No Spend New Year

Jade plant my mom no longer wanted.  Rusty stool - yard sale $5

It has been a long time since I last blogged.  Over the last year I have found myself losing interest in blogs.  There are a few I always find myself going back to.  These blogs are usually a combination of decorating, recipes, DIYs, crafts, frugal living, a Christian perspective, and also some personal stuff so you get to know the person behind the blog.  

What I find I have been avoiding are blogs with lots of advertising and especially pop-ups, blogs that are difficult to navigate, bloggers that spend a ton of money constantly updating and changing their home for blog content, and young bloggers with adorable children and great fashion sense that I really don't relate to at this stage of life (these young women have creativity, knowledge and drive I wish I had at their age).   While many of these blogs are creative, inspiring, and beautiful to look at, they can also make you feel a discontentment in your own life.  

I have been debating whether I want to continue to blog.  What is my goal in blogging?  I don't have the time for regular blogging, nor do I have the funds to constantly update my home, and I don't have the desire to aggressively promote my blog.  I will never make money blogging as I find that part of it distasteful and I don't have the kind of talent needed for that anyway.  Don't get me wrong, I understand bloggers need to make a living and for many it is their full-time job spending hour upon hour each week coming up with content and marketing themselves.  While this works great for others, it is just not for me.

So what do I want?  I guess I want to have a creative outlet to share and document my home and ideas with other like-minded women as well as for myself.  I want to be part of a community of creative and interesting women.  I hope to make some online friendships  too.  I want to continue to find and read blogs that are relatable and interesting to me.  Blogging can keep me accountable as well.

This week, I suggested to my husband that we have a  "No-Spend" year.  I read an article about a couple who had a "no-spend" year and saved $23,000.  Wow!  

At that point, he wasn't convinced but was intrigued.

Then this happened:

Pizzagate

It was Saturday afternoon and the Patriots playoff game was on at 8:15pm.  We decided we would get a pizza.  It would be my husband and myself, our daughter and her boyfriend, and our son.  Now one pizza for 5 adults would not be enough in most cases, but we had a bunch of other food as well.  I was making chicken wings, and my daughter was making buffalo chicken dip with crackers and veggies, jalepeno poppers, and we also had cheese and crackers available.  You should also know that last time we got 2 pizzas we had one full pizza left over.  There was a disagreement about purchasing one pizza or two (me insisting one was enough, my hubby arguing for two).  He came home with two, explaining that one pizza was $14 but they had a special, 2 for $20 so it only made sense to get two.  Of course we had one FULL pizza left over when all was said and done.  I may or may not have controlled myself from saying "I told you so" while informing him that one pizza basically cost us $20 since we didn't eat the second one. 

That led to a heart-to-heart talk this morning about getting on the same page financially and he agreed to try a no spend year.  This should be interesting.

We probably could never save $23,000, but we have spent a lot more money than we should have this last year, and now it is time to get serious about our finances.  Of course we will purchase items we need including groceries and items needed for our home and pets, but we are going to try very hard not to purchase things that are not necessities. 

 Since we don't drink, smoke, gamble (including lottery tickets), or even purchase an occasional coffee at Dunkin Donuts, there is not a lot of excess to cut in those areas.  

My husband purchased this gorgeous buffet from Homegoods in December.  It was marked down from $1300 to $500 and replaced an old dresser we bought years ago at a thrift shop for $40.  Still, we should not have made this purchase.

The main area we over-spend is on items for our home and groceries.  So one of the things I hope to blog about is how we are saving money by not spending.  I know we will fail occasionally, but hopefully not too often.  

Today was a success.  We didn't spend anything!  We had blueberry pancakes and coffee for breakfast, then sat and chatted with our 23 and 25 year old kids while the dogs entertained us.  

We ate leftover pizza for lunch.

After lunch we brought the dogs to the Robert Frost farm for a walk in the woods. 

 Then we came home and hung out in the yard. We took down the remaining outdoor Christmas decorations, scoured the yard for dog poop, and stacked wood for the wood stove.  (Our life is about to get really exciting).  Now the hubby is watching football while I work on this post.  Since I forgot to plan dinner, we are making do.  We have plenty of food here and will not be ordering out.

Here's to the New Year!

Linking up:

http://thecharmofhome.blogspot.com/2017/01/home-sweet-home-305.html

http://strangersandpilgrimsonearth.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-art-of-home-making-mondays-please_16.html

http://patandcandy.com/coffee-conversation-128-author-highlight-laura-resau/