- Not getting fast food very often unless there is money for it in the family spending money.
- Not getting Starbucks very often unless it's in the family spending money.
- Having at home Movie night (renting a movie from Amazon for $5 or from on DVD from Redbox $1.99). We do this with candy and popcorn (we have an air popper which makes some great popcorn too) and sodas at home.
- Instead of going to ice cream places.... taking the kids to pick out half gallons of ice cream which allows us to have ice cream many more times than just the one time at the ice cream place. Getting sundae fixins' to make sundaes at home too.
- For going to movies out... $5 movies... and not getting any drinks or snacks while there. A small popcorn cost more than the movie admission... no thank you movie theater.
- I got a library card for myself and have been using the overdrive app to borrow E-books on my kindle from the library. Reading a lot keeps me busy and keeps me from shopping too.
- Not buying bulk sizes just because we have a SAMs membership, instead buying what we need for that two week period.
- Finding things we can do that don't cost money... like walking around IKEA... I could walk around there a lot and am not tempted to buy anything... and there is always a few dollars in our pocket in case one of the kids or Bry wants a vanilla cone haha.
- Bowling... an affordable option for family fun. We haven't done this yet but it's in our plans.
- Think ahead... it's too late this year but for next year we want to make sure that in January we begin to put money aside for birthdays and holidays for the up coming year. And we want to set up a sinking fund category as Dave calls it, for the camping vacations we want to take.. tent camping... nothing fancy but we feel this would be a great thing to do with the kids and the dogs while being cost effective and budget friendly.
- For grocery shopping... keeping up with detailed menu planning and using a pen and pad to keep track of what we are spending as we shop to keep in budget. If you see a gal using a notebook to add up prices... yeah that's me haha. Please say "hi".
- Keep up with unschooling the kids... every once in a while I'm tempted to buy some fancy item for homeschooling... Yesterday I wrote out a list of what Skylar is doing for her 9th grade year using educational speak for the things she does in daily life. Let me say that kid covers a lot of college level stuff and beyond. So that was good. So just to keep on top of that list to help me avoid needless spending on supplies.
- Remember to ask myself if things are needs or wants before making a purchase. Old Melissa would have purchased all the camping stuff we want on a credit card and worried about it later. There is such power in waiting and planning and saving.
- Staying in God's word daily. I do some verse mapping each morning on the daily verse that the You version bible app shares each day. Praying daily that God will keep me steadfast in our budget and avoid the temptation to spend. And then I'm doing the 17:18 bible journaling, right now doing the book of John... So marinating a lot on God's word.
- Focusing on being content with what we have in the moment not what we wish we had.
~Many blessings to you and yours~
