With lots of changes coming in our lives, one aspect Bill and I want to take more control over is our spending. If you know either of us well, you probably know that we actually do live a pretty modest lifestyle already. We love our house, but it is not fancy. We both drive used cars. I’m happy to wear maternity clothes that I have so generously been borrowed – while Bill would still be wearing his high school wrestling t-shirts if they hadn’t been packed away years ago! Still, we like to indulge in movies, and it’s always easier to just eat out when dinner isn’t planned, and above all else we love to travel. So, these were the things we decided to tackle during what we named “Frugal January”. (Yes, we could’ve worked a bit harder on the name – but it just stuck.)
Anyway – we committed to eating our dinners at home, watching movies from the collection we own, and buying only the necessities throughout the month. We did really well, and it helped clean out our cupboards a bit! It was fun to try to be creative with our meals and to think about how very little we actually needed to buy to get through 31 days. We even packed a dinner every Tuesday night to eat at Bill’s office before heading to our pre-natal classes… full bellies and no tipping required!
Granted, we’re now 10 days into February, and we’ve been out to eat and even ordered a couple of non-essentials. But for the most part, I have to call our little experiment a success. If nothing else, we were reminded of how lucky we are for all that we already have. And I think we’ve even created some better habits.