Just saw this on 30 handmade days
http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/2014/12/1-year-saving-challenge-printables/#comments
Love that there is a kid version too!
Its amazing how fast it adds up!
Wanted to share in case anyone else wants to do it!
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I sort of did it this year. I just deposited $53 every two weeks into a special account (rather than building up or down), and now we're going to use it as spending money on our vacation next week! I didn't want to have all that money going into an account in December, when we were buying Christmas presents, and also didn't really want to go backwards, so the $53 every 2 weeks gave me the same total and was more spread out.
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I found one on Pinterest and decided to triple it and try it for 2015. My plan is to go on vacation with it in early 2016.
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We did this in 2014 and just bought a new Mac with our savings! Trying to figure out what to save for in 2015
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I started doing this last year but really slacked off. I'm going to try harder this year because it would be great to have that extra money for a vacation!
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I have an online checking account that's separate from my regular checking and have it set to deduct $25 every week. That's $1300 annually. We use it to pay for vacations and chrisas presents.
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We are currently doing an extreme budget. We have not bought one coffee or meal or gallon of has that's not in our budget since November. We are living nicely on $60/ wk in food. I won't even tell you how much we've saved but the number is ridiculous. It's amazing what an extreme budget can do!
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@Mrs. Jacks: I'd love to hear more. Is this the same budget you blogged about before?
I don't think we could sustain it for a full year, but it would be challenging and rewarding to try for a little bit!
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@Happygal: it is that budget plus more. The real revelation to me for this one is that our family can get by spending very little for food while eating well. The huge drawback is how far ahead I'm needing to plan ahead. Nothing is going wasted!
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@Mrs. Jacks: sounds like a good blog post!
Meat is a tough one for me--past going in on a butcher share, I haven't found a way to get responsibly raised meat without a high price tag.
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@Mrs. Jacks: can you wall me more
We really need to start saving better. Not sure what type of method we will use though...maybe I'll tweak this one a bit.
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@Mrs. Jacks: we are so over spent. I'd love to know more.
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@Happygal: so hard, but I now know when whole foods meats are on sale and I'm using different cuts. We're also serving about half a portion of meat than we used to. So if I'm using ground beef, I use half a lb per meal instead of a lb. then I fill with veggies/beans. We're using a lot more lentils and pintos. My dad still supplies us with a small amount of meat from his animals-- but no more bacon, so we're buying that at costco. It's a sacrifice on free range organic, but we use it mainly as a seasoning on otherwise meat free meals, so it's not like we're eating a ton.
It's caused us to get creative but we're actually eating amazing meals.
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I can blog post it, but I thought my methods were so extreme that nobody would want to hear them!
I'll wall those who asked too
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@Mrs. Jacks: I would love to know how that is possible, if you're shopping at conventional stores, of course. I am assuming that means breakfast/lunch/dinner?
I don't have a ton of time this week, but if you can list out your exact list and what you've spent, I am going to see if I can price match.
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This is a good website for meal planning on a budget!
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@Mrs. Jacks: I would also love a copy of your wall post. That is incredible savings! We are currently spending around 700-800 a month for our family of 4 (but only 3 eating - one still nursing) and I need to get that budget under control.
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@looch: $60/wk looks like the below. We rotate what we get every week. I'll try to find some more pics because I blog it to my sister every week
This was the week before Christmas so we focused on cookie making supplies. We got brown sugar, eggs, chocolate chips (that hurt at $10!), jarlsberg cheese, soy sauce, tomatoes, soup on deep special, carrots, Brussels, tomatoes and raspberries
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@Mrs. Jacks: blog post, blog post!
I'm not a purist by any means, but we do eat mainly unprocessed foods. I looked into coupons, but they seem to be more for convenience foods or things we never purchase anyway.
Legumes are pretty limited for me right now due to GD, but I look forward to adding them back in once the baby is born as a way to cut back on meat in recipes.
@Espion: I love that site, but always forget about it! Thanks for the reminder. I'm going to head that way for some good ideas.
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@Mrs. Jacks: me too please! We so desperately need to budget. Thank you!
