So one of Ansen’s co-workers, Keri, on the morning show, was doing “Financial Freeze February” last month and encouraging listeners to join her. Basically, for the entire month, her family would not spend on extras. Obviously the regular bills have to be paid, but things like eating out, clothes, entertainment, etc were off limits. (“Um, hello Arvest, yes, I’m not going to pay my mortgage this month because I’m doing a financial freeze. Is that cool with you?”)
While her reasoning for doing so was probably a little more noble, we have been saving throwing spare change into a PayPal account to go on vacation with just the two of us for a long time. Like, all 5 and 1/2 years we’ve been married. I enjoyed our honeymoon, really I did, but it was a short few days in Branson. No where grandiose or tropical (mostly tropical)… and we’d like to do something sort of grandiose… and definitely tropical.
Enters the entire point of this post: We’re doing a financial freeze to go on vacation!
February is a short month, so probably an easy month within which (which is grammatically correct) we could freeze our finances. However, February also contains the rather money-intensive holiday called Valentines. While it would be possible to not spend money on each other to declare our undying love, Ansen told me had a good idea he wanted to do, and (his words, not mine) when those come around, you have to make use of them. In an effort not to squelch his romantic inclinations, I agreed with him that March would be a much better month to do said freeze.
And here we are, the 10th of March and I’m just now sharing. I know. I must apologize. Please forgive me.
So, here are the ground rules:
- fixed expenses, like utility bills and mortgage are exempt
- baby account is exempt (because we have left over gift money that technically belongs to Avie in that account too)
- roll-over budgets that are for expenses expected later are exempt (such as auto parts, home repair, contribution toward savings accounts, Christmas gifts)
- things we can do without for a month are completely frozen (entertainment, clothing, eating out, fun money)
- things we have to have but are flexible will be held to a minimum (anything left in gas, groceries, household products will go to vacation)
That means I have the fun challenge of not spending a lot of food or household products, but still feeding everyone and making sure we don’t run out of toilet paper or toothpaste. So far, so good. Last week, I spent $33 on groceries (not much more than my $30/week challenge). I spent $4 at Walgreens for deodorant and make-up. And it looks like we have $81 left in our gas budget with both cars currently pretty good on gas. I’ll keep you posted!
I did the Feb. freeze. It was really quite easy and all the extra savings went onto an existing visa bill that is almost paid off. I’m going to try for a Mar freeze too and pay off the Visa. I’ve been living out of my very well stocked pantry and will continue to do so. I have used virtually all of the meat in my freezer so had to spend about $75 on some for the last couple of weeks. I’ll go to Dime’s Meat Market and stock up for about $200 and that will keep us fed for a good 3-4 months.
That’s great! It’s so exciting to hear when people are making financial progress. Did you hear about the freeze on KLRC or did you come up with it yourself? I like the Meat Market idea. I may have to find out more for later on. I really have to find a small freezer first though. That would really make things simpler.
This is such a good idea. It’s too bad that my idea of saving on our grocery bill is to make pasta and potatoes for every single meal. It does save money, I’ll say that. Until I can find a happy medium between that and my ridiculously complicated meal plan, I guess we’ll have to cut costs somewhere else…
Haha, Lisa, you always make me laugh. I’m sure you can find some middle ground. It just takes a little extra work. I’m sure you saw back in July (I think?) when we were pricing out our meals. It’s a great way to figure out what things are cheap, but still yummy and what things are way more than you ever though. You could always give that a try for a week or so just to see.
PS, I am loving your blog. I think I laugh out loud (literally, not just the lol kind) every time I read it. Or at least snort every few sentences. It’s probably safest not to read it while consuming a beverage.