Day 21 of our "spending freeze"

So the whole point of the spending freeze was to get some space back in my pantry. And so far I have seen no difference in there except that I have way too much food. It is a bit like the oil and flour with Elisha and Elijah at our house since we are on WIC and get several cans of beans a month and several cans of fruits and veggies as well. But still I am amazed at all the snack food that is in there!

So where I have I had problems. Actually problems started day 2. When we were on our way home from Meade we stopped at Walmart and Target to get a body pillow. Their Christmas stuff was already 75% off. That was hard I even had things in my cart and then hanging my head put them all back kicking myself for making such a dumb proclomation as a spending freeze. Ah but then day four kicked in and I headed to Colby I just HAD to stop at dillons and see what manager specials I was missing out on. And then I cried. Not literally but I wanted to. See my FAVORITE place in Dillons is their yogurt aisle, and if you get really really really lucky you hit it right after they have markdowns, like a four pack for 1 dollar and then hopefully I have a coupon for 1 off and thenI get FREE yogurt. So when I turn the corner and see a NEW guy marking down the yogurt I just about pee my pants. See there's a new guy working the yogurt because I scared the last lady off. I made some comment about her being my favorite person in the whole dillons and she was my hero... and now every time she sees me in dillons she walks the other way quickly mumbling under her breath about a restraining order or something. Not really but very close. So I get my heart rate back to normal and I walk up to the guy all nonchalant and start up a conversation about yogurt. He tells me if I find anything with an experation date of TEN DAYS DOWN THE ROAD, he will mark it down for me. So I start searching my coupons, and NOT a one was for the brand he had marked down. Wow that was sad and disheartining and I really really want some yogurt.

What else have I missed? Well mom was supposed to send some jelly home with me over Christmas but we forgot so I came home with no jelly I found this "fruit stuff" in the back of my fridge some kind of gift I'd gotten a long time ago it said to put it on meat and that's just not my family so we had never opened it. I called mom to see if she thought it would be good, and she said if it's canned and the lid is seal it should be fine. So it was! So we used that although it was more like fruit in a jell than jelly it worked. Then there was salsa... we had about four bags of tortilla chips... and ran out of salsa. I almost cried salsa has become my new ranch, literally I eat it in my salads. So I had thought we had had one more jar so that was a sad day. UNTIL about a week down the road I moved a soup can and found my beloved jar of salsa so I did a salsa dance praising Jesus and now have one jar of salsa that will hopefully last two months... As for the jelly, I found a rebate check I had forgotten to cash, for 2.50 and jelly was on sale for 2.19 I figured that was a sign and went and bought the kids some jelly with no chunks of fruit in it!

Also I have decided we can spend cash, if we have any I never get cash but sometimes find cash (I get it for something then forget what it is supposed to go for and then well now that money goes towards emergency situations. like yogurt in colby next time) So I was really excited when I found two ten dollars bills in the diaper bag. Probably my spending money but hey I'm saving for a cruise in about three years so not a big deal to lose twenty bucks.

Now comes the real check I just opened up my cc online statement... lets see where I've spend money. A $90 Dish network bill- since I forgot to pay them over the Christmas two week vacation I had a late fee and had to pay for two months! $56 dollars in gas from our trip to Colorado to watch Kstate and hang out with our friends for a day (kjell's Christmas present) a $7 meal while in Colorado (managed to find a buy one get one free coupon so we even ate cheap!) and that's it. Oh plus a two dollar credit from paypal because I was unhappy with an e-bay purchase. Not too shabby. Plus we though Kjell didn't have eye insurance so we thought we had to pay $100 for his exam. Only the insurance company covered most of it and we only have to pay $25. So what a blessing I can't believe how grateful you become and how much you can miss the little things, like yogurt sooo much.