Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

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alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Good morning ladies. This will be our sign in for the 2018 No Spend Challenge. Someone suggested we just post when we feel the need and that works for me. Wishing all of you a very good but challenging year. Looking forward to our adventure and hopefully we will learn from each other on how to be more frugal.

Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

This is hindsight that I learned on Dec 31, 2017. I usually bake my bacon in the oven. I have balance problems standing in one spot too long so instead of frying bacon I bake it. I usually line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil then add bacon. Yesterday I decided to bake the bacon on a wire rack on a cookie sheet in order to make the bacon more crispy. I thought why use foil? The fat drips through to the pan and then I pour the bacon fat in to a jar to save for cooking other things. So I will be saving aluminum foil now when baking bacon.

Used the last of my half and half in my coffee this morning and opened a half gallon of whole organic milk. Normally I do not do whole milk but had bought it for my DB for Christmas eve dinner but due to my illness I had to cancel Christmas eve. I bought some bananas on deep discount the other day so will be making banana pudding today to use up milk and bananas. Normally I do not make banana pudding but in use it up mode. Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
Momof2
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 4:42 pm

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by Momof2 »

I am looking forward to working on this no-spend challenge. I do not anticipate spending any money today- a great start to my no-spend challenge. I did wake up with a headache (probably the front coming in-bringing cold weather at that), so I made coffee. I do not drink coffee daily, but when I do make coffee I use about 2/3 decaf with 1/3 caffeinated. Today I made full caffeinated to help with the headache- it works for threatening migraines which I do get on occasion. The coffee filter did a wonky thing, so ended up with lots of grounds in the carafe. Instead of dumping it and starting over, I grabbed another coffee filter and put it in a strainer and poured the coffee through that- coffee without grounds or wasting the coffee (money saved).

For lunch, I warmed up the pasta with mushroom sauce I made a couple of days ago to use up mushrooms so that they did not get tossed. It was good the first day, but kind of bland when warmed up, so I added some Parmesan cheese to jazz it up a bit.
I have the black-eyed peas along with ham in the crock-pot. I will serve that with kale and buttermilk biscuits.

I was planning on taking down the Christmas tree today, but it is raining and cool, so I am not sure I want to make the short trip to the storage room to get the boxes and then take everything back. I would rather keep the tree up than have the boxes stacked in the living-room for a couple of days. I hope everyone has a no-spend day today. Happy New Year everyone.
RedRobin
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:47 am

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by RedRobin »

Great start to a new year.
We did not go out, so no money spent, no gasoline used. Heat is set at 60 or 62 depending on the room. We ate well today. I have about a few cups or so of cooked turkey left from boiling down the Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas eve turkey breast. So, I made a few meals and soups using whatever I had on hand.
Starting today, our meals for the week are onion soup, turkey tetrazini (sp), turkey in gravy with potato pancakes and peas, soda bread, bagels. My work lunches so far are peas, corn and chicken franchase (so), 2 made up, with an Apple and cracker snacks. I have malt-o-meal raisin bran and Wal-Mart oatmeal apportioned out and in my drawer at work. We get free coffee, milk, etc. every day, bagels once a week and a free lunch once a week, maybe. They may have stopped that. I'll find out on Friday.
I have to buy gas once a week because of my commute, so any day I can keep from using the car is a bonus. I was using GasBuddy to keep track of the cheapest gas along my drive, but got lazy, so now I am back on board.
Good luck everyone.
RedRobin
floridacatlover
Posts: 8038
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 am

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by floridacatlover »

Here is a blog I am following that might be of interest and give encouragement.

http://achallengingyearonawelshhillside.blogspot.com/

I have followed this lady’s other blog (now on hiatus) for awhile. They live in Wales. She has a huge garden and is a vegetarian but her husband is a meat eater. She and her husband are trying to spend almost nothing this year in order to pay off their mortgage on a retirement flat they’ve purchased. It sounds like they are going to follow the meals that were common during WW2 when things were very hard in the UK.
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MackerelCat
Posts: 7226
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:44 pm

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by MackerelCat »

Had a total no spend day here. We spent the whole day at home. I mended a bunch of clothing and we happily noshed on leftovers. Great start to a frugal new year.
Mackie
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