“Words are meaningless without intent and follow through.”
As evident by the fact that my week # 2 post is coming halfway through week # 3, I am having a little bit of follow through trouble these days. It is an issue that I am finding permeates more areas of my life than I would care to admit. And I think that it is something that has affected week # 2 of the challenge.
It is not that anything about our challenge we made is difficult. And any way I could rationalize the lack of follow through at this point would just be an excuse. I think what matters is that we are trying to stick to the rules we created, and even if we fall short we keep trying. So, let’s review our spending for week 2.
WEEK # 2: SPENDING
$94 at the Grocery Store. Again, this week, we made two trips. We didn’t do as much meal prepping but still managed to have breakfasts and lunches for work.
$379 at the Eye Doctor. I haven’t been to the eye doctor in 3 years and needed to go get my prescription updated. This amount was after insurance for new glasses. We did put this on a credit card, but the balance will be paid on time.
$34 on Dinner Out. We took my dad out to dinner at our favorite burrito place. Sometimes when we can, we like to treat our parents!
$99 at the Vet. Our kitty needed to go in for her checkup and to get some shots, so we took her to the vet. She got a clean bill of health and we got some strategies to help (hopefully) with her anxiety.
$3 on Coffee. I realize that the deal was no coffee out, but a friend asked me to go to coffee and I met her. Definitely not allowed based on the rules, but it was good to catch up.
$18 at Dairy Queen. This was a total cheat from the no non-essential spending budget. My husband received an award at work and after the celebration we went out to celebrate. I don’t regret this one bit! We like to celebrate events and milestones and it was worth it. But I will admit, we broke the deals of the month.
TOTAL SPENT: $627
I think we spent a little more than we wanted to this week. And there were two outings that the rules don’t allow. But for my part, I feel like I am thinking more about what we are spending and why. I think we budgets get too rigid it becomes so easy to fail and give up completely that a little wiggle room is necessary.
This week we also took time to review our budget and found a few things we can cut. Netflix raised their rates starting in May and we currently have the DVD as well as streaming service. With the price increase, and the fact that our DVDs tend to sit unwatched on the TV stand for weeks on end before we get around to watching them, we are going to cancel the DVDs for now. Every little bit helps!
As I continue to move through week #3, I’d love to hear from you if you have any tips on follow through and maintaining motivation through a challenge or on your way to reaching a goal!
