The end of April has brought an end to our frugality... The last week of the month went well, although we did end up spending money on a couple of things. First of all, Ada had her 9-month doctors appointment and we had to pay the co-pay. I had an application to the U's graduate school and I had to pay a $45 application fee. I've long been admitted to the EE program, this application is just so the U can charge me a lot more money next year. We also had to purchase gas. We would have made it to the end of the month had we not driven to Provo (for Alison's sister Angie's graduation get-together) and Brigham City (for Alison's grandmother's 80th birthday party). We've almost got to refill again after all of that driving.
Here are my thoughts on how everything turned out, you can read Alison's thoughts here. I actually found it to be easier than I expected (of course, I wasn't the one having to come up with the meal plans). All it really required was a little planning and foresight. I found the hardest part to be conserving gas for the month. There were a lot of unplanned driving trips that I had to make (most of them concerning my Sr. Project) and I was worried that I would not be able to make it to the end of the month. In the end, there was enough fuel for the month but I filled my car up anyways, because I get really nervous being stuck with two cars on empty if there were an emergency.
We did a really nice job of looking ahead and having the things we need available to us. Hopefully, some habits were formed and we will think twice before wasting what precious little money we do have on things that are simply not needed or can wait until another month. It's very difficult to quantify what we saved, if anything, because our income and expenses fluctuate so much from month to month and there are many months that we easily spend more than we make - like most of the school year, when we are living off of last summer's income. Either way, we are proud of ourselves for turning down visits to restaurants, conserving gas and making the most out of what we had.
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1 comment:
Shannon and I have also found that while you can limit some spending, other spending isn't really cut down, just deferred when you do things like that. The ammount of money we have spent on socks, shoes, clothes, etc. in the last 9 months is staggering. It's because in the last two years we hadn't bought a single pair of new socks, shoes, clothes, etc.
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