Confessions Of A Fat Chick: Part II

(ok, I didn't turn out any skinnier but, it was still a good month)

I thought this month would be easy, if not easy at least uncomplicated. It hasn't been. There are some things that we've done really well at and I'm glad we made the goal of doing. We've been eating more beans - much to Jason's dismay. We've been spending more family time together - which has been great and really rewarding. Monday nights have been fun and funny come up with lessons/activities that keep the kids attention for 5 or 10 minutes. I've been turning the TV off more and have finished reading at least 4 books this month.

There's just one thing - money. I admit it, I have a really hard time being master of my budget. I need help, maybe some intensive brain washing would help. Well, it's been good to see where my weaknesses really are. Now I can face them and put more effort into conquering them.

To sum it up: Not a success but not a failure. A great exercise and one that I've learned a lot from. I hope Chile runs it again next year!

A friend of mine asked me: "Since February is a month of doing with out or giving up, will March be a month of adding in the good?" I think she's on to something! Anyone interested in a 'More March' challenge? Or maybe a 'Beefing It Up' or we could tread lightly on the animals and say 'Stepping It Up'? I think that's what we'll try around here. (no more spending though!!!) I'll be posting in a few days what we'll be Stepping Up on or having More of.

Confessions Of A Fat Chick: Part I

Well, this post is way over due! When I signed up for the Trimming the Fat Challenge it was understood that I would periodically post regarding my progress. So, here I am posting about my progress. I call this 'Confessions Of A Fat Chick'.

Confessions - bad:
Although I've pretty much kept to the grocery budget I have to admit that I bought a few extra things. Although at the time I rationalized the purchase of these items I see now that I was in error and simply weak, Weak, WEAK!

• Popsicles - Abygail was sick and running a fever, but really we just like popsicles!
• Cereal - Jason doesn't like the cereal that we get so I bought some special for him which is the more expensive kind. This was on my Valentine shopping day where I was buying the flour needed to make the valentine pizza we had. So I guess you could say it was a valentine present, but it wasn't.
  
• Even if the cereal was a valentine present (which it wasn't) than I went over budget for the holiday and let's face it, I went over budget by $5 anyway!

Confessions - good

• Electronic Stimulation - I've been much better about only getting on the computer twice a day, morning and night. This has freed me up for other diversions such as playing, reading and shoveling the snow. I've shoveled snow 3 days this week and it was great, I'm not saying I want to do it all the time (you can still have that job Jason!) but it was nice to get outside, do some manual labor and not use the same time to stare at an electronic screen. Additionally our TV 'consumption' has gone down this week. We still have a lot to do in this area (again, mostly me) but we are working on it so that's good.
• Date - our date cost more than we had budgeted but...again we haven't been on a date in QUIT SOME TIME so this one I'm ok with. I'm calling this a good thing over all considering that we 1)went on a date and 2) we were out of the house there by not partaking in the nightly electronic stimulation of news, blogs, and comedic relief that invades our evenings.
• Travel - Jason has been faithful at taking the bus and overall we are down on our travel of late. This week I didn't go to play group because I forgot and I didn't go to the library because I didn't need to, I just rechecked my books online.
  

So to sum it up: There is still more fat to trim but I feel a little less fat :o)

Trimming The Fat

Chile is holding another challenge. This month it is the 'Trim the Fat' challenge, which will last the whole month of February. For more info. go over to the Trim the Fat post and check it out for yourself. Here are our ground rules.

1> stick to the grocery budget - no extra purchases, only what we need.
2> we've been eating beans once a week since the beginning of the year, this month we'll up it to twice a week. in the beginning the beans where horrible, too hard, too mushy, too salty, too bland. but the last time they were almost perfect. black eyed peas with carrots and onions and chicken bullion served over rice. it was more like black eyed pea and rice soup but it was yummy, a bit on the salty side but still yummy.
3> no extra purchases other than valentine's day with a $10 limit. luckily I've already gotten the kids valentine presents while they were on sale after Christmas, 2 puppet sets (4 puppets in each set) and a stool with pretend food that stores inside it all for just 7.5o total. we will be ordering our seeds and plants this month for our garden so that will be an extra expense but this is something we've been planning for so it will be allowed. I might try my hand at this which sounds like a great way to make personalized valentines and trim the trash too.
4> this is more for me than anything - limit computer time and tv time. I've got a huge reading list I'd like to get through so I've got plenty to do. our library also offers what they call 'discovery kits' for kids ages 2-5. we've currently got the alphabet one and the family one. we'll continue to work our way through those for February. we'll not just eat together as a family each evening we'll also do an activity together to keep the tv and computer off. we have been a little better at this on Mondays but we'll strive to work it in every day of the week. also I'll be doing less checking on the blogs of others so that will limit my computer time too.
5> transportation, this will continue to be business as usual but here are the ground rules for February: jason will continue to use the bus for the rest of the month. the car will only get used on Fridays to go to the library for story time, Tuesdays for play group (if the kids are feeling well) Saturdays for grocery shopping and Sundays for church.

that's about it for the ground rules. sorry about the formating of this post but hey, I'm limiting my computer time.