us today—leaving tomorrow to go on vacation so have to save the money for all that eating out!!
No dining – Came up with a last minute dinner plan and made delicious chicken breast, scalloped potatoes, and sauteed onion, peppers and zucchini. My Mom brought leftover restaurant fajitas so that will be our dinner tonight.
Budget – Yesterday I went to the store and got a quart of O.J., two yogurts, 16 oz cottage cheese, 1 cheesestick and 1 small tomato sauce all for .38 cents! Got some cash for garage sale this weekend. Will redeposit it next week with garage sale proceeds.
Declutter – cleaned out three drawers in the bathroom.
No Dining Out: Went on a date so had dinner out.
Minnimizing: Yesterday was more about recovering from the last week of packing everything I own into plastic bags.
Decluttering: Everything finally packed into bags for the exterminators to come. Now I just have to live with it that way for three weeks before I can actually declutter the apartment by putting everything away.
No dining out:
No dining out yesterday! Sandwiches for lunch, and I made homemade spicy chicken fingers and croissants to go with leftover apple coleslaw.
Minniemizing:
Just barely stayed under calorie budget for yesterday!
Decluttering:
Not too great in this area yesterday because I wasn’t feeling good, but I think I’m going to tackle all the windows and blinds in the house today. :)
Budget:
Husband got some great headphones for hearing protection on the flight line at Home Depot, but they were free to us because he got a gift card on his b-day :) We also bought a $3 guard for our razor since the one we’ve been using for forever broke. I think this is a great investment though since it was so cheap, and we’re saving a TON with me cutting his hair. :)
No dining out for us, we had spaghetti so we could use up some hot dog buns as garlic bread!
No Dining Out: Husband and I were going to eat out last night, found a babysitter and had planned on doing the dinner/movie thing. Decided at the last minute that neither one of us were super hungry, so we only did the movie. Yay for good decisions.
Minniemize: Went for a walk yesterday on one of our Town’s trails. I like them a lot. Have to go early though, it was already 90 degrees by the time we got out there at 9 am.
Budget: Still on track, but have some school payments this semester that are messing with things a little. We’ll see at the end of the month.
Declutter: STill haven’t gotten around to that yardsale…
NDO: Ate McD’s for lunch, but only spent $8 for the 3 of us.
MM: We shopped for almost 5 hours yesterday – with hauling a toddler around, that is enough of a workout for me!
DC: We need to have a garage sale, but it is TOO hot to even think about it.
Budget: Yesterday was payday so we did grocery shopping and got some good deals, but lots of unexpected expenses for this month….it will be tight! Hoping to eat out of the pantry and only buy dairy & produce for the next 4 weeks!
The heat has been crazy! Much too hot for garage sales! :(
Decluttering: Time to get serious about this again! The way things look around here I should be able to get rid of 25 items no problem today!
No Dining Out
Each month we designate an “out to dinner” day and we rotate which family member chooses the restaurant. This past week it was my turn, and I put a new twist on our traditional restaurant dining. Instead of dining “out” at a restaurant, we stopped by Domino’s to pick up dinner and then headed to our local (and fabulous) State Park for an evening of pizza and swimming. Because it was after 5:00 when we arrived, we did not even have to pay to get in! We had THE BEST time – all for under $15.
My favorite part of this whole thing was that we surprised the kids with it. It was about 90 out that day and my youngest kept asking if we could go to the town pool that evening (yuck). We told her that, since we were going out to dinner there wouldn’t be time, but decided to pack up a bag with suits & towels to keep in the car so we’re ready to go if the opportunity presented itself someday. HA! When they finally figured out where we were headed, the looks on their faces were priceless!!
This was SO much better than spending $75 in a restaurant!!
What an awesome idea! Great Job :)
No dining out: we haven’t been out to eat once in the past two weeks. So proud of us. We are both taking our lunches to work! It has saved SOOOO much money. I was shocked when I realized how much we were saving just by taking lunch to work!
