Somedays I don't know what I'm thinking! My shift last night was 6:00pm to 3:00am. I usually never buy food at work, but last night I did not plan and my family was having leftovers for dinner. I ate a burrito at home at 5:00 and by 9:00 I was starving. No snacks, no dinner, nothing. I HATE when I do this because I know I'm going to be hungry...The only kitchen open at work (we actually have 6) was out of the special so I ended up having chicken strips and fries for $7.00! I didn't even really want it by the time it was ready. The only good thing about it was I ended up sharing it with someone else who was on the night shift who didn't bring anything from home and didn't bring money because he didn't want to spend it on food at work! One day I may learn...


Thank you, thank you, thank you to the person who gave my journal stars--this is certainly keeping me motivated to keep recording!

Well, I have to go get ready for work. I have a short 11:00-3:00 shift covering for someone else. It's 9:20, I need to shower, whip to the dollar store, and take the kids to my brother's. Good thing I'm centrally located.

And the grand total of the back to school shop was 235.00!!!!!

We went to Wal Mart and bought 6 shirts, 7pairs of pants, 3 pks. socks, boxers, black skirt (for me!), one pair of light up runners, hot dogs and buns, chocolates, and 70 tootsie pops for my Dad's birthday to make him a card that says 70 Sucks! on it. I don't think that we did too bad, but I did put it all on my cc and won't have to pay that bill until October!

I have to work the late shift tonight 6:00pm-3:00am. It's going to be a long night because I'm extremely tired, and it's rarely busy after 11:00pm on Tuesday. Well, I do have some other work that I can do--it's sometimes hard for me to concentrate if I'm too tired. I think I'll go try and have a little nap right now and maybe that will help a bit!

Just finished watching the Sponge Bob Movie with my 3 kids...they laugh out loud so much at him. It's funny just to sit and watch their reactions to things!

Spent 16.00 at Superstore yesterday. Bought 3 loaves of bread, 3 dozen eggs, chips for dh, tons of bananas (only 29cents a lb.), a big box of soda crackers, and 5 mini bottles of dasani water that were in the sale box and the plastic bottles will be perfect to refill and send in lunch boxes to school because they are the perfect fit. I was going to buy some new rubbermaid drinking containers, but these should work fine and were only 29 cents each! I only send water to school for my kids because I don't think that they drink enough of it and I have a problem with garbage created by drinking boxes and packaging in general. Our school has a vending machine for drinks that does have juice and lemonade (no soda), but my kids are only allowed to buy a drink if they use their own money. The older two (11 and 9) share a paper route and are given 30.00 each a month of that money to spend as they wish, but at 1.00 per drink they don't usually choose to go there! Ds11 loves to buy books, and dd9 likes jewellery, stuffed animals, nail polish etc. They use their own money for junk food, but since they're not permitted to go to the store on their own (it's just a tad too far away for my comfort zone, although most of their friends are allowed to go alone) it's maybe once a week that dh or I will take them there.
Youngest ds5 has his own spending money. We give him tickets for jobs and each ticket is worth 25cents that he may cash in for money as he likes. It usually adds up to about 2 dollars a week, but he'll sometimes earn nothing and other weeks go all out and make 5 dollars.

Today is going to be a huge spending day because we are going to do our back to school clothes shopping and need 6 pairs pants, 4 shirts, one pair of runners and everyone in the house needs new socks and/or underwear.
I'll check back in later with the grand total...

I don't know what happened to my last journal entry...

I'll redo it, still not great on the computer!

My husband and I challenged ourselves to spend under 350.00 on groceries this month. We have about 10 dollars left and will be slightly over by the time I pick up a few things before Thursday. I was pleased that dh got involved in it with me, usually he doesn't care what I spend money on as long as he has some for his own use!

For September we are going to try to stay under 450.00...we're starting off with pretty empty food cupboards and need some lunch items for school!

I didn't spend anything today as I brought lunch to work with me.

Always looking for a way to save something, I have two wooden drying racks that I can fit one load of laundry on. I've been trying to do one load every morning, hang it, and then throw it in the dryer to soften up the next morning for about five minutes before I fold. New load goes in the washing machine and repeat...I've done pretty well at this all summer and today it was a touch colder so my laundry is hanging in the garage. I'll have to see how long it takes to dry.

Other than that, we spent 4.00 on older two kids swimming (I took the youngest and his friend to the free water park). They spent their own money on Slurpees.

Made chicken soup from some leftover pieces of chicken I froze last month. Kids loved it and everyone had two bowls--almost threw the pieces out because they were just backs. Glad I didn't.

I quite enjoy reading everyone's journals and I'm hoping that by keeping my own money journal, I'll be encouraged to keep our goals in mind on a regular basis.
Dh recently quit his job and is working temporarily at another position until he decides what he really wants to do. This was all done with my total support as he supported me when we had our 3 kids and I wanted to be a SAHM. I have always worked part time, close to home, and around everyone's schedule, but have recently been offered a full time position for a job that I love, although the pay is not super. So in the last 2 months, our position has somewhat changed. Financially we are fine, albeit a little tight, something that we have not been in quite some time.
When we were first together and in university, we were super poor. After we had our first son, we once again had nothing extra to spare. Even in these lean times we managed not to have any debt other than our mortgage. We now owe about $90K on a $370k mortgage and have about $85K in retirement funds.
We still save $150.00 a week for retirement, are putting aside 200-300 a month, building our reserve funds (we currently have 2500, but would like to see that go to 5000, and then start on a freedom account), and have a separate account that we put 600 monthly into for yearly expenses ie. car insurance, property tax, Christmas, vacation, and house insurance.
We have never spent more than we made, but I know that we can always save more than we do...I tend to fritter money away on eating out, convenient groceries, and I don't know what else.
My new plan for the month of September is to take $700.00 at the beginning of the month and use it for groceries and all spending money--if we can do this for our family of 5, I will be amazed, surprised, thrilled etc!