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!
Totally just posted in wrong month!
Minniemize-overall did well this month. Have been physically active at least four times per week on average I would guess and I believe more than that most weeks. Have just started training for a marathon so will definitely continue to be active
Decluttering : we finished cleaning through the house. It is so much cleaner and organized looking. I have a whole room of stuff for the garage sale I am going to have next weekend.
Dining Out: Busy day and we ate out twice
I hope I’m not too late on this one as the events that occurred yesterday preventing me from turning on the computer at all the whole day (*gasp).
NDO- nothing yesterday or the day before…had spaghetti and steaks the previous day.
MtM- continued to empty totes and take them to the upstairs part of the shed (my mom’s basement is looking very empty). Also, started doing a thorough clean of the house preparing for visitors to celebrate my little one’s b-day.
Declutter- we are preparing to get a new bed for my little one’s room, which is quite small. went through the room and got totes packed of toys that are no longer played with (we put those up in the shed as well).
budget- spent nothing! actually got 120.00 from someone who bought hay off of us for their longhorn cattle. :)
Decluttering – worked on cleaning out a bathroom drawer today. Hope you are having fun in Disney. The Poly is my favorite!
No Dining
Overall, we did really well this past month because of this challenge! And we haven’t been out to eat once this past week since our daughter was born. :)
Budgeting
Made it through our very first month of our new once-a-month pay schedule! Whew! It was easier than I thought it’d be, so I’m not too nervous for this next month.
Total saved this month and put into Disney Fund/Savings/Husband’s Fund: $141, $204, $80. :)
No dining-We did really great this month except Father’s Day weekend.Dh has been doing wonderful bringing lunches to work.
Minniemize-I’ve been getting a lot of exercise in and have been eating well except for the ice cream,but not eating boatloads of it-just eating a couple scoops 4 to 6 nights a week. Otherwise lots of fruits and veggies,whole grains,unsweetened iced peppermint tea instead of juice,and 2% milk.
No dining out
We went on a company sponsored trip this weekend for my husband’s work. We did not pay a dime for lunch, dinner, or breakfast. I brought extra snacks, bottled water, and other stuff for in the room, that way we wouldn’t pay a lot while we were out.
Minniemzing
On Saturday, we went to a waterpark where we walked, slid, jumped, and swam in the water. We had a lot of fun.
Decluttering
After our trip, I unpacked and threw away all of the promotional stuff that we stuck in our bags. We usually do that about a week later, but I managed to do it early so I could do other things around the house.
sounds like no dining out worked for you – yeah
congrats on the minniemizing
w00-h00t on the promotional items- that also sounds like a budget item too ;-)
Minniemizing
Today was Max Recovery day on the Insanity program. I welcomed the intense muscle work as a break from cardio!
No Dining Out
No dining out for us. I tried a new meatloaf recipe. I used my food processor to shred veggies and added them into the beef/turkey mixture. It worked pretty well!
Budgeting
We did not do well this month and are squeaking through. So glad tomorrow is pay day! :)
Decluttering – Cleaned out a cabinet at school today. Got rid of a TON of stuff! I also cleaned off and orgazined the island in the kitchen, the BIG clutter magnet.
Minniemizing – Walked on treadmill and worked at school unpacking boxes and moving things around.
No eating out – Had leftovers today.
Budget – Filled up the Kangaroo cups twice today. That’s 4 more dollars in the Disney Fund. Bought T-shirts and goodies at the Disney Store for our upcoming Disney World trip (Boy, what a sale!!).
Decluttering: Thinning the coupon binder today as tomorrow is a new month…purged a ton and pulled out some that need to be used in the next 7 days
No dining out: had a delicious salad at home with strawberries and blueberries from our fridge that needed to be eaten…the only thing I had to buy before I got home was lettuce (3.99 on sale).
Budget: Rocking this week thanks to some great deals at the grocery store and my little stock pile :-)
Minimize: Walked with DD for 30 minute despite not really wanting to…I did feel much better when we got home though!
