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!
No dining out.
Walked 3 1/2 miles. A lot cooler, but still sweating buckets!
Cleaned up my email boxes…does that count? ;)
Minnie- little stroll this morning before temps got up to 110!
Decluttering- cleaned out the medicine cabinet and got rid of outdated meds
No dining out – tried a new crock pot recipe today.
Minniemize – resisting training – bleh
Budget – went to a case lot sale and spent $175. Thank heavens I have been saving for it.
Declutter – Have I mentioned I am no good at this??
Ok ignore the above post-not sure what happened.
No dining out- We have done great the last couple of days. Last night was baked chicken,broccoli.and cherry foccacia which I’ve never made before and ended up really liking as did DH,but my son not so much.
Minniemize-Did my 30 day shred on Mon. as well as walking home from the library as my DH dropped us off on the way to the mechanics to fix the van. Eating well except the chocolate chip cookies,but don’t think 2 of those a day are too bad. Can you see what my weakness is?
Budget- Yesterday spent $4 at Aldi’s and around $7 at wags-was able to get contact solution,2 boxes of markers,a folder,scissors,2 containers of almonds,and a carton of eggs so think I did well.
N
No dining out: took lunch to work, cooked dinner at home
Minimizing: not feeling good, so no exercising tonight
Budget: no shopping/spending money. And, I got the free dining for our trip and saved nearly $500 on our Disney trip in Nov!
Declutter: cleaned up some mess in the living room and my room. I need to tackle laundry throughout the house – it’s crazy! =o\ I’m a lazy laundry worker. Lol.
Minniemize: played hard with the darling daughter all day. She has me wornout!
Budget: Have yet to spend any money, I’m going to be shopping tomorrow.
No DIning Out: Ate french bread pizza! Mmmm, it was super good.
Decluttering: I packed up the last of the maternity clothes to pass on to a family member. I thought I had passed it all on but I found a whole bag worth.
Minniemize: Walk with the kids. Cut short (only 15 minutes) due to rain again!
Decluttering: We had a very windy storm this morning, so while I was rearanging everything, I found some more outside toys for our yard sale on Saturday.
Minniemizing: I learned some really cool dance moves from So You Think You Can Dance’s website on their signature moves!
No Dining Out: Tonight we had tacos when I so wanted to pick up Bob Evans!!
Budget: Today I went back to school clothes shopping and I saved a lot of money with retail coupons and in store sales and clearance. I got deals from Justice, Aeropostale, Payless, and JC Penney and only spent around $120 for all my daughter’s uniforms and shoes! Considering my budget for her was around $150, I did pretty good!
I also went couponing today by using tips from this website and got around $100 worth of groceries for $40; including deals on socks, produce, and meat!
No dining out: was doing good today until we decided to order pizza for dinner using our $10 papa johns gift card from Saveology for only $5- we chose pizza because I have a cold and didn’t want to move to cook :/
Minniemize: still none. one of these days….
Budget: keeping up with my spreadsheet but still spending money every day…
Declutter: didn’t get to the last closet tonight like planned. and of course it’s supposed to rain on saturday when my yard sale is planned!!
Budget- still on budget spent nothing
dining out- did not dine out had pork loin on the grill
No Dining Out: Not a problem here today! I made stuffed green bell peppers.
Minniemizing for the Mouse: Did 20 minutes of Kettlebell training
Decluttering Challenge: I’ve decided no more waiting for spring to do some spring cleaning, it’s full on fall cleaning in my house!
Budget
Doing great so far, trying to set myself up so for my Univieristy orientation, I took my lunch, I figure the sooner I get in that habit the better.
DeClutter – Got 1/3 of my kitchen floor tile and grout hand scrubbed and sealed and another bin in my scrap area cleared out
Minimize – Holy cow I’m going to be skinny at the end of the semester, I parked at the garage I will have to use all semester and it’s a brisk 10 minute walk to my first class plus 2 flights of stairs from the garage and stairs to get to class ( with my bad knees I can go down stairs but not up them) gotta figure something out though from just my laptop and one book in my backpack my shoulders are killing me!
No Dining Out- I have dinner in the crock pot!
Minniemizing for the Mouse- I weighed in at WW last night and I have lost 10 lbs in the last 3 weeks!!!!!
Budget Challenge- Started cutting my coupons and bringing them with me again. I have fallen behind this summer…..back on track now.
Decluttering Challenge- Cleaned out all 3 kids closets. Too small clothes are gone.
no dining out–took my son out for the last time before he moves to Arizona tomorrow. :(
budget–way off budget due to unexpected maintenance on my son’s car.
decluttering–lots of items leaving the house tomorrow…along with my son :(
minniemizing–went for my yearly physical today…minniemizing def begins tomorrow!
Budget-$0 grocery budget spent yesterday
Dining-bbq pork, leftover baked beans, and zucchini fritters for supper last night
No Dining out: Yesterday my kids and I ate out for lunch but I ran by Captain D’s and got my free Captain sandwich with a purchase of any size drink on my way home from grocery shopping. ( I live 45 mins away from Publix).
