Fearlessly Frugal Day Twenty-Five: The Homestretch

Thank GOD this experiment is almost over! I'm starting to go a little crazy and so is Brandon. Even though this month wasn't entirely true to the idea of no-spending since we did splurge a little on small things here and there, it was a hard month nonetheless. Last night Brandon and I went to Goodwill and he bought two books for $1.06. Brandon is the kind of person that won't read a book more than once so we try to buy his books used or trade them with family members. I, on the other hand, can read mine over and over again so I usually prefer to buy my books new. Right now I'm reading Harry Potter, the same thing I did during my last IVF. Call it my new relaxation technique (aside from my meditation CD's). Today I also spent some money for an upcoming giveaway for my lovely readers. I honestly tried getting some companies to let me do a PR review and giveaway on their products but the responses were either non-existent or not interested. So that meant buying stuff for the next giveaway and to HELL with the review! Oh, and tonight we're ordering pizza from Domino's. We're saving money by picking it up instead of having it delivered. They have a special right now, 2 medium two-topping pizzas for $5.99 each. Not bad considering pizza lasts us for days in this house. I had planned on cooking Manwich tonight but we seem to have run into a problem in the Singleton household. You see, we started buying 2 lb packages of meat and splitting them up. The commissary sells them for dirt cheap (like $1.19 a pound) in this increment so one package can last us for two meals. The problem is that for some reason Brandon decided to freeze the meat in saran wrap instead of some other practical way such as FREEZER BAGS. So when I went to thaw the meat today it was frozen and brown. I hate throwing away food but I think today I'll make an exception. I'm actually considering investing in one of those vacuum sealer things, especially if we plan to make this a habit. Does anyone own one and does it fare better than Ziploc freezer bags? Are the refills expensive? I have to do some more research before I'll buy it.

Only 6 more days left of this experiment. I counted our money today we have about $290 left from the $424 we put into the Baby Fund. So there's about 70% left which is much better than I thought we would do. I do have a growing list of things I want/need to buy, like the vacuum sealer. I also want to buy the tax software called It's Deductible. For those of you who don't know what it is, It's Deductible lets you list items you've donated and gives you the fair market value of those items. So that bag of clothes you donated and wrote off as $40 in value could actually be worth $100. I used it before, a very long time ago, and my ex-husband kept the software so I need a new one. With all the medical expenses this year we plan on itemizing and writing off a ton of stuff. I also want to buy a new and improved coupon organizer. So as the month draws to a close and I come up on the day when I can start purchasing stuff guilt-free, my list keeps getting longer and longer. But at least this experiment has taught me to think harder about what I'm purchasing and has prevented me from impulse buying. But still, I can't WAIT for it to be over!