I'm here....somewhere

The last few weeks have been crazy busy...and crazy emotional.

We held another garage sale in conjuction with my sister's family last week, my husband started a second job & Lucy is battling her second ear infection in the last month.  There's been a lot of other "things" that have taken place---and I have a whole host of topics/successes/struggles/soapboxes that I'll be writing about soon.

But for now, I wanted to let you in on a little challenge I've set up for myself for the month of June.  If you've read for any length of time--you know that I will work my hardest to find a deal on ANYTHING (in fact, I'll let you know how I landed free teeth whitening for my husband and myself in a few days).  After Jack was born, my couponing became survival mode instead of stock-up mode.  We recently purchased a subscription to our paper (more on that later) & with coupons coming to my door---I have jumped feet first back into stock up mode. 

Because last month was the first month since my daughter was born that we've had to rely solely on my husband's income, we struggled a lot.  He has since started a second job in which he brings home cash from tips each evening.  I've set a $50 a week budget for us the month of June to cover ALL groceries & ALL household expenses.  For us this includes any disposable diapers, wipes, soaps, paper products, laundry soap, food or misc. items that need to be purchased.  We've managed on a $40 a week grocery budget before---but that did not include household expenses, and at that time our freezer was quite full of food.  Oh, and did I mention I'm also determined to keep us from eating out ALL month?  For us that means no eating out, gas station sodas or shaved ice treats.

So, yeah...it's going to be interesting to see how I can transform $200 to cover all of our food & household expenses for the month.  I'll be using cash my husband brings home to fill the envelope up at the beginning of each week.

Last week was our first week.  We went over by about $3....which was because I really wanted a cheap sprinkler for my daughter to cool off in.  All in all, we've been successful thus far.

I'm looking forward to sharing with you how well we do!