Minniemize Me: I drank a lot of water
Budget: Went to publix with my mind set on not spending more than $75. Came out spending $54 and saving $70!!! Not to shabby.
Decluttering: Cleaned out bedroom closet. Figured out that I am missing a right tennis shoe. :(
Minimizing: walked 15-20 minutes with the dog
Budget: spent $3.25 to wash and dry a load of laundry
Declutter: packed up some clothes to take to Goodwill
No dining out last night. Had leftovers.
Exercised for a little bit. I didn’t time it, but I did it while catching up on Hell’s Kitchen.
Decluttering Challenge—still trying to get over a bad headache!! :(
Budget Challenge—spent $2 at the Dollar Store to buy 2 packages of wipes that the kids need for when our co-op starts back
Minniemizing for the Mouse—still trying to get over a bad headache!!
No Dining Out—none today—will wait for that until Sunday (my once a week treat)
No Dining Out – Not doing so well on this one. It’s only the third day of August and I’ve already dined out! My best friend’s husband and my boyfriend both work at the same theater doing technical things, and they had a tech run for the current production so they weren’t going to be home until 2am, so she and I and their son went out for dinner. We had it planned though, so it wasn’t entirely bad. Although, it was a little pricier than we’d anticipated because the place we were planning on going had a band playing that was just too loud for her 16 month old’s ears.
Minniemize Me – Went for a jog on the treadmill yesterday and Monday, even though I really didn’t want to. Planning on getting in a Wii workout later today. And a jog again tomorrow and Friday. So I’m working on it.
Budget – Spent a little more than anticipated yesterday at dinner, but still managed to have $10 and some change left over today to add to the fund since I’m not planning on leaving the house today.
Decluttering – Did a little bit of organizing of my cookbooks. Need to pick up another binder to put my cut out recipes in.
No Dining Out: I’m not sure about dinner tonight yet, but yesterday was a success!
Minniemizing for the Mouse: Running today. :-( Wish I thought that was fun. It’ll be warm this afternoon, though not even close to as hot as the rest of the U.S. but still, I’d rather run when it’s a little chilly.
Budget Challenge: We only bought lettuce last night, and my husband’s biking to and from work until Friday! Budget, CHECK!
Decluttering Challenge: I think the girls are against me here. I got everything put away, and sorted some toys out for storage, but they undid most of my work while I was making dinner!
Dining out – Nope not today! Got the meat marinating and picked corn from the garden this morning for dinner.
Minnie me – Back on my boring, but protein rich menu of eggs for breakfast and salad for lunch. Boring, but it works for me!
Declutter -went through my girls shoes and cleaned out the too small and icky ones.
Budget – Price matched a bunch of stuff last night at Wallyworld so we will stay under monthly budget.
Dining Out: We are dining out tonight. We are using the money left over from school supply shopping.
Minniemize: It is raining today so I will walk this evening after dinner.
Declutter: Cleaning out 1 of the kids closets today.
Budget: Only spending for dinner.
We made scallops for dinner, surprisingly I liked them the kids not so much!
Declutter – Went through “stacks” of papers in the study and purged, purged, purged!
Budget – Haven’t went shopping in a couple of days. I have got to go buy my son’s school shoes…wne ton line and gor a $10 off coupon! I look for coupons now when I go shopping for anything…you never know what you’ll save by just looking.
Minniemizing – ate a healthy breakfast…am still sore from all the steam cleaning yesterday..but the carpets do look better (for how long I don’t know, I have that horrible berber carpet)
Here goes for august….
MM – didn’t work out yesterday and went a bit overboard on the snacking but am going to get back on track today.
Declutter – I didn’t have a chance to work on it last night but the night before I did declutter my coupons.
NDO – have not dined out yet this month. brought my lunch for my weekly luncheon meeting – most everyone else in the meeting orders something in but that is just too expensive for me. One week I paid over eight dollars for a white bread sandwich with turkey on it, a piece of fruit and a can of soda….. I could have brought that from home and spent less than $1!
Budget – went to the grocery store last night to pick up a few things that were going off sale at Publix. Walked out with 3 boxes of granola thins and a package of King Hawaiian snacker rolls for less than $4. Then went to Kroger and bought 2 bags of Ore Ida fries, 2 boxes of the Pilsbury biscuit sandwiches and a package of johnson sausauge for a check out total of ninety four cents!!!! I was stunned. But by using ecoupons and manufacturer coupons (two were freebie items) this really added up. What a way to start off the month!!!!
No dining
This has been hard because hubby has been working really late (he works for the water dept. They turn the water pressure up and water lines break). But he has not been eating out. I just reheated left overs for dinner last night he ate when he got home @ 1:30 a.m. He took more leftovers for lunch.
Minniemize
I was going to walk on my lunch today how ever, the high today is 115!!!! That is craziness.
No DIning Out – packed my lunch, had a bagel for breakfast and my awesome mom is bringing over turkey for dinner tonight – I am blessed!
Minniemize – sweaty walk to work again. I’ll be glad when it’s fall!
Budget – I promised my 5 year old a new Leapster game if he had a stellar 2 weeks at summer day camp – he did – I ordered it, but I used my amazon money from Swagbucks, so it cost me nothing from our budget!