I read everyone’s posts everyday and have never posted my update before because my computer at work won’t let me so I’m going to try to post my update every night when I get home!
no dining out: none today!
budget: not doing good at all!! well we just moved out on our own a month ago and still trying to set a budget on top of get some necessary items for our first place!
minnimize: REALLY need to work on this more- still have 15 pounds of baby weight to lose!
decluttering: none today. well cleaned up the kitchen but that’s it!
no dining out…for us today. We did have McD’s for lunch yesterday.
budget…still under budget for groceries, but over budget for unexpected expenses.
minniemizing…next month!!
decluttering…decluttered alot this month, but have noticed that we have alot more to do. Read an article about a challenge to have only 100 possessions. Huh? How can anyone do that? Did make me think, however, about how much excess we have!
not a great month, spent less than $5 eating out (actually a catalina at the walmart deli so i could keep shopping with hungry children), lost 13 lbs. (sounds good until i think about how much further i have to go), big garage sale decluttered most of my basement and paid for my home air duct cleaning, the only surprise was needing two new tires so my van could pass inspection, and by the grace of God, we had it!
Minniemizing for the Mouse: Doing any little bit I can, standing for conversations, parking farther away, etc. Changing my mindset, as with budgeting, remembering every little bit helps
Budget Challenge: more money at the end of the month, instead of more month at the end of money….love having more money going into savings than planned
Decluttering Challenge: Again only working on paper buy making progress!!
Minniemize me – Went to the Y and got my 60 minutes in on the elliptical again today. I’m aiming for 30 days in a row and today was day 17!
dining out- not tonight. Def cut back this month thanks to you!
decluttering- put away laundry cluttering upstairs.
budget- officially a coupon queen! lol
No dining–
No dining out yesterday. We are cleaning out odds and ends of leftovers (I love those days. So easy!)
Declutter– I cleaned the Tupperware part of the cabinets. I found lids for everything that didn’t have one, and decided to recycle or reuse some of the empty sour cream containers/yogurt containers, etc. that I had been saving. They cupboard was too full and needed to be organized. Stuff had been falling out before!!!
Dining Out – No dining out yesterday. I think I did awesome at not dining out. I can only think of a couple times and both I didn’t have to pay. I have to say, even the thought of not eating something home cooked and going with a restaurant is not even palatable much anymore. Yay!
Budget – I’m doing pretty good considering I moved to the DC area three months ago and paying for my August wedding and honeymoon. I’m SO excited and grateful for all the knowledge I gained from sites like these before all these expenses came into play.
Decluttering – Taking a bag of clothes to the good will today. SO excited to get ride of them!
Minniemize – Even with near exhaustion, I ran 20 minutes on the treadmill yesterday and did some weight work. I was so happy I did. :-)
No Dining – We ate out no more than once a week all month, and every time we ate out it was at a discount : )
Minniemizing – This has been a bad week for exercising. I have been staying up late every night and then sleep in missing my exercise time. Next week will be better : )
Budgeting – We have done great with our money except we had an unexpected expense. My computer crashed, so we had to replace the hard drive :( The good news is we had money in savings, which made it an inconvenience but not a a disaster.
Decluttering – I have been so focused on the computer that I haven’t gotten much done around the house, but I have been maintaining : )
Minniemizing- I have walked at least five days a week all month. That is certainly a new habit and I’m proud!
Dining out- I dined out only twice this month, each time at fast food so i spent less than $20on dining out.
Budget- I had a tough time recovering from my May budget shortfall but I really curbed my spending. I hope to continue the good work !
NDO-
We’ve done pretty well this month. Most of our meals have been cooked at home.
MINNIMIZE-
I’ve spent some time in the pool with the kids, but heading into the third trimester I’m starting to get tired again.
BUDGET-
More pool repairs, sooo…
DECLUTTER-
It could be going better.
