Day 20 I officially started my week long deep cleaning stint... except it's now Wednesday and I only have one day down. That's the beauty of life, right? Monday I got down to business and did some much needed spring (but now almost fall....) cleaning in our bedroom. I folded and sorted through our laundry... SO. MUCH. LAUNDRY. And I also got underneath our bed and found way more than you should ever find under a couple of 20-something's bed. I recovered many pairs of long lost shoes! And the rest was more or less old receipts from pant pockets that needed to be thrown away.... Tuesday night I was ready to conquer the closet, but for some reason once I got home I was feeling way too nauseous and tired to do anything. So I did what I told myself I wouldn't do for the sake of your reading enjoyment and approval... I did nothing. I sat on the couch and watched House all night with my husband, and it was really nice. I was in bed by 10, and in a phenomenally better mood when I woke up this morning. I think the busy-ness of our lives has been well enough documented to justify a lazy day every now and then, right? I'm just sorry that's not as interesting for you to read about.  Tonight's plan would be to conquer the closet and make up for lost ground, but there is a chance that we won't be home until late tonight becauuusee... we're finally selling our car!!! We have an official meeting the CarMax tonight to trade our baby focus in. It's both sad and exhilarating at the same time. We're hoping to make a little more than we owe, and put that towards our card. It won't be a part of our $1,400 goal, but it is a part in our overall credit card payoff plan we've created. What's even better, once we don't have this car payment anymore, our insurance will also drop, saving us close to $300 per month! That is a great chunk in what could be going towards our debt reduction per month.  This month is really flying by, and I'm really sorry that I haven't been documenting it better. But I do want to thank everyone who has been keeping up with us, and my blog. Scott and I have been receiving so much encouragement from everyone. I get asked almost every day about how our no-spend month is going. And honestly, it has not been horrible at all! We're actually really excited to try this again, and I have confidence to know that we can do it again successfully with all of the great support we have behind us.  Okay, I'm talking like the month is over... We still have a week and a half to go, and we're starting to run low on resources. No more chicken after tonight, pasta is gone, and well... that's basically all we ever eat. (It's pretty impressive that we made it to the 20th before running out of that stuff right?)  So I'll get back to you in a week and a half with how we're feeling about it then.  I have pictures for my cleaning stint, but right now I only have "befores." Maybe if I get through a decent amount of cleaning that I originally planned for I'll be able to post them with some "afters." I'm just not ready for you to judge me on how our bedroom looks 90% of the time without being confident that I do clean it, too. Can you tell where we made a really bad decision? Still, things are starting to look up!

Good news! Another successful weekend without spending a dime..... or any other form of currency. We had another relaxing weekend, we spent Friday at home, doing ab-so-lute-ly nothing. I don't even remember if we ate anything. We were so exhausted from our busy (but still enjoyable) week that we really did not want to care about anything but sitting on the couch until we fell asleep. Which I did. At 10:00 pm. 

I have come to a decision. I think instead of my "blogging calendar" (at least for this week) the best way that I will be able to give you guys an accurate picture of what this month looks like for us, is to just give you guys honest updates on what's happening day by day. I really do intend to update each day, but seriously, our lives are very... what's the word.... spontaneous. And I don't mean that in the cool way where we just decide to go do something grand off of a whim just for a change in routine. I mean our weeks basically fall into our laps come Monday, and it looks nothing like the week before. Coincidentally that makes us very busy people, and I think I was just so excited to get this no-spend month started I made my blogging schedule without having that fact in mind. I'm super thankful that Ruth at Living Well Spending Less mapped out a plan everyday for a month, but like I said at the very beginning, with us being a young newlywed couple without children our day-to-day this month will probably look very different, and occasionally you'll have to read boring posts like this one.

Technically for day five, the plan was to create a meal plan for the rest of the month, or at least make an inventory of our pantry using the worksheet from Ruth's blog. However, you might be able to see how that could be difficult with us not being home for the week. Either way we had a good evening. Our good friends Natalie and Travis came over for dinner, and we had crockpot chopped beef brisket sandwiches.

(photo credit: Mix and Match Mama)

I wanted to get fancy and make us some homemade hamburger buns, but by the time we had gotten to the house, I was starving, and sliced bread looked just as good to me. Either way they were still delicious, and we literally have leftovers to last us the rest of the week. I enjoyed a night in watching chick-flicks and reality TV with Natalie while our husbands were out at Starbucks discussing theology. Exciting night, right? Still enjoyable nonetheless.

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So to sort of offset a relatively uneventful update, I thought I would throw in some excitement. I know that I've given you all an idea of why we're doing the 31 Days of Spending Zero, but we also have a bigger picture in mind than just using this one month to go towards our credit card. This past month Scott and I have made a decision for our next transition in our lives. We decided that once our apartment lease is up in June 2014, we are going to move downtown! We've come to the conclusion that downtown is the ideal place to be for us with where we are in life right now. We both work downtown (we even carpool together each morning) and are beginning to make great connections with people who either live downtown as well, or at the least closer than where we live right now. The con here is, downtown in exponentially more expensive than the area we are living in now. Your first thought is probably "How do expect to do that with all of this 'debt' you keep talking about, it's kind of counterproductive, isn't it?" Well, yes, it would be. So this is our big plan. Depending on how the next three weeks play out, our hope is to do these no spend months every other month, until we have our card down to 20% of it's usage. (Approx. next Feb/Mar) Our other big decision in being able to do this is selling Scott's car. Which, through some incredible blessings, we should be set to do in September, or better yet, possibly even this month. So if you're in the market for a 2012 Ford Focus, hit me up! ;)

As you can see, we have some big dreams in mind for the next couple of months. It does help make this month seem much more bearable in perspective, but I hope you can see how much encouragement it would require to actually achieve. I hope that you all will stand by us in this adventure, and cheer us on when the going gets tough. My prayer is that when the next ten months are said and done we will have a great story to tell about God's goodness, provision, and gifts of strength and self-control.

So please, stay with us! Tonight I will be getting my bridesmaid dress (technically "for free" through our money earned by house-sitting) and Thursday is the big going away party which I have put together for FREEEEEEEEEE! I'm so excited, and really, just a *tad* proud of myself.

More to come!

Okay. You guys have to forgive me... already. Blogging every day is a big responsibility! I promise that I DO have a daily blogging plan for each day this month, but things have been slightly hectic this weekend, simply because that is the nature of our lives. I hope you all could relate to that. The good news is, it is the end of day four, and we have not spent ONE PENNY!!! (Quite literally, considering we accidentally forgot to pay rent on Saturday...oops.) This week were are house sitting for some very gracious hosts, and in the midst of packing and going back and forth between our apartment and their place, we pretty much forgot what day is was. So that may result in a teeny late fee, but nonetheless we are still on track for our goal of $1,400!

I am happy to report that Scott and I are experiencing minimal withdrawal from our fast food life style. We made great strides this weekend! Friday night I was hoping for us to have our first free date night, but instead I became completely immersed in a baking frenzy. And all from scratch!



 Find the directions here.
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Pre-heat oven to 350º, spread olive oil and alfredo on spread out pizza dough, top with mozzarella and italian seasoning & garlic poweder to taste. Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

My other project Friday night was for our friend David's birthday party we were attending the next day, so Scott and I got crafty and put together a pretty impressive gift together for not spending any money on it!