September Challenge Update -The End

So you all know I have joined with Carla for a no-low spend challenge for the month of September. Today starts a new month for us pay check wise. All of the first of the month bills come from this pay check. So I thought I would call it good and tally the numbers.

My first goal was to save $600 cash to take a weekend trip with my hubby and Kid #5 to Michigan for my BFF's wedding. I completed this by using my work pay checks and selling some stuff on Facebook.  We drove the Pruis to save on gas. We spent two nights in a hotel but made sure they included breakfast with the price of the room. We ate dinner Friday night with my BFF and her soon to be hubby. We ate dinner Saturday night at the reception, which was beautiful by the way. We came home Sunday afternoon. So all together we bought 3 lunches and that was it for meals. Anyway we only spent half the money I saved!!!! So I still have $300 sitting in my "mom account". I will decide how best to use that money at a later date.

Next up was to increase our ER Fund to $1200. I planned to do this by shaving $150 off our grocery budget. Not only did I accomplish this but I only spent $200 for the entire month of September.  Woohoo go me! We even fed one to two extra people a few days a week for almost the whole month.

If you are wondering how could she have possibly done that? Well I made a menu plan by first shopping my house. I also planned for the whole month and for the most part used meat that I already had.  I have a deep freeze that I use when I purchase meat on sale. I also have a pretty large pantry but I do not really have a large stockpile in it. The biggest thing was having a plan!

I am planning to continue this low-no spend challenge for the month of October. I'll update with my plan for the month in a day or two :)