NO DINING OUT – I am really proud of myself. We have only been out to eat ONCE this month. It does mean more work for me (since I do all of the cooking for our family) but I have to say, it hasn’t been too bad. I still have our ‘Garden Grill’ menu on my counter to motivate me to spend less so that we can go back to WDW in May!!!!!!!!!!!
Dining Out – I am really proud of myself for cutting down on dining out this month. I would eat out about 5 times a week and each week I got better about not dining out. THis week I have not gone out to eat yet!
Minnimize – Wish I could say the results were better for this one. I kept up with the walking but I quit my bootcamp class because I was always sore for 3 or 4 days afterwards. I think next month I will try to go to the gym on my lunch hour instead of shopping.
Budget – I really got things under control this month. I did this as a personal goal rather then moving the savings over to the disney fund. But that’s ok because in one month I managed to get $500 from garage sales, selling on ebay, change, and found money!
Decluttering – I am happy with a successful month of decluttering my house. I managed to get rid of a lot of stuff and I can’t wait to get rid of more things we don’t use – to make room for my stockpile of great items I’ve been buying this month!
No Dining Out–Not as good as I had hoped we would do, but we ate out a lot less than normal. Especially less fast food during the week.
Minniemize Me–Did not go well!!! Trip for Dec is officially booked so really need to get some weight off.
Budget–So excited to start this this month and it went well. Will definitely continue into July. Exciting to easily have money to put in the Disney Fund each week.
Dining Out: Cooked at home last night and will cook at home tonight too. We leave on vacation soon so I am sure we will not be eating out too much as we try to clear out the fridge before we go!
Minnimize: Ugh. I gained 2 1lbs this week. I don’t know why I had such a bad week. So…back on track this week. That means I cannot eat all of my extra points this week. Oh well…
Budget – Just monitoring groceries this month and the funny thing is I was planning on mostly eating out of my pantry and freezer which I have done but, there have been so many great stock up prices that I have been buying a lot. It’s all good though because I was concerned that I would use everything up and then have to pay full price to restock.
No dining – We did really good despite my husband probably preferring to eat out more. I did a lot more cooking and meal planning even if I didn’t have a clue what I was making until that very day.
Declutter – Though I still need to declutter a lot more, I think I have found the root problem or rather a solution to it because I don’t have a system in place for dealing with paper, that’s why it is everywhere. Now for July I will attempt to put a system in place and eliminate my worst clutter issue – paper.
No dining out – I am eating dinner at my mother’s house tonight. I don’t know what we will have but I know it will be good. :)
No Dining Out: Ate lunch out with coworkers yesterday which was unexpected but not a bad thing.
Minnimizing: 4 mile run.
No dining out: Simple lunch at home today and then leftover grilled chicken for dinner (with “clean rice” according to my son, who likes to distinguish it from dirty rice).
Minnie-mize: Got so much accomplished today AND worked out. Yay! :)
De-cluttering: Took a bunch of stuff to the resale shop with plans to add the money to my fund. They were behind, so I have to go back to pick up my money and whatever they aren’t taking this afternoon. Still wahoo on the cleaning and de-cluttering for me. This challenge couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as I have been ready to get down to business at home but needed that extra motivation. Thanks so much! :)
No dining out – we did a great job this month only getting food out twice to celebrate graduations.
Budget – we also did really good with our spending this month. There were many days where we didn’t spend any money. Our goal is to increase those days next month.
minimize – got my 1 hour walking in
declutter – 25 papers & little things out the door!
Budget
No spending today…doneed to do some grocery shopping though…hard with the kids
Minniemize
ran 35 mins on the treadmill
No Dining
no dining…brought picnic dinner to the baseball game
No Dining Out
We did ok here, I had surgery mid month and DH picked dinners up a couple of times that week. Overall not a bad month.
Minniemizing
No exercise (due to surgery) but I have kept off the 40 lbs Ive lost.
