It’s funny how quickly you adjust to changes in life’s circumstances. When I first realized Joe would be home ALL THE TIME I was kinda freaked out because I was used to have Mondays and Fridays to myself. But now that he isn’t a stressed out crankypants I don’t mind him being around all the time.
I’ve been looking at this no unnecessary spending thing as a challenge to keep me from feeling bummed. So far it’s working. I’ve also been doing more surveys and stuff to earn points toward gift cards so if we want to buy something from Amazon it won’t come out of pocket. On top of that, I have so many samples from my Birchbox and Ipsy subscriptions that it’s going to take me awhile before I get through everything. And the bonus to that is I won’t be accumulating even more stuff in the meantime. I’m so tired of stuff! We are working on gathering up a lot of the stuff we aren’t using and plan on having a garage sale later this year.
Even not being able to go out like we used to isn’t bothering me as much as I expected. I think it’s because we’ve always be on the frugal side regardless of our income anyway. I will say, however, that I’m looking forward to warmer weather so we can get out more without spending any money. One can only spend so many hours at the library after all. We spent two hours there on Friday and Saturday as it is. Interestingly enough, it was more crowded on a Friday morning than a Saturday one, mostly with adults of all ages. Are they all unemployed too?
This afternoon I went to all the nearby towns’ park district websites and a site where they list festivals and added a bunch of upcoming events to our calendar. As long as we eat beforehand or pack a lunch to bring along we won’t spend any money since we only go to festivals that offer free admission. Between those events, E coming over, and us visiting my parents, we have something to do every weekend for the next few months.
We aren’t eliminating dining out entirely, just cutting back. We plan to use coupons from Chipotle and Qboba we received in the mail since they reduce the price per meal to something more in line with what you’d pay if you made the meal yourself. And we have gift cards purchased through Discover’s cashback rewards so we can still go out occasionally. And we have another $200 in rewards we haven’t even redeemed yet! I think that will go a long way toward helping us not feel deprived.
Plus it’s not like we don’t have money in the bank – I would just like to keep as much of it in there as possible. In fact, I went over our finances and with Joe’s last check which included all the vacation time he had banked and hadn’t used, we won’t have to start withdrawing from savings until the beginning of June even with factoring in paying our taxes (we intentionally claim more exemptions so the government can’t keep our money interest free).
In other words, things could be worse. My biggest concern right now is how we can continue to feed our backyard birds without breaking the bank. They are greedy little things and even with the seed on sale we can easily drop $40 buying regular seed, thistle (for the goldfinches) and suet (for the woodpeckers). I guess we could just stop feeding them but that makes me sad.