How I'm Getting Started

OK, my family (husband, son, myself & dog) have set a goal of saving an additional $1,000 every quarter of the year (which equates to $333.33 per month).  We started Oct. 1st of this year.  We sat down as a family and decided on a few things like the amount we thought we could do, what each of us could "give up" to reach our goal and how we were going to track our progress.

Personally I have agreed to give up the following:

Driving to work every day of the week (round trip it is about 50 miles)

Eating out for lunch (I have allowed one day a week as a treat)

My gym membership - I usually walk/run anyway and that's something I can do from home or doing my lunch hour at work

Spending un-planned for money on my hobbies of rubber stamping, beading and music.  Instead I will use what I have already or spend from my monthly allotment.

Cooking more meals at home for dinner, etc. instead of relying on take out or prepackaged dinners.

Here's how I'm doing so far:

I actually started not driving to work but taking the train/bus instead last month or car-pooling with my husband.  Either way means I add an additional 45 minutes to my day away from home but the savings are about $40 a week.  On the days I ride with my husband, we also run all our errands for the week which has saved me driving at night too.  An added bonus is the extra time spent with him, just visiting.  It's nice to spend that time together and I really have enjoyed it.

When I don't drive to work, it makes it impossible for me to go pick up something for work so I HAVE to plan ahead and bring my lunch.  That has saved me about $20 a week.  There are a few restaurants near my work and when I "treat" myself, I walk to them to pick up the food which gives me some additional exercise.

The gym membership wasn't hard to give up for me.  I actually prefer to walk outside and have added in walking to my daily breaks at work.  This adds an additional 30 minutes a day that I wasn't getting before plus one of my co-workers comes with me, so I'm making a new friend too.

I went through all of my craft/hobbie supplies and organized them.  I have more than I really need so I'm trying to get creative and use them up by making my Christmas cards this year and making jewelry for all of my female relatives for Christmas.  It's been fun to think of them and come up with what I hope they will enjoy.  I also realized that I had enough beading supplies to add some nice embellishments to some clothing I already had too.

The cooking more at home has been hard for me since I'm dead tired when I get home from work.  I'm a morning person so cooking at night is not something I enjoy.  This past weekend I spent some time on Saturday preparing casseroles, etc. that I could easily throw in the oven during the week.  I hope this works better for me.  We ate a lot of sandwiches for dinner last week and I really don't like serving that to my family.  This part will be my biggest challenge I think.

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