No Spending Month Begins

Hello, I'm back! Did you miss me?

We had a very good time at Garner. It was awfully quiet because we have never gone camping at Garner without some of the family before. We missed them. I especially missed seeing my parents. Times have changed. It's difficult to arrange a time where we all can meet at Garner these days.

Garner is way too popular. If you want to go camping at a certain date, you have to make reservation 333 days in advance and do it at midnight. Otherwise, you'd miss your opportunity.

Both Dan and I talked about going camping at Garner in the early part of Summer. It's too late to make reservations for next Summer (2011) unless you want to go in August. I am planning to look ahead to Summer of 2012 and then make reservations 333 days in advance. We thought the first week of June would be good.

Family and Friends: If any of you want to join us at Garner 2012 and have a preference for certain week(s), please let us know ASAP. We really missed y'all this year. And, I would really like to have a reunion of sorts. Fortunately, Dan and I could go at any time.

Anyway, on to another subject. We just started "No spending month". I've read about it elsewhere on various frugal blogs and I think it's a wonderful concept. Everyone takes it and modifies it to fit their own lifestyle.

Basically, the concept is to quit spending money on anything except on absolute essentials. Some go as far as challenging themselves to use up what they have in the freezer and fridge -- this won't work well for us because our pantry, freezer, and refrigerator is practically empty at the moment.

The "No Spending Month" in bloggy land tends to be during the month of February, the shortest month of the year. July is also another popular "no spending month". However, the concept can be used for any month. Granted, August is already underway; but, a month is four weeks or 30 days. So, it can start and end anytime. We started ours today and it will tentatively end September 6th. I said "tentatively" because we could very well extend it beyond this date.

We need to reign ourselves back. We've been spending more than usual the past eight or nine months. Some of it is understandable because of what happened to my Mom and the sacrifices Dan and I have made to be with her during this rough time. Also, we went on a couple of vacations recently. But still, we need to take back control of our money and spending habits. I desperately want to save money too, which we haven't been able to do for some time. There are a few "funds" that we need to build up. One of them is for a new car.

And oh, a new fund has also been created -- for a small camper. Our tent has about had it. We discovered that the rain shield has a tear. Thank goodness it didn't rain for our week at Garner! It has been a good tent. We've had it for probably 13 years now. We're going to patch it up and continue to use it for as long as we can. We hope to go camping in the Fall and Winter. However, we're getting a little too old for tent camping. So, instead of spending money for a new tent, we're going to get a new camper instead (I hope).

We should have been contributing something to the funds every month; but, we haven't been able to for quite some time now. Life has a tendency to cause a body to fall off track. But, I'm determined to get back on track again. So, our "no spending month" begins now. And hopefully, I'll get back on track with budgeting and whatnot. At least, this is a step in the right direction for us financially.