So, I know that we're still two weeks (+) out from August. But I have to say I am SOOOOO excited to start our August Spending Freeze! That's 31 days of us spending ZERO MONEY. Am I crazy for being excited for that? Probably.

Here's our game plan: Starting on August 1st, we will not be spending any money on anything other than our essential bills. That's rent, utilities, cell phones, some selective groceries, and gas. We also have a couple of events we are budgeting in such as one wedding gift, and a doctor's appointment. One other event I have coming up is a going away party for a little group of friends that are moving away at the end of the month (two of them to different countries, so cool!) So I might stow away a tiny bit of cash to fund that party, but what I'm challenging myself to do, is to put together this party (decorations and all) for ZERO dollars! I hope you guys will come around and read that post!

I know I'm a little ahead of myself in introducing this project, and I'm trying to be short as to not give too much away, but this post is mainly a letter to our close friends. We would like to include you all in what we're doing with our spending freeze. To put it lightly we have a LOT of debt. And it's debt we are not proud of. Through our first year of marriage we made a couple of foolish decisions with how we were swiping that credit card of ours and it piled up fast! And even though we wish we weren't having to make a credit card payment each month on previous poor choices, we still continue to have pretty bad spending habits now as well. Our hope in these 31 days of spending zero is that we drastically change, and break some of our impulsive ways so that we can be better stewards of our finances.

Our goal for August is to save $1400. Thank goodness for an extra paycheck next month!!! You can stop by and keep up with our savings total with this handy little meter I made to the right.


Friends, (and random readers, too) what I ask of you all is that you would please keep us accountable. This is a huge issue in our life that needs to be addressed, and we hope that you will walk alongside us in this venture. That means sometimes we will have to tell you no to things like going out to eat, or other activities that include spending money. And we won't want to. So sometimes, you should probably tell us no. That doesn't mean we're going to disappear for the month. We hope that if things like that do come up we will be able to tag along without spending money, but if that's not really an option, just please help us in being able to refrain until the month is over. That would the best way to love us during this time! I'm excited to see what happens! Only 16 days left!


I'll be posting more details as the time grows closer, so please check back when you can!

Today has been a hard day. We're already into the first of the month - yet we're two days short of pay day. The first of the month is the hardest for us because we have our biggest bills: rent, our utility bill, cell phones, and Scott's car payment all in the first two weeks. And if our paychecks don't land just right we're in deep trouble. This means we usually have to pay attention to our last paycheck of the month, and save accordingly to pay for the things due just short of pay day, which is typically our rent.

Let me map this out for you. My husband and I both work full-time jobs, and we make a pretty decent living for ourselves considering it's just the two of us. Together it's about $40,000/year and I am nothing short of grateful for it, because we have come far from much less.

We got married when I was 20, and Scott was 23. Culturally, it's a lot younger than most people are willing to get married (at least on my end), and neither of us were even close to finishing college, which we both still intend on doing. I was in my second year of college, and I had just started attending the University of North Texas for Graphic Design while we were engaged. Scott had only taken a few classes at our local community college. We knew that money was going to be hard for us if we got married. To be honest, financially, we had no business being engaged. Neither of us had stable or well-paying jobs, but we felt like God was calling us to get married, and that we would be okay. And He was right. We have been taken care of fully financially since the day we've gotten married, even through joblessness, and hospital visits (four months in no less! We got to learn what "in sickness, and in health" meant real quick! Good times...) Regardless of faith, it still required sacrifice on our end to abandon the "American Dream" in order to be married young. Right before we got married I made the decision to stop going to school to avoid debt, as I had no means of financial aid before getting married, and I was paying a fortune for something I wasn't even sure I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So now we both have full time jobs. And with our one-year anniversary coming up on the 8th, I have a gold mine of money saving tips for all of you that are in the newlywed boat.
Aldi is super cheap for the "off-brand" of most items, with no difference in taste for things like milk, eggs, bread, cheese, and spices/baking items. We even prefer their version of cresent and cinnamon rolls! They're super fluffy and delicious.

- Buy produce at a local farmer's market.
It's cheaper, you pick the portion of what you know you're more likely to eat, and the produce is always wayyy bigger than at grocery store chains.

- Buy cleaning products at the dollar store.
(I.e. dishwashing detergent, laundry soap, trash bags, etc.) Dollar store chains sometimes make their own brand of cleaning products that are super cheap, but I have even seen select dollar stores that sell name brand cleaning products for less than what grocery stores charge.

- Check the clearance item section.
If you make a fourth trip to buy the rest of your grocery needs, be sure to check their clearance section. It's usually hidden somewhere in a shady back corner, but the products there are usually still good, they may have just been damaged cans or overstock. Always check the expiration dates too, just to be safe... ;)

$656 on food is a HUGE improvement from last month which was $900!!!