Budget
Was blown several times this month with medical bills and unexpected car breakdowns :(
Declutter
I did manage to get my laundry room and pantry decluttered YAY!
Decluttering, this has actually been the hardest of my 3 challenges, I work 2 jobs so finding the time to get too much done is rough at times. I the days that I dedicated time for this felt so rewarding though!
Minnimize- I dropped 5 lbs!! The 5 I have left are alwalys the hardest, keeping it up for next month! Wearing a swimsuit for the first time tomorrow!! Ugh.
Budget- We set a budget and we stuck to it. We only ate out once this month and everything I bought aside from that was with a coupon. We made 10 days spending no money at all!!
Declutter: Organized fridge and freezer! Bonus: now have leftovers for lunch and dinner today! Also I remembered I did my daughters room on Tuesday- which I’ve been avoiding… :)
Minnemize: Had to work all day and was too tired after dinner, homework, stories, baths, etc to exercise. My new goal is to get up early and exercise! AAAAAGGGHHH! Our anniversary is only 2 months away!
Budget: Walked into wags, they didn’t have what I needed so I walked out with NO impulse purchases! And it was dinner time!
No Dining Out: Did awesome yesterday with my Lean Cuisine lunch at work and I made dinner for 2 grouchy tired kids- grilled steak and veggies!
No Dining – We ate out a total of 3 times this month. I only paid for 2 of them and used coupons both times.
Minniemizing – I kept up with atleast 30 minutes of physical activity and eating alot better then I used to. Total lost 1 lb. Yippie.
Budgeting – We stayed on budget for almost everything. (There was some shuffling around of funds based on great deals that I found (example buying 10 Kellogg’s products for $19.99 for $24 worth of movie tickets) We did have to go out of our budget for a small car repair……and then something else messed up but that repair will be in the next months budget.
Decluttering –I have decluttered every room but my garage and now I am going to tackle that one. Garage Sale date is set for the 9th. Going to be a 7 Family Garage Sale. Whoot for the complications about to ensue.
minniemizing: Our scale broke..well it needs a new battery, and I keep forgetting, so I’m not sure how much weight I’ve lost :( However since I’ve been walking with a 20 pound baby in the front pack, and pushing a 3 yo in the stroller I’ve noticed I’ve been able to go a lot longer!!
Dining challenge: We did great! We went out to eat 3 or 4 times, but we used gift cards we recieved as gifts, and coupons. We also mostly went out for lunch, which saved a ton!
Decluttering: I made over $100 in selling old baby stuff on craigslist, I gave away a bunch of outdoor toys we really didn’t need, and I donated a bunch of kitchen stuff we didn’t need! yay!
Minniemize:
Running for 30 minutes is exhausting. Now to start training to run 60 minutes straight.
Budget:
Haven’t spent a dime since Saturday!
Decluttering:
Tossed away lots of old school papers that I don’t think I’ll need anymore.
No dining out:
No dining out for me yesterday!
No Dining Out: We have cut it out almost completely, we have only done 1 meal a week this month.
Budget: My glory for the month is our washer broke. After thinking about the price tag and realizing it was going to be well over our budget, I decided to see if I could fix it myself. I googled the problem, found the solution, took the washer apart, found the part in town for $15, fixed the problem and put the washer back together. $15 vs. $120+…mommy won! :)
Clean Out: I have a stationary “give iit away” station downstairs by the laundry area so it never gets back upstairs. I have donated 4 trashbags of outgrown clothes to charity! :)
No Dining Out – Made another new recipe last night, another big hit too. I’m on a roll!!! But broke down and bought Taco bell the night before. Oh well, still came in under budget for the month.
Minniemize – Slipping a little more every day. But since we’re coming up on what would have been my son’s 5th birthday I’ve given myself somewhat of a free pass. Still trying to eat right, most of the time, but no guilt when I don’t. I even made a cheesecake last night. I think sometimes it’s ok to lose yourself in the comfort of food, as long as it doen’t happen too often.
