Frugal Fast August {A Recap}

The end of the month is upon us...how did we do with our no-spend month / pantry challenge?  Here's the update I'm sure you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats for.  ;-)

Food Funds
I can't believe I said we would get by on $100 for food for the whole month.  What was I thinking?  Even though we blew that out of the water, we still did really well on our food spend for the month.  We ended up spending $227 where as in July we spent $505 on food.  That's a considerable improvement.

And, although I have yet to cut up a danged chicken, we did use up 5 of the whole birds in our freezer.  We're also out of ground beef (which is good because the 'rents are butchering again next month!), out of last year's green beans, down to the last of the 2011 salsa, have 0 boxes of loss leader cereal in the pantry and the cupboards are looking pretty bare, overall. 

What's crazy though is that we still have plenty to eat.  We might be able to keep the food spending down for a couple more months.

Miscellaneous Spending - Wants

We did really well keeping the wallet shut on non-food items, until I found a desk I have LOVED for a while now - on Craigslist for a super price (less than half original price and it's in great shape).  I just couldn't pass it up.  Hubz tried to talk me out of it, "Remember - we're on a no spend month...what will your 7 readers think?".  My reply, "I'm human.  I'll confess my sins to my 7 readers.  They'll forgive me (I hope)."  Here are the before and after pictures of our office...can you blame me for upgrading?  Can you forgive me?

Aside from the desk, I did buy 2 new tubes of lip gloss and some bobby pins at CVS for $10.  Hubz did way better than me and only bought a radiator hose for his tractor.  The chickens needed wormed so we paid $11.37 for some wormer.  I did avoid all yard sales, estate auctions and Goodwill stores for the whole month - that in itself is a feat for me.


Miscellaneous Spending - Needs?
There's a question mark after 'needs' because some of you may disagree that we needed to spend on these things, but regardless...

We ended up spending some cabbage on things that were unplanned and somewhat unpredictable.  My niece Gigi broke her arm.  Aunt Carrie got her a get well present.  My niece Olivia had her tonsils out.  Aunt Carrie got her a get well present too.  Our renter (we are accidental landlords - long story!) decided to forgo her obligations and was evicted.  She didn't turn in her keys so we spent $60 changing the locks.  In total that was about $100 that we didn't plan for.  Luckily, we weren't spending so much on food so it didn't hit us too hard to spend on these items.


Our Next No-Spend Month
It will likely be January before we attempt another frugal fast.  There are 20 total people in my family (parents, siblings, nieces/nephews) and 11 birthdays from September-December, including Hubz and myself with 2 additional birthdays on Hubz' side.  We don't buy for all of the birthdays, but both of my parents are coming up along with 1 niece and 3 nephews (in a 4 day period).  We're also having family photos taken, the holidays are coming up quicker than we know and I just might be throwing a little girls-night-out party when a certain movie comes out on DVD in October.

We will, however, keep watching our food spend and cut down on meals out - that we can AND SHOULD do every month. Overall, I'd give us a C+ on this attempt at a frugal fast.

How would you grade us?


Linking up with Frugal Friday.