No spend day 1

Don't worry, I won't be recording my daily troubles with cutting back on my spending. But I did want to write about my first day because it was......well....harder than I thought it would be.

The first thing I did wrong today was I did not plan for my day. I'm in the car a lot for my job so sometimes I stop at the gas station to get a little snack or treat. I told myself I would not do this anymore and guess what I stopped today! I needed a water and wanted some turtles. Strike 1. What I should have done was had a water bottle with me that I filled up at work and brought another snack from home like fruit or string cheese. Ok so note to self, plan better next week.

I had a NY&CO coupon for $10 off a $20 purchase. I wanted to use this coupon today. I thought well $10 out of my monthly budget was not to bad to spend on clothes. So I went to the store, found 4 sale items and proceeded to take them to the register. The cashier started taking the clothes off the hangars and I gave her my coupon. Ooops she told me, can't use the coupon on the sale items. I said ok then I don't need the clothes. And I left! Yay me. One bad spend and one small victory makes me even for the day.

I knew lunch would likely be a problem for me since I'm not always in the office and its hard to plan. I bought lunch for a client today so I was saved by that one because I get reimbursed for business expenses. Ok good deal. Next week I will have to try to pack something in a cooler. Will that work in this 100+ degree weather? I don't know. We will see I guess.

This weekend is the no sales tax weekend in the state of Missouri. You have to give me huge brownie points here because I am not going to let this lure me out to possibly buy something and blow the budget!!!! I do need to make a trip to get a few groceries but I should spend under $10 on that as everything on the list is on sale.

So all in all I think my first day went ok. It was definitely harder than I thought but really and truly made me realize how I am more tempted than I thought to spend money each day. The thought of paying off my car 14 months early is what keeps my wallet shut!!!!

$10,530 to $3,800 by December 31, 2008

I was lucky enough to find a blog recently called SmallNotebook where the author wrote about a "no spend month". The author and her family chose only to spend $250 for the month of July. Read about it in her blog, its a great story!

This blog 1. got me thinking and 2. inspired me. I have been wanting so badly to pay off my car. I keep wanting a 'quick fix' where I come into..oh I don't know lets say $10,350 after taxes, which would allow me to pay off my 2005 mazda 6. I still love this car, I have no plans of getting rid of it. I just want it paid off!

After reading the blog I decided to make August my no spend month. I would cut out a little here and a little there and only spend $140 on the extra "stuff" for the month. Its just me, so its a little easier for me to control my spending.

I started calculating further and crunching the numbers. When I was done, I calculated I could pay off $6,550 by December 2008. WHAT??? I did the math again. And again. I could not believe this! By the end of this year I could have a HUGE portion of my car paid off. AND still have a decent amount of money in savings.

How did I do this you might ask? Well it all started with cutting a little here and a little there. I had recently canceled a monthly membership that was costing me $100. I got an offer in the mail to switch my cable/internet/phone that will save me $50 a month. I cut $20 a week off the groceries and spending cash. I paused my savings and will be putting all that extra money into paying off the car (I am only doing this because I feel like I have enough in savings that will allow me to do so). And the list goes on.... I do not feel like any of these changes are so drastic that they will cause me to fail. For me this was about taking a few dollars here and there and before long all those few dollars started to add up.

So this is the challenge I have set for myself for the rest of 2008. I won't be eating out much. I won't be buying fun items on Etsy. I won't be taking extra trips to target. And guess what, IT WILL BE SO WORTH IT!!! My goal is to have the car paid off by March 2009. 14 months early. I am excited and hopefully and will be so dang glad when I have a clear car title!!!!!!!