Budget – Doing well, trying not to spend anywhere I can avoid it.
Declutter – I was on a roll cleaning and clearing until this week, but again, no guilt. After this week it will probably take me a few days to get myself together and then I can hit it full on again.
Decultter
Thursday night I tore into my AWANA/Sunday school supplies. I tossed a huge garbage bag full of packing material and ones twosy type craft pieces that would not work with anything. I got 80% of the year more or less prepped and cleaned out a bunch of gunk!
Budget
We did our mini staycation this past week and came in under budget, by spending more lol, we had booked a mini suite at Redroof in for $67 plus tax, but the morning we were leaving my stepmom emailed me this killer deal at the Scottsdale Hyatt for military for $89 plus tax (it wound up being $102 with fees etc) but they had 10 pools and a sand entrance so DD and I stayed there instead of going to rainforest for dinner, and then we played there till 2 pm (late check!) instead of going to the water park. It worked out great!
No Dining Out- We did not dine out yesterday! Aiden had to go to the bathroom (we are potty training) so I whipped into KFC on the way to swim lessons. I resisted the urge to buy even though I had a BOGO coupon!
Budget- I spent over my budget this month but I have stock piled so I should not have to spend as much next month.
Minniemize- went swimming a lot and got more active.. I hope to do better next month
Declutter- I got rid of a lot of crap!! Hopefully more next time :)
No Dininig out – did not eat out yesterday. Hubby got free sandwiches at work for lunch and dinner
Minniemize – Went past the pre-pregnancy weight baby is 5 months. Trying not to loose anymore.
Budget – Things are better than last month, but have an extra trip from KY to MD to take son to his doctors to pay for. I had only planned for one trip which was last week. They could not fit all of the testing in last week so we have to go back.
No Dining – We did pretty good this month, all in all. Most meals were either eaten at home or made at home and packed to bring to work. We ate out for breakfast one weekend when we were away and my boyfriend took me out for a “you survived the school year” celebration when I got out of work last Thursday. Otherwise, that was it. :-)
Minniemizing – I’ve kept up my momentum pretty well this month. Walk/jogged 3 – 4 miles 3 days a week and worked out on my Wii Fit for 30 minutes to an hour 3 days a week. There were a few weeks it may have been 2 days or more wii when it was raining, etc, but overall I think I stuck to it pretty well, In the past month I’ve lost about 10 pounds!
Budget – I managed to not only stick within my three budgets, but actually have 71 dollars and a couple of handfuls of change added to my fund over the course of the month!!
Decluttering -I didn’t keep up with the 25 items a day, but I did manage to pull out a bunch of clothes from my closet and a bunch of junk from my office at school. Now I just need to put the clothes in bags and bring them to the Salvation Army to donate and I’ll be good. Otherwise, technically they’re still taking up space in my closet.
No Dining Out: I brought in cereal and milk for breakfast. Then I have turkey cutlets and broccilli for lunch. I have something in the crockpot for dinner tonight. no dining out at all today.
Minniemizing for the Mouse: attended bootcamp this morning at 6am. My muscles are already hurting ;-)
Budget Challenge: I used your Rite-Aid idea about getting the kids sunglasses Buy1 – Get at 50% off yesterday. I made money on the deal. Thanks K @ Couponing for Disney!
Decluttering Challenge: Started clearing out the garage. WOW :-)
No Dining – This is a tough one, but being on a diet helps. We’ve been eating at home!
Minniemizing – Sis & I started weight watchers!
Budgeting – Developed a spreadsheet to track bills & expenses. And just started getting serious about couponing!
Decluttering – We cleaned out the toybox – what a chore!
No dining out for us.
I am so happy to have found this site…..it makes me want to save more than the 25 to …50 a month I was doing. we will get there sooner than later …
no dining out…..well I did save about $20 this month by just stopping the I am thirsty lets go thur the drive thru….it is amazing that I use to pay 1.49 or more for a drink when i could just bring one with a cold pack. silly me!
minniemize me…..did not start yet but will in july….need to get in shape
declutter….got rid of the baby stuff…took it to a resale shop and made $90 whoooo hooo…so this month over $100 in the vacation account…..
