February Double challenge

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   A few days ago dear Carla posted a new February double challenge, and I immediately knew I wanted to join her. We sat down yesterday with Hubby and created some sort of a plan.

LOW (NO) SPEND CHALLENGE:

February is going to be a very busy month for us. My parents are coming next Thursday. They will stay with us for 11 days and then spend another 10 days with my sister. Also we have 3 Birthdays next month. And St. Valentine's Day. So it's truly going to be a challenge for us to cut the corners and spend less. But we decided that our goal will be to add another $100 to our trampoline budget.

So in order for us to reach it, here are a few steps we could think of:

Have 15 no spend days- I've learned all to well that if I go shopping, I will probably find some sort of a "bargain" that we don't really need but the price is too hard to pass, and I might just convince myself that it's something we can't live without. So the least we go to the stores, the better.

Stay under our food budget- This truly is going to be a challenge!! With two more grown-ups to feed, money might be tight. But I hope, I can cut some expenses by using stuff in our freezer and careful meal planning.

Work on our utilities- I'll have more on this later but we really want to concentrate on our usage this month

Cut on miscellaneous spending- it's usually $120 but we always spend more than that. I hope, in February we can concentrate more on our "needs," and not "wants".

Stay under $60 with eating out- Usually our budget for it is $50/month but I increased it extra $10 with my parents here. They don't really care about going out , and I plan on using coupons for everything. We will probably grab some Chinese and ,maybe, Subway but I really am going to watch it closely.

THINGS THAT DO NOT COUNT TOWARDS THE CHALLENGE: My Birthday gift ( we already budgeted $50 for it from my Hubby's latest bonus), my hair-cut and hair-color ( again, budgeted from a bonus, and I just really need to have it done!!), tithes, date night ( this was planned monthly from the beginning of the year with a $30 limit, and all money left rolls into the next month), Tax preparation (ugh!!), gas (hubby gets reimbursed from work for mileage/usage, so we'll see how it goes this month) and medical bills (yes, we still get them from 2 ER visits in November!!) . We also have Baby's and BIL's Birthdays in February but we already have gifts for them.

DE-CLUTTER CHALLENGE:

This works perfectly with my yearly goal. With my parents here I won't have much time to de-clutter but I want to toss, donate, recycle or sell at least 29 things this month.