$100 A Week Challenge: Week 1

Sunday ended the first week of our $100 a week challenge. So how did we do? We overspent by $13.46, but we can always make it up in the next three weeks. How much did the challenge change our lives? Actually, quite a lot and not at all. Remember, I wanted to be able to live well and still do the things we enjoy doing (that cost money), so the real challenge was saving money in places where we wouldn't feel it. We still went to our favorite coffee shop every afternoon to work, we had pizza out one night, and we spent $30 on home repair supplies so we could start working on our hallway.

So how did we do it?

1) We borrowed movies from the library rather than rent from the video store
2) I made many yummy meals using ingredients I had in the pantry and freezer
3) I bought all of the personal and household products that we needed from Family Dollar
4) When we did eat out (pizza), we only spent $5
5) I used a $15 coupon to buy cigarettes
6) I returned our cans and bottles and used the money at the grocery store

Normally, we spend about $700 a month, or an average of $175 a week. We could easily have spent that $61.54 by eating out one more time, renting a video every night, not sticking to the grocery list when I shopped, or going to a theater to see a movie.