Can I join in two, nearly three weeks late? I've been reading along since the beginning of the month and am feeling inspired by you all to join in for Uber Frugal February, but figured, why wait?
Hi, I'm joining late too! Why wait, indeed?!?Some of you will have seen me around here before, but I must admit that I tend to drop in and out of the forums, active for a while then just too busy to keep up an online life and I drift away for sometimes a long while. But I never fail to appreciate the amazing community here, and it's good to see some old online friends in this thread!
Anyway, I have signed up for the Frugalwoods emails, so will be working my way through whatever they have to offer for the next 31 days, best as I'm able. I'm not going to be able to tackle all of the introductory questions tonight, but thought I'd share a couple of reflections...
1. Why are you participating in this Challenge?In the usual spirit of New Year's, I've been taking stock. And I'm realizing that financially, I'm in much the same position I was in this time last year. Good news/Bad news. Good news is that last year at this time, I didn't have a handle on my recurring expenses, but now I'm at least stablized. Bad news is that my debt is still about the same! I need to move the needle even further, if I want to get the debt paid off and have the opportunity to save for my future. Future me is clamouring for some money love, and current me still isn't sure I'm getting the best value for how I spend my money.
2. What do you hope to achieve?Short term goal is to squeeze a little more money aside this month for debt repayment.
But the bigger goal is taking some time to consider value for money, in how I spend. Am I getting what I want out of my dollars? Is my money helping me to accomplish my real life goals? Reading through this thread, I really appreciate seeing people not just pinch pennies, but spend them judiciously when it means preserving existing relationships, or developing new ones.
So, after reading through most of this thread last night (and the rest with my morning coffee - made at home!), this is what I did:
1. Packed my lunch and dinner (worked from home this morning, then went into the office for the afternoon and evening), supplemented lunch with food I have stashed in my desk at work. Lunch was snack-y stuff (cheese, crackers, applesauce, etc). Dinner was a container of noodles and beans from the freezer.
2. Ended up meeting with someone, so I didn't get the chance to eat dinner at work. I brought the still partially frozen food back home with me. Realizing that it and most of my freezer meals are short on actual vegetables (and I'm a vegetarian!) I stopped at the grocery store and bought: milk (a more expensive brand than usual, but with a much longer expiry date), cream (for afore-mentioned coffee at home), bananas, oranges, carton of kiwi, small carton of grape tomatoes, a zucchini, a bag of 5 avocados, and a bag of shredded broccoli/carrot/cabbage stuff that's great for quickly adding veggies to a variety of dishes when I come home late at night. Oh, and two jars of Kraft PB on sale for my hold-out price. Less than $30 and no prepared foods, since there's plenty in the cupboards to use up! Not sure how that's possible, considering that I've participated in several "Eat all the food in your house" type threads before. I guess I've never actually gotten all the way through my stocks before I go back to shopping again.
Hopefully, some good progress will be made this time around!