Hi Lisa-
I love this site too. It has really help me stay on budget also
Dinning out is the hardest for me. But boy does it save a lot of money – WOW
Minniemize – July is tomorrow ;-)
declutter: yeah with making money on the baby stuff.
No dining out: we didn’t eat out at all yesterday, and overall for june I feel like we did great!
MM…..once Gain on the exercise bike as I type this comment. Thanks for the motivation, Kristen! Know you’re having fun burning calories at Disney!
DINING – Bought a water at the ballgame (it was 100 and we NEEDED a drink).
BUDGET – Went to look at furniture but they had nothing I wanted to no $ spent.
DECLUTTER – Nothing here.
MINNIEMIZE – I wasn’t doing this one this month but I am going to start for July. Maybe being accountable on here would help! I’ve put on a few pounds since having DD and after having some wonderful family photos taken I realize I need to get those extra pounds off. I did start by choosing water over a soda yesterday at the ball game (same price), resisting a QT drink on the way home, and saying NO to ice cream after my DD went to bed.
am super excited that you are on disneymoon
minniemize me – am 85 days from11 day trip so i walked 2 miles last night after zumba – feeling great today
didnt dine out at all – but did make more adr’s lol
decluttered – cleaned up/out bathroom closet – while nothing to sell certainly made me take stock of my stockpile – decided i really dont need anymore deodorants or body wash for prob at least one year
am making 125.00 payment to disney on coupon savings this week
No dining out:
We actually had money left over at the end of the month in our “eating out” envelope!!! We stuck to our twice a week dining out goal all month.
Budget challenege:
We exceeded our overall monthly budget by about $200! We forgot that our homeowner’s association fees were due this month and they increased on as well which we had not planned for. Luckily, we were able to pull money out of our savings (not disney fund mind you) to cover this.
Decluttering challenge:
I feel good about my decluttering this month, BUT I need to get everyone else in my house on board with me because I declutter something and piles start forming again throughout the house. I think we need a better system….
No Dining out– We almost had a slip up last night! I misprepared our dinner plans. The hubby stepped in and saved the night! He whipped up a delicious stir-fry!!
Minniemize- we went for a family bike ride through the neighborhood. I love summer!
No Dining out….this has gotten easy for us…we only eat out for Bdays and always have a BOGO cpn.
Minniemizing….I have cut out all sugar a few weeks ago…no white sugar, no brown sugar, no artificial sweeteners…I have steevia on hand just i case….I have started read Suzanne Somer’s books about hormonal balance and eating healthy…I have been doing a detox a few wks…
Food Budget…I have no choice but to stay on budget…I get $100 every 2 wks for 6 ppl…I buy when things are cheap/free and have my own lil stockpile…My 13yr son is very interested in sales/cpning with me….
Decluttering…We have an almost 6,000sqft home that we are renovating so construction trash seems to pile up…we removed all the trash and cleaned up almost the entire house for the party….
Decluttering:
Accomplished: $100 for the fund from the yard sale. Hauled lots of yard sale left-overs to Goodwill for the tax deductions. Hauled some left-overs to the cousins. Still be to done: post boxes of items to ThredUp. I’m feeling like my procrastination has payed off as suddenly they are paying for great boxes (sort of regretting some of the stuff already donated), but I’m sure we can find more. Make decluttering a way of life.
We are instituting a 1 in, 1 out rule!
Minniemize-Did better than expected this month. There is lots of room for improvement.I think the exercizing will come better next month.
Decluttering- Getting things gone through and tring to accumulate enough stuff for a yard sale next month.
