We made it to the end of the month. Well, pretty much. We cut our spending fast a little short on the 31st as it was a Sunday and we had to use the day to prepare for the upcoming week. That, and we were done with the church fast and we really wanted to eat some ‘real’ food. We also had a romantic, Dylan free date and figured we couldn’t pay our nanny/babysitter with baseball cards or gently used clothing. The expenses incurred on the 31st will be posted as February expenses.
Here are the final results:
Income – $201.43 ($108.43 real dollars/ $93.00 tax benefit)
Expenses – $239.01
Net Loss – $37.58
We went to Mellow Mushroom on the 30th evening to break the fast and went a little crazy with our eating and spent a total of $37.00. (Hey, it had been 21 days and we were craving wings and pizza the whole time.) If we could have had some more self control that night, we would have came within $0.58 of our goal.
Nevertheless, we were able to plow an additional $956.33 (847.90 plus 108.43) into our car savings fund (personal savings, Phase 2, Step 3) at the end of the month.
Some final thoughts on the spending fast:
- We will do this again. If anyone is interested, we will post some official rules in preparation for next January, and hope that other individuals and families would join in. More to come on that.
- It is possible to hold back spending for a month without going insane. We even had fun with it.
- $1000 in savings in a month is very possible for those who are serious about doing so.
Moving Forward
February could be ugly if we are not careful. There are a lot of expenses we held back in January, so we will need to be careful not to go overboard in February. The good news is that it’s the shortest month of the year. Those of you who stick to a monthly budget know what I am talking about when I say the 30th and 31st days of the month are usually tight. The January fast will not prove to be very effective if we go over budget by $800.00 this month.
Here was our fridge and pantry pre and post fast. I am so happy that it is currently restocked with breads and meats.
