It’s February 1st, which means the NO SPEND JANUARY challenge is officially complete. Today I’m sharing a recap of the challenge – some of the successes and some of the failures/updates that need to be addressed. I might even extend this into February and March, which are two more months where there isn’t much going on and we should utilize this in order to save BIG TIME

I know I mentioned this before, but summer can get crazy and the budget is even more difficult to figure out. The kids are home, spending ticks up a little bit – i.e. grocery budget increase, pool maintenance, having family and friends over, cookouts, parties and going to parks, on little trips, etc! These winter months are the perfect time to try to save as much as we can to make up for a variable summer.

It’s that time of year again! A time when we sit down and thoroughly review our budget and set financial goals for the year. I will share more on goals and something new I just started for budget tracking, possibly later this week or next (because it requires it’s own post). In the meantime, I wanted to share a challenge with you, one you can join too – NO SPEND JANUARY!

You heard that right – N O S P E N D J A N U A R Y. This will be hard, it will be so annoying, but honestly it’s the reset we need. We didn’t entirely accomplish our goals from last year. Some modifications were made, unexpected items popped up (as they always do) and we focused hard on investing – which has been amazing and sometimes I forget that’s where our savings is!

It’s Tip Jar Tuesday and today, I’m sharing how to clean your washing machine. Super riveting, I KNOW, but so so important – and something people often overlook! This is how I clean my LG front loader machine.

This past weekend, my husband and I sat down to do our annual exam of our household budget and savings plan for the year ahead. We thoroughly look at our budget and realistically examine potential expenses and find ways to cut/save money for the upcoming year.

We have built out and customized an awesome excel sheet template which is an extremely helpful resource for us. I can share if anyone is interested! Having a firm understanding of your budget can allow you to prepare for future expenses (i.e. school, home projects, home maintenance issues, etc.), reconsider what items are truly important and remove things that waste money all while challenging yourself to become a better saver. This sheet is what helped us make the jump for myself to become as stay at home Mom (and of course my husband’s career, we were blessed) – we number crunched and saw the opportunity was possible!