De-cluttering: I have gone through all our girls fall/ winter clothes. I have 3 huge crates full of clothes for the consignment sale, and 2 bags for good will. I am planning on working on our closet this weekend!
Minniemize: I have made good food choices and drank all my water, but haven’t felt like exercising much. I have lupus, and have been exhausted feeling the last few days. Hope to get back to exercising soon.
Budget: we are wayyyyy under budget, since we aren’t eating out. So we are going to sit down and adjust the budget this week. I hope to add all the “extra” to our fund!
No Dining Out – I got Taco bell for my lunch yesterday. Just felt like having something yummy and we don’t really have lunch food that I wanted.
Budget – I had to go get some Stove Top stuffing for dinner at hubby’s request. It’s $2 a box! I wish they still made the big canister of it that was 3-4 boxes worth. Oh well, I tracked it at least. And I’m way under on my grocery budget for the month.
Decluttering – I’ve got most stuff ready for painting next week so nothing really done on this one yesterday.
No dining
Noe eating out for us. I have been grilling trying not to heat up the house and save on the electric bill.
Minimize
I walked on my lunch yesterday. I did my workout video this morning. I will walk again in the 100 degree weather on my lunch. I wish it would rain.
DINING – Leftovers again!
BUDGET – Ok…So American Girl was having a killer sale last night and I totally blew it! I got 3 outfits for DD, 5 outfits for Bitty Baby, and 9 books but it was only $151 which for AG is killer! The stiff will all be gifts so it can come out of our “gift” envelope but spending that much killed me (but it would have been much worse at the AG store). I also signed a contract with Dish Network yesterday and it was $162 OOP but after rebates we’re looking at $13 and that comes out of an envelope so not bad.
MINNIEMIZE – Actually saw my weight for the first time in over a year and I was NOT a happy girl. I’m getting more serious now! I got 5 glasses of water down but at 100 plus did not go outside for anything.
DECLUTTERING – Did great again! Found a whole big box of stuff to sell and some to throw away! I’m on roll now!
I’m sure your daughter will love her gifts! :)
no dining out- packing lunch and going to science center then new recipe burrito skillet tonight
minniemize-walked twice around the neighborhood last night then yoga this morning
declutter-went through outside box of junk with hubby all cleaned up there were leaves in there from last fall I think too no idea how they got in
budget-went through all coupons and pulled expired ones and ones about to expire so I can use them found some great target and manu coupon pairs
Budget-Still on budget for the month. I did eat out twice yesterday, but I spent less than $10. Still have quite a bit of money in my envelopes. All bills are paid for the month.
NDO – Did well there – had veggie wraps for dinner and packed a lunch.
MM – walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes yesterday and then did 30 min. with the Wii.
Budget – spent $12 at Publix last night but got some great bargains!
Decluttering – did not work on that….
No Dining Out: Grilled Beef Pita Pockets and french fries
Minnimizing: Ate anything and everything yesterday!
Budget: Nothing
Decluttering: Went through some stuff on my dresser while talking on the phone
No Dining Out- I cooked stir-fry here yesterday.
Budget- Spent no money yesterday.
declutter – BIG day! got the kids to help purge their bathroom of lots of unneeded items. All glass recycling done!
minimize – 25 minutes jogging
No Dining Out: Packed breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks for work
Minniemizing for the Mouse: Running a 5K on Saturday night
Budget Challenge: Budgeting is hard. I am “see something shinny and want it” kind of gal so budgeting has brought me a lot of discipline
Decluttering Challenge: mom coming in to town – busy de cluttering
Good luck on the 5K! :)
No dining out: We had Spinach Mac-n-Cheese with a salad & fruit.
Budget: Spent nothing. Got a $7 MIR in mail.
Minniemize me: Didn’t do well at all. Snacked all day long. AND hit the cheesecake again. Blah! I did great for almost 9 mths. and I need to get back on track!