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Frugal February

Today is January 31, 2014. Tomorrow we are starting a month of no-spending. A spending freeze. The whole family is on board. The only thing we will spend money on is gas and $25 per week for groceries, primarily produce and dairy items. I did stock up the past few weeks on meat that I found on sale or discount. For about 7 months we have been couponing, sale shopping and stock piling our groceries and we have cut our spending in half! Out stock pile is in pretty good shape so this month we will be using as much of it as possible. Our income was lowered in July 2013 due to me becoming unemployed. Luckily, I have a wonderful, hard working husband who has a good job so we are not in dire straights but our budget is super-duper slim. Also over the past few years, especially over the past few months, we have been cutting our bills and our spending, little by little.
Some of the things we have done to cut costs have been getting rid of our home phone and cable.If you haven't done this yet, I HIGHLY recommend it! I probably held on to the home phone a little longer than we needed but, I was worried about 911 calls. If you call 911 from your cell phone it takes longer to get help because the call goes to the highway patrol. Then I found out that Stockton has a direct line to 911. It's 209-937-7911. Once I found out about that number I got rid of our home phone and the city number is locked in to my cell. We got rid of the cable company thanks to my husband. He is way more "in the know" about the latest technology and he was interested in trying Hulu and Netflix. So, we agreed  to get rid of cable and bought a antennae box for the basic channels. We now have Hulu, Netflix and The Blaze which totals about $24. We are currently trying out Amazon Prime(1 month free) which has a few shows that we do not get on our current providers. But we are seriously considering getting it for the free 2 day shipping. I am currently in college and I rent my books through Amazon, the free shipping would pay for itself right away. Plus I would get to continue watching Downton Abbey and Duck Dynasty!
The kids are ready for the challenge. Today they got one last after school treat. Every Friday we go to Qiang Bakery and get Pork Buns for just under a buck. They get one each. When I asked them what would be the hardest thing about the spending freeze, they said the after school snacks that we would get 2-3 times a week($1 or less). They really enjoy participating in couponing and sales shopping. It's been a great experience for us to do together as a family. I am glad they are learning the value of what things cost also that we can have fun and do plenty of things on a budget. I am glad they are happily joining in to this challenge and I think it will be great for us as a family!

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