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Another week: Bananas, 100 corn tortillas, two types of cheese, graham crackers, whipping cream, eggs, bread, life cereal, raspberries-$60
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A $50 week in November: Raspberries, tortillas, brussel sprouts, tuna (45 grams of protein per can!) and organic chicken.
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@Mrs. Jacks: Love this and would love a blog post. We aren't as good as you guys but we similarly set a goal this past year to seriously cut down unnecessary spending and I'm somewhat stunned to see that at the end of 2014, we actually met our savings goal (which I had thought was ludicrous when we set it). It's amazing what you can do when you pare down and stick to it.
(2015 will be another story, since between my unpaid maternity leave and then daycare, my income will be going POOF).
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Another week: eggs, soup, milk, bread, veggies, fruit, and a few other things =$63
It's hard to detail exactly what I bought because I'm going off my texts with my sister.
A great purchase was a big bag of steel cut oats.
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@Mrs. Jacks: me too please
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@Mrs. Jacks: but what do you eat?! I just don't see how meals come out of that. This is why I suck at grocery budgeting.
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@Synchronicity: Me neither, that's where I fall down in budget meal planning. I can budget and I can meal plan, but somehow I can not do the two of them together.
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@Synchronicity: this is going to be hard to bring it altogether! Sample meals:
-chicken and green chile enchiladas (made two pans and froze one). One pan provided two dinners and two lunches for the whole family.
-soup and grilled cheese night (also provided lunch for the next day)
-quesadillas with brown rice and homemade re fried beans.
-frittata
-creamy brussel sprouts with bacon (so rich, we've been using it as a whole meal). Gets us one dinner and two lunches for all of us.
-spaghetti and red sauce (either meat free or with only half a lb of ground beef).
-tuna and rice
-split pea soup
-white bean chili(I admit we already had 15 lbs of pintos, a case of chicken broth, a sack of rice, several cans of garbanzos, lentils and a jar of artichoke hearts in the pantry and some meat from my dad's pigs and steer--- most of them weird cuts that you never know how to use like ham hocks).
We pulled everything out of the pantry, even the tricky stuff and planned meals around them. We made vegan lentil, cauliflower and green chile tamales. $4 for masa, $2 for green chiles and lentils we already had :). Made enough tamales for Christmas and to freeze.
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@Mrs. Jacks: Thanks for posting the menus, gives me some ideas about what I can do.
I need to think outside of my usual box of foods I know how to prepare.
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I'm going to try this challenge (or just putting $20 in a piggy bank every week-- less money, but I think I'll be better motivated if it was something tangible). I'd like to go on vacation with the family in 2016, so this would be perfect for saving.
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@looch: we sit every weekend and puzzle out "what the hell do we do with onions, potatoes and cheese? Can we find a great recipe with those thing?" Thank god for heavy whipping cream, cilantro and bacon crumbles!
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@looch: Allrecipes.com has a search engine where you can enter ingredients you want to use and don't want to use. Then it spits out recipe ideas--not perfect, but it's a start!
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@Mrs. Jacks: My husband does the grocery shopping, so if it's not on the list, it doesn't make it into the cart, so we waste very little food compared to when I grocery shop and I want every fruit and veggie that is displayed.
I find it very difficult to eat out of my pantry. I have a lot of random things that I thought looked great, but then I never actually use them. So, having my husband shop solves that.
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@Mamaof2: thanks for this. I'm going to check it out!
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@mrs.jacks Definitely interested to learn more!
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@Mrs. Jacks: I would LOVE to read more about how you do this!
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@Mrs. Jacks: this is very helpful - thank you!
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@Mrs. Jacks: you're my hero. If I could eat on $60/week we would save so much and have more for debt/savings. I always try and it never seems possible.
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@Mrs. Pen: but I'm sacrificing on Organics. Kind of sad but has to be done. I'll try to work on a blog post. It's going to take a lot of time to put together and I'm working on several others right now.
If I do this, I think I want to walk you through the pantry and then show you where I went from there.
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@Mrs. Jacks: Yay! A series
Meat is a tough one for me--past going in on a butcher share, I haven't found a way to get responsibly raised meat without a high price tag.
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