Can you believe it’s August already?! This year has flown by for me, as I’m sure it has a lot of you too. For those of you who just started following me (Or if this is your first visit, Welcome!) let me give you a quick recap of my year so far.
The year started out with our entire family being sick for almost 3 months straight. It was tough, but I’ve been told it’s good that my boys were sick young because it just means they are building their immunity for when they are older. When we all finally started feeling better in April we decided to put our home on the market and within a month we had an offer and had closed. Not wanting to rush into buying a house at the peak of the market we decided to move into a town home right down the street from my husband’s work. It has been great having him so close and living “in the city” again but we are all getting the itch to have our own place again.
We both, my husband and I (and I’m sure the boys too) really love country living. When I say country living I don’t necessarily mean living on a farm, though I would LOVE that but I know I could never talk him into it. I mean living somewhere where we have a little bit of property. Somewhere where if we wanted we could (and that’s a big could) have chickens or horses or goats. Somewhere our boys have room to run and we don’t have to worry that there might be some crazies or psychos living right next door. Somewhere quiet where you can see the stars at night.
This is what I’m talking about!
Photo Credit: Tom Garrison (my super-talented dad)
We’ve found several homes we like and have narrowed down where we want to live, but it is quite a bit further away from things then we have grown accustom to. And the homes are a bit pricier. So now, more than ever, I feel it is my job as wife and mother to keep our budget as close to budget as possible. If I can keep our expenses under budget that gives us more money for new things for our new house, money for the new house and more money for Christmas… which is only 20 weeks away by the way! Just because I don’t have a job that brings a paycheck in doesn’t mean I can’t help contribute to our families finances, right?!
So starting in August I am going to challenge myself to stay in budget with all our purchases. I got the idea from One Cheap Utah Chick and she has been doing this for awhile. I love seeing how well she breaks everything down and how real and honest she is. I will try to do the same. Every week I will post an update of how much money we spend on things and where that money went.
My goal for August is to spend no more than $300 on groceries, toiletries, diapers, cleaning supplies, etc.
In the coming months I will add more goals but I figure it’s best to start small. I would love if you joined in too; if you’d like. What goals do you have when it comes to finances? Do you have a strict budget you stick to or is it more try to spend as little as possible? Let’s help keep each other accountable while saving for the big, or little, things we want for ourselves and our families.
Canary Street Crafts says
I need some of these tips! I’m not a big spender, but I never had to budget or really think about what I was buying until I decided to leave my job earlier this year. Groceries are by far our biggest expense. We have 4 boys and they’re ALWAYS hungry!! And did you say Christmas is 20 weeks away? Eeek!! -Amy
Sydney Andersen says
I completely know how you feel! We used to spend, spend, spend before we had our oldest. It definitely has been a long road to get us down to $300/month. Boys do eat a ton don’t they?! Now that my guys are getting older it’s getting harder to stick to our $300 budget but I’m determined to do it this month! Can you believe that Christmas is only 4 months away?! Where did the year go?
Kendra says
Thanks for visiting my blog… happy to check yours out as well! I’m going to try and stick to $300 as well for this month… I find groceries is our biggest expense as well (and there’s always waste which I so badly want to diminish!) Better planning, hopefully! Thanks for sharing!
Kendra @ http://www.joyinourhome.com
Sydney Andersen says
Thank you for stopping by Kendra! Groceries are our biggest expense as well. I find I throw away a lot of veggies and fruit I forget about too so I’m planning snacks and meals then looking at the list to decide what to eat before digging into chips or granola bars. Hopefully that will help cut down on some of the waste. Let me know how you do sticking to your budget as well š
Lady Lilith says
This sounds amazing. Keeping to a lower budget sounds like a fun challenge. I tried couponing. Although I did not take it to the extremes, I did see my grocery bill go down a little.
Sydney Andersen says
Thank you so much Lady š I use coupons on occasion but by no means am I an expert. I usually just use them on stacks I find on the couponing websites.