31 Days of Nothing - Recap

Our 31 Days of Nothing is over. I feel like we succeeded in this challenge. Here is a quick recap of the month.

1. I was able to stay within my $100 grocery budget and still fed my family healthy meals. I made one last trip at the end of the week to use some high dollar coupons that were going to expire. The margarine was at a stock up price of $.50 lb so I picked up a few of those. I still use margarine in some of my baking. The 2 liter was a "thank you" to my sweet husband for going along the entire month with the challenge and doing an amazing job and the gum cost me $.28 each. After coupons I spent $15.35 bringing my monthly total to $95.89.2. We succeeded in not spending any money on entertainment. We made a few trips to the library and picked up some free movies as opposed to renting. I made treats at home instead of going out for ice cream.

3. It is possible to stay out of the stores. We managed to not purchase any clothing, books, videos, games, etc. Even though I have 2 children who need shoes we have been able to postpone that and squeeze a couple more weeks out of the shoes they have. This will be one of our first purchases we make now that the challenge is over.

4. What little food waste we have had, has been taken to the compost bin. We have a good system where we collect scraps in a container inside each day and then after dinner each night one of the boys is assigned to dump it in the 5 gallon bucket outside. Then once a week the bucket outside the door is taken to the pile by the woods.

5. We made and ate dinner at home each night. The only exceptions were 1 night we used a coupon for a free pizza from Casey's and another night we ate at a fundraising spaghetti dinner that was held by my nephews boy scout troop.

6. The kids have done really well watching their water usage and remembering to turn lights and electronics off when they leave the room. I am most impressed with my oldest son who has cut his shower times in half.

I must admit this last week has been tough. There was many times I really wanted to run through and grab an ice cream cone or pick up a candy bar when checking out at the store. I stuck to it though and passed up the opportunities. Unfortunately we had some major expenses come up this month and we didn't really save any money. However, we are able to pay for these unexpected expenses because we didn't spend any unnecessary money this month.

I really enjoy challenging myself and my family. It was fun having others join in and reading their progress each week. I will definitely be doing it again. Thanks for following along.

How about you? Where you successful this month? Did you learn anything new? Feel free to leave a comment or link up your blog post below.