$0 Budget:: January Challenge

Last year you may remember I did a challenge in January that we would eat at home everyday except on the weekeneds-- this went ok... it was a bit of a struggle because at the time my grandpa was in the hospital so we spent a lot of our evenings there and then would just want to go grab something quick.  I like the idea of starting the year off with yet another challenge! I've grown a lot as a wife, mother & homemaker though and don't struggle as much with the cooking thing so, I've been thinking for awhile about what this challenge would be & then one day I stumbled upon...

 THIS

it was perfect for us.

it was meant for us.

it had to be done.

The $0 budget.

pretty much the rules I have personally made for myself are a lot different than those found on her blog but, they fit our family.

for Christmas we got about 14-17 gift cards to eat out on.

this was key to our success-- I knew this would be our biggest struggle

so to save us from breaking our rules I decided to ask for lots and lots and lots of giftcards for christmas.

we also got a couple walmart, hobby lobby & movie gift cards.

this was also to help ease the pain of not being able to spend our own money on random stuff we want.

Maddux even got a couple gift cards: Childrens Place, Walmart & $25 cash.

this is what I will use if I see something he has to own. :)

My Rules

• $10 a week of "blow" money
• No eatting out unless using "blow"money or gift cards
• No going into stores that we don't have gift cards too
• No buying stuff for myself, Jayce or Maddux unless using the available money
• Get completely caught up on ALL bills
• SAVE SAVE SAVE

The Splurges

I will be shopping for the following items...

• Birthday Party Items for Maddux
• @ least 4 birthday presents for Maddux:: one item a week
• $50 on christmas presents-- I'm doing great on xmas shopping for 2012 I already have 5 presents for family & Maddux has about 10.

most importantly I plan on SAVING EVERYTHING ELSE!!

I might not have much going into our savings account since we did get behind on our "budget" in December with the purchasing of Christmas presents but something is better than nothing.

We plan on doing this every 4 months.

January - April - July - October

I plan on bloggin hopefully no promises weekly about how I'm doing, what I'm doing and any ways or things I've done to help survive our $0 budget challenge.