There is only one more week left in our big goal of putting an extra $1000 in savings!!  It’s been a very eye opening month for us to see just how quick we are to open up the wallet and buy things.  I’m thankful for the chance to step back and really examine our decisions.

If you are just joining in, read over the basics of what we are trying to do.  You can also brush up on our plan with our week 1 goals.

This week we did awesome.  We were even thrown an unexpected loop of a trip out of town for a few days and we still came in right where we wanted too!  (Traveling doesn’t have to cost much if you still cook all your meals.)

Last weeks goals:

$55 – no eating out
$50 – no grocery shopping this week
$50 – no miscellaneous cash purchases (snacks, fast food, etc.)
$80 – gas savings from one car living

We hit all of these!  I managed to pull off a zero grocery budget, but did go shopping :)  I couldn’t resist some of the free and money maker deals at Bi-Lo this week, and we also hit the drugstores for a few freebies too.

I was reminded in the comments last week about fuelperks… having not shopped hard for the past few weeks I forgot to even look up how much we had saved.  Turns out we had enough for a FREE tank!  I use not only the Bi-Lo fuelperk program, but also the Shell Fuel Rewards system that can be linked together.  We had over $5 off per gallon in the Shell rewards!!  You get 25¢ off per gallon for signing up and then can earn more with grocery and online purchases or referring friends (yep, that link is my referral link).  Thanks to our free tank we spent nothing on gas this week, making a savings of $160 just on gas!

We did get our ThredUp credit posted this week for a credit of $70.  We needed kahki pants and collared shirts for American Heritage Girls troop uniforms so I turned around and just used the credit to buy those rather than spending money out of pocket.  It would have cost way more than that to buy them for three kids locally.  I also might have gotten a pair of shoes and a dress for me…

Total Savings this week:  $315

Savings Total for the Month: $905!

Wow, seeing it typed out makes it feel all the more amazing!  I’ve been transferring money each week from checking to savings to make sure it is all there, but doing it little by little you don’t realize just how big the amount is!  We have one week left and really don’t need that much to save to hit our goal, but we’ve all decided to finish strong.

I won’t be taking this week off from grocery shopping though, two weeks is enough of a dent on our stockpile and in the end would be too costly to have to start over almost after 3 weeks off.

This weeks goals:

$55 – no eating out
$15 – no snacks or unnecessary grocery items
$50 – no miscellaneous cash purchases (snacks, fast food, etc.)
$80 – gas savings from one car living

That should bring us to $1200 in savings come next week!

How is the challenge going for you?  Have you found some extra space in your budget that could be saved? Or places where you could live a little more Frugally?

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