5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. I bought a few groceries for the first time since 12/30. I spent $47.99. I am hoping this will last us the rest of the month. We will see :) 

2. We have been using the library a ton lately. I request dvd's of Mike & Molly and we have been making our way through the seasons. I have also been reading a lot. My current read: 

3. We have been eating a lot from our pantry.

4. I made a batch of granola to eat for breakfast. 

5. I had 5 stay at home days this week. It has been cold and this seems like a lot but it helps to not spend money :)

Planning For The Year...

It has really become apparent to me that we have not planned well at all for medical and dental bills.  In years past we have all been pretty healthy and these bills have been at a minimum.

Right before the end of 2015 my husband hurt his back and started going to the chiropractor. While most of the costs are covered by our health insurance, the co-pays for two, three and four times weekly visits are not.  Today he also had a dental cleaning and was told he needs to have a crown.  While again most of the cost of that is covered through our dental insurance thankfully, about $350 is not.

We also have a $155 office visit for Kid # 5 from December who ended up sick for a few days and had to make a trip to the Dr.  We haven't found a Dr yet in our new area so we just went to the closest prompt care.  Turns out our insurance does not cover quick strep tests. Ugh!

 I am not prepared for these large bills at all.  So I will be sitting down and reworking the budget to accommodate them. I know we can easily make this work but it may prolong how fast we get out of Baby Step 3.  I was really hoping to be done by June :(

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. I have had 4 "no spend" days this week

2. I have not done any grocery shopping. We have a ton of food leftover from all our holiday celebrations. We are eating it up! 

3. The only spending that I did do was for $10. Not to shabby I don't think :)

4. I ran out of my regular face lotion and instead of buying new I am using up some I already had but am just not overly fond of.

5. Kid # 5 took her lunch to school 2 days this week which saved me $5 

2016 Goals

I really only have one major goal this year.

Complete our fully funded emergency fund and stay out of debt.

Ok I guess that is 2 goals.  Seems like those would be easy huh? 

Lets hope so.

 My plan is to write here more and document my frugal living more often here also.

It seems that a lot of my favorite blogs stop writing once they get out of debt. But I think it is equally as hard to save money and stay out of debt. So I hope to continue to document my journey through this process.

Here's to completing our goals in 2016

One Year Of Being Debt Free

December 31,2015 was our 1 year anniversary of completing Dave Ramsey's Baby Step 2.

 It really has been an awesome year.

It is amazing when you own no one but your mortgage how freeing it is when a unplanned expense or life event happens and you don't have to worry about how to pay for it.

 We relocated to a different city and manage to not rack up anymore debt.  We bought a few new pieces of furniture and did some things to our new house, all funded with cash. 

We also had over $2000 in car repairs for my car which were totally unplanned but also paid for in cash.

We have even managed to save 3 months living expenses for Baby Step 3.  We are planning to do at least 6 months.

Even though we have paid off our consumer debt I do not see our lifestyle changing ever.  I love being frugal and it is a challenge to me to save money.

I tell my husband all the time his job is to make the money and mine is to save the money :)

Lets hope 2016 is as nice to us as the last year has been!