Jun. 15, 2009 - Forget the Joneses

I get a weekly email from a website called mommysavers.com.  I have to admit, I usually just ignore them and they sit unread in my email inbox.  Luckily, I opened the most recent one and was immediately drawn to the subject line "Forget the Joneses."  I'm new to this, so let me explain the program the best I can. 

Every other day or so we are going to get an assignment that will help me align my financial goals with other goals in my life, such as health, relationships, etc.

In this summer edition of FTJ, the first week starts with a spending freeze.  That caught my attention.  Since dh is always telling me to watch my spending, this sounded like quite the challenge for both of us.  He's mostly on board, but is really wanting to buy a new weed trimmer for the lawn.   We'll see how that goes. 

The first assignment is to make an approved spending list for the spending freeze.  After looking at what others have listed, I came up with our approved list for the week. 

Food:  Fresh fruits and vegies, milk, bread, lunch meat, eggs.  Any pantry/freezer items that are 75%off or more as listed on thegrocerygame.com and couponmom.com.

Gifts:  Grad gifts and birthday gifts for a parties we're invited to this weekend.

Gas:

Spending money for J's camp: $20-30

Monthly trainer fees:  $179 (that's actually not the monthly amount, but that's what's due this week)

Since I have been doing the grocerygame.com for around a year, I have a nicely stocked pantry and freezers.   I just cleaned out and inventoried the freezers (even before I knew about FTJ), so I know we can "live" for a month or more on the food we have in the house, save fresh foods.

So how has it gone so far, 7 hours into the program?  First thing this morning, pumpkin #1 asked for a movie, so we loaded up the double stroller to head to Blockbuster.  I grabbed my $1.99 rental coupon, (feeling pretty proud of myself), but then I remembered, spending freeze.  Ah-ha, if I return those two movies in-store instead of return them by mail, I can exchange them for two free ones.  Better yet!  And 0 temptation to buy a movie.  Then I switched our phone carrier for a net savings of about $25 per month (at least for the first 12 months), which I have been wanting to do for a couple weeks.  I also found out the balance of our FSA and found that I had plenty of $ in there to pay two dental bills that came on Friday.  No procrastination there.

This morning, I read a timely article in the Star Tribune about how in the US, Americans waste up to 50% of the food they buy.  I believe it!  This has always been a bone of contention between dh and I, how much food we throw out because it has gone bad before I had a chance to do something with it.  So, I have started a running list of things to do, which includes "doing something" with the fresh produce in the fridge right now.  I need to make guacamole, rhubarb crunch, coleslaw and find something to do with blackberries that are beautiful and fresh, but also are too tart to snack on by themselves.

I'm full of hope and ambition.  If you'd like to join this bootcamp, Forget the Joneses, go to mommysavers.com and sign up!

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