No dining out:
My parents bought my lunch on the way to the airport yesterday, and when I got home I had a bagel for supper lol. My husband is coming home on Saturday!!! (I’ll be cooking him a huge meal then!) :)
Decluttering:
Have everything unpacked, now on to laundry!
Cleaned off my kitchen table… again. But it my kitchen looks great! :)
Oops, that was for the Decluttering Challenge.
Dining out: No dining out for us yesterday! Yay…we did really well this month on our dining out. Only ate out 4 times, and twice were paid for by other people.
De-clutter: went through my girls clothes…got rid of a garbage sack full for donation, and two storage containers full for consignment sale.
Minniemize: have been drinking all my water and making great food choices, but haven’t had the energy to do a lot of exercise. Although I did a quick 20 minute power walk.
Budget: we stayed on budget this month…actually have money left over to go into our fund! Wasn’t a lot, but at least that is $25 more in!
I am just starting on this. But I think it will be a great help to set up what I have to spend and not spend the extra. :)
No dining out yesterday. Made a new recipe. I liked it, but my daughter didn’t.
Exercised hardcore for 20 minutes last night. I’m feeling it this morning!
No dining
We ate for free last night. Today I will make chicken tonight. No eating out at lunch for any of us!!! We did great this month.
Minniemize
Portion control, still no soda and I keep walking on my lunches. I am doing pretty good and Hubby jumped on board this train this year.
I’m just now finding this, but thanks for giving me an additional incentive to do it! I’ll be participating next month!!!
Minniemize-I have been doing great this month of riding my bike almost everyday. Yesterday I went on a bike ride with my 3 year old nephew who does awesome on his two wheeler then we played at the park.
Decluttering-I have gotten rid of so much “stuff” Its all packed up and ready to be donated! Yay!
No Dining Out – No dining out yesterday. I made 4 cheese macaroni and cheese with bacon for dinner. And MIL (who’s visiting) and I had leftovers for lunch. This month was odd with our vacation, but overall we’ve eaten out less this month I think.
Budget – I’m still under my grocery/household budget for the month by about $60. That’s after doing A LOT of stocking up and building a 72 hr emergency kit (or at least getting most of what I need for it). And I’ve actually kept my spreadsheet updated the whole time too!
Decluttering – I didn’t work on this one yesterday, but overall, I’m pretty happy with how much decluttering I’ve done this month. I still have a lot of declutter/organizing to do before baby #2 but every little bit helps.
No Dining Out: Not to bad this month. We didn’t stick to the straight and narrow, but I can definitely say we did not eat out as much due to the conscious decisions. =)
Minniemizing: With summer in full blast for the kids, I did a lot more moving around and walking and swimming. And I have picked back up on the better eating habits. Doing away with the processed and boxed stuff really has helped.
Budget: Ugh. I don’t even want to go there for this month. I am so disappointed in how much money we had to shell out in unexpected mini-disasters this month. So not cool.
Decluttering: I had a great month for that. We have the load waiting and almost ready to be priced and the yard sale date planned. As soon as family is gone we will plan it. Next month will be tackling the “barn” (my kids call the storage shed a barn. haha).
No dining…
Well, my house is a wreck because I am cleaning out, selling and moving so there were days (many) when we needed (wanted) to eat out. We always used gift cards or my mom graciously footed the bill.
Minniemizing…
This month has been tough (see above) and I am going through some serious emotional stress. The good news is, though, at the doctor’s office this week I had lost weight!
Budgeting…
Only went over my $50 per week budget twice and both times it was less than $2!
Decluttering…
Have gone through the entire basement!
No Dining – We did great this month. I meal planned and cooked ahead whenever possible this month.
Minniemizing – I kind of fell off the wagon this month. I really want to incoporate exercise into my daily routine but it is so hard to stick to.
Budgeting – We have been tracking all of our expenses so we can come up with a better budget. The one area we do have a budget for is groceries and I have been doing great coming in ubder budget!
Decluttering – I have been trying to organize a small area of my house overy few days and I am really happy with the results.