Woo-hoo! It's over! The funny thing is that although my spending freeze is over I have no plans to change many of my habits and ways of thinking that I've either developed or came back to over the past month. So what are some of the habits or ways of thinking that I will continue? Here's a list for you:

1. Thinking twice or five times before I decide to spend money. Over the past month I found myself really pondering if I wanted to spend my limited amount of money on "this" or if I'd rather save it for "that".
2. Meal planning. I use to do meal planning and have come back to it. However, I did tweak it a bit over the past month. Rather than assigning a meal to a day, I simply make up a menu of fourteen meals and then pick the meal I feel like cooking and eating that day.
3. Packing lunches. Rather than planning on swinging into Wendy's when we are knowingly going to be gone for a long period of time, we began packing PB&J sandwiches and an apple. We'd also fill up cups with lids on them so we had a drink from home. It's a simple and not too messy of a meal that we can eat in the car and it satisfies our hunger.
4. Less waste. I'm talking about less waste with electric, water, food, paper, etc. Pretty much anything that can be wasted I found myself thinking about ways to use less or to extend the use. For example: rather than running the dishwasher's rinse cycle after each meal (that would be three times a day), I am hand rinsing the dishes. I am probably still using the same amount of water, but I'm not using gas since I'm using cold water and no electric since the dishwasher doesn't have to run.

I am very grateful for this crazy thing someone thought up called a "spending freeze". It is so good to simplify in any way possible. Now I need to work on a "time freeze"...making time stand still (and the kids!) for about an hour each day so I can get just a bit more done. Or maybe it's that I need to rethink how I spend my time. Hmmm...