No, Spend Month UPDATE!

July we decided to do a No Spend Month and today marks our halfway point so I wanted to do a little update. If you missed the first blog you can read it here.

• Food $0
• Personal Items: $0
• Pet’s: $27.75
• Bedroom Remodel: $46.04
• Bike Tire Tube $9.40 (Paid with Amazon Gift Card)

Two of the items we spent money on so far were on our approved spend list. One of our dogs got sick so we had to get her a pill to take care of the issue. We bought double to treat our other puppy as a preventive. Along with that, we got both dogs a tick collar. The ticks have been so bad and it could have been the reason our dog got sick in the first place.

Now the room remodels stuff… Well, we have had our 3rd room scheduled to start since May so we didn’t count this into our no spend month because we have already budget it for it. BUT we ended up needing to buy a few items that our handyman wasn’t going to provide. And we had to buy them before he could start the drywall.

Bike Tire Tube Ryan’s rode the office E-Bike home from work one day and one of the tires was flat by morning so we had to replace the tire tube! Bummer! We jumped on Amazon and found a replacement. Thankfully we had an Amazon gift card loaded to our account so technically we didn’t spend any of our money. But either way, it counts towards are extra spending this month that we didn’t plan on…

Food

We have been doing fabulous with our food consumption. I think we did a pretty good job meal planning before we started this challenge. Yesterday we did run out of creamer! Yikes! To be honest I did have that urge to run to the store and pick up my favorite creamer. Coffee in the morning is a highlight for me. I’m also not the only one that uses creamer. We actually all do! Ryan loves iced coffee I like it hot in the morning and have an iced coffee in the afternoon. My son Jack has a cup of chai tea and on occasion, my daughter Gillian enjoys a cup of iced coffee. Maybe I should cut the creamer and I have in the past but it’s my one thing. I don’t eat a lot of junk, and I try and get a clean creamer without all the junk added to it.

So yesterday when my son said, “I just used the rest of the creamer!” Typically I would just run to the store which is only like 5 minutes from our house and grab a couple more bottles of creamer. But not this time. I pulled up Pinterest and searched for a non-dairy homemade creamer! I had to look for a nondairy one because I don’t have any milk and I have several cans of coconut milk. It turned out okay but I still need to try another recipe to find the right one.

Tomorrow we leave for camping a typically I would stock up at the store a day or two before we go but not this time! This is our yearly big family camping trip we go with my in-laws, Sister in law and her family. It’s a blast! We each are in charge of providing a meal or two for everyone. This year we have Saturday night dinner plus snacks and drinks… We had already prepped a delicious curry dinner at the beginning of the month. I grilled chicken tonight and cut it into pieces, I used my instapot 4 cups of rice and put them all in freezer bags. I just need to put it all in a pot and warm-up for Saturday night.

I have also made homemade potato salad, homemade bread, homemade chocolate chip granola bars…….

I’m so excited about how this month is going so far! And to be honest this no spending this is totally addicting. I really just don’t want to spend any money!! I love challenges! Do you??