#30DayChallenge results

I have never, ever, in my entire life, ever been so glad to see February roll around.

Remember my #30DayChallenge to not do any impulse shopping during the month of January?  Well, I survived.  Barely, but I did survive.  I even kicked it up a notch.  Originally, it was only going to be no impulse spending.  But I did so well, or I was so badly tempted, depending on how you look at it, that I didn't do any shopping at all.  Well, that's not true.  I just decided that I had to 'report' all pennies spent, not just the impulse ones.

You'd think I'd be over here rolling in dough like,

Borrowed from theodysseyonline.com

 I did really well.  Even counting my purchase of Woodsmoke, a collection of cable patterns from Knit Picks, I only spent $46.07 the entire month of January.  That even includes groceries!  Granted, my husband picked up bread & milk a few times, we've eaten bean soup three times in the last two weeks, and the only thing left in our pantry now is a rusted can of water chestnuts and a half a jar of cake decorating sprinkles.

Borrowed from boingboing.com

I should be sitting on piles of money after only spending $46.07 all month.  But nope,

Borrowed from comfytownchronicles.com

there's the matter of my daughter and her schooling.  The $46.07 doesn't count things like the electric bill or my daughter's educational expenses.  She's almost finished her EMT program and over the last few weeks, she's had to buy (i.e. I had to pay for,) not only a gazillion dollars worth of text books but also her own stethoscope, blood pressure cuff and the EMT uniform (2 of them) required for her class & ambulance ride-along adventure.

Good grief! It looks like I picked a good month not to spend any money.

I really can't complain though.  By mid August, she'll be debt free and done with school.  All those meals of bean soup won't seem so bad then.

Almost

January is almost over.  I have eleven days left of my self imposed no impulse spending challenge.  Good thing, too!  Besides the fact that my Amazon Wish List has gone from four or five items to close to two hundred items, the cupboards are almost empty.  On January 1st, our refrigerator was so full we had to be careful that the door stayed closed.  Today,

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.  That empty refrigerator was given to us the other day (note 'given,' we did not pay for it. Yay!) But our regular fridge isn't looking much better.  Dirtier,maybe, but not fuller.

So far, I've spent a grand total of $23.14 this month (not counting monthly bills.)  That even includes what I've spent on groceries!  Okay, in full disclosure, the spouse has picked up bread & milk a few times but for the most part, we've eaten out of the cupboards.

So what have I been doing instead of spending money?

Honeycomb Cabled Sweater

I've been knitting cables.  Slowly, slowly knitting cables & watching the inauguration.

It's torture

What was I thinking?  Apparently, I wasn't.

I can not believe I went public with my No Spending for 30 Days idea.  I mean, seriously.  What was I thinking?

It's only January 6th.  It's been six days of pure torture.  Torture, I tell you.  Pure, absolute torture.

Target has Sharpies and giant packs of Post-It-Notes on sale.  And all that Valentine stuff in the Dollar section.  I'm not really into hearts, but I do love anything red and white.

Luckily, my daughter was with me and she dragged me out of the store.  I looked like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum over a candy bar at the grocery store.

But I didn't buy and Sharpies or Post-Its.  Or that adorable bright red cake stand that would look so cute on my desk holding my pencil cup & Post-It collection.

Torture. Absolute torture!

I started reading a new book on my Kindle and was really enjoying it and all of a sudden - the book just ended.  What??  Dammit!  It was a Sample book not a whole book.  Double dammit!  I was really into the story, but I didn't go buy the whole book.  I'll save it for February 1st.  That's the plan, at least.

I'm out of chocolate.

Seriously.  I'm out of chocolate and I think buying an economy size bag of Hershey Kisses would probably count as needless, spur of the moment, junk food shopping.  Dammit!

It's going to be a long month!

A very long month, made even longer by tomorrow's pending snow storm and did I mention - there's NO chocolate in the house.

Minnie says, "But Mom, at least you have yarn."