Declutter – Did the bathroom and my sons clothes last night. Tonight I’m working on organizing and hopefully getting rid of my excess scrapbooking materials – it’s overtaken my guest room.
decluttering – have not done much lately but have tons of totes to go through and get rid of stuff.
Minniemizing – We are busting but everyday. Bootcamp in the AM with our trainer DJ Jordan.
Dining out – we as a family are doing a national 90 day weight loss challenge with Body by Vi. That means every meal is preplanned for the next 30 months. That will save us tons!
Budget – We are on track for our grocery budget for the week and I will have to make a milk, egg and fruit run this evening before church.
No Dining Out: My boss brought my a Biscuitville Biscuit- NOM NOM! That’s what I did for lunch, dinner I tried a new recipe that I love!
Budget: Spent nothing yesterday AND entered the usual bills in to my budget-tracking spreadsheet.
Minnimize: I hit my fat and calories, even though for some reason I’m snacking a lot :/.
No dining out:
No dining out yesterday! I made double what I usually make of bowtie pasta w/ chicken, roasted red peppers, and feta cheese. Then, we took half over to some of our friends who just had a baby, and we came home and had the other half ourselves :)
Minniemizing:
Went for my walk yesterday, and I stayed under my calorie and fat budgets for the day.
Decluttering:
more laundry and just straightened up around the house
Budget:
Spent no money yesterday! :)
No Dining Out – No eating out for us yesterday.
budget – No money spent yesterday.
Decluttering – we got rid of some more of my daughter’s toys and I rearranged some more craft supplies.
No Dining Out:: Had to go to the DMV yesterday and instead of relying on the vending machines to keep me full while I waited four hours I packed a bottled water and a bag of combos and but $2.50 in the DF
Minniemizing for the mouse:: Might some crazy but I have.decided to only change my daughters diapers on her changing table (which is upstairs in her room) So all day yesterday, and so far today, we have been hiking up and down the stairs constantly.
Budget:: I was tempted to order some of those Disney baby books off Totsy but instead I went through my baby books at my mothers this morning and found over 50 of my Disney books to pass on to my daughter for FREE!
Declutter:: While I was going through my childrens books I took way over 25, try 78 books to Goodwill.
No Dining Out: No dining out planned for today.
Budget: I printed out a ton of new coupons yesterday, and I’m currently working on our grocery list for the week. My grocery budget is $100 – $120 a week, and for the past two months I’ve stuck to that.
Minniemizing: I just had my low-calorie breakfast and I have my healthy lunch and dinners planned and ready.
Decluttering: Cleaned out my kitchen cabinet yesterday and threw away several items that were expired.
Budget: Spent $12.50 for milk, bread, and bananas yesterday. I have dinner planned the next 2 nights so we’ll see if we can make it through the week eating from the pantry.
Minnemize: It’s been so hot here! I was up really early this morning so decided to go ahead and walk the dog first thing.
NDO: Nothing yesterday.
Decluttering: Sorted through a bunch of papers on my desk yesterday and threw out a lot. Today, I need to file what’s left.
Budget – Today I will go out and do a little shopping. My biggest concern is that I need some items for getting better organized and I am doing my best to find ways to save on them.
Declutter – I worked on my closet and chest of drawers yesterday. After the declutter session, I counted and I had about 73 items hanging and my husband had 104. I thought, couldn’t we decrease it by just 10% more. I pulled 7 more items to get rid of and my husband got rid of 9:). I’m wanting to purchase some spacesaver hangers today because they are supposed to give you 1/3 more room in your closet. I already called around and found the best price. Maybe I should search online now!
No dining – After cleaning out my pantry, I know I still have plenty to cook from at home. The garden is not producing much and hanging on for dear life with it being 108 yesterday.
No Dining Out – as much as I wanted to eat out last night I resisted and we had spaghetti.
Budget Challenge – didn’t spend a dime :-).
No Dining Out: Not a problem is this household, we have a garden and my husband and I both love to cook
Minniemize me: We’ve been preparing for our trip in Nov. By taking a walk around the neighborhood everyday.
Decluttering Challenge: We are getting ready for a yard sale by getting anything we no longer use out of here.
Budget Challenge: This one will be tough, but I must stay on budget if we are going to afford our trip, I have laid out a plan for this month and with the tips I receive from this site and others It should be a breeze :)
No dining out: We had Blackened Grilled Salmon, baked potatoes & green beans.
Minniemize me: Cheated & had a piece of kiddo’s birthday cake. It was so good. Back on track today though.
Budget: Spent $0 & got a coupon booklet in mail!
No Dining Out: I have leftovers from dinner for lunch today.
Minniemizing for the Mouse: Bootcamp workout at 12noon today
Budget Challenge: I am new to couponing and I am amazed how much I can save on toothpaste, body wash, shampoo and codition……just amazed. yes I am well within my budget thanks to Couponing to Disney
Decluttering Challenge:My Mom comes in to town today and the house is mostly decluttered. Although now I am thinking of instead of waiting for a garage sale I just might throw my stuff away – I think i am to a point where I just want it out of the house and gone