$21 challenge

Well i have decided to have a trial run of the no spend challenge now. i will allow spending to help get ready for next yr though. i have decided that i what to knock off the Credit card debt before Christmas. threes ruffly 12 weeks till Christmas and about $10,000 to pay off the card.

this sounds like an impossibility but its not. i have already budgeted for half this money, so its only about $5000 that i need to find.

so to start with I'm going to do a $21 Challenge. (that's just the name of the challenge) is basically about doing as little shopping as you can and living out of your pantry, freezer and fridge. The $21 was based on a family of 4, so i actually budget for $30.

so today i went through the freezer, pantry and fridge. and have made up a menu plan. i was shocked to discover that i actually have enough food in the house to do a whole month of challenges. so I'm going to try and stick to a monthly budget of $90. As my normal monthly shop is about $590 i will be able to put $500 away into the credit card. yay!!!.

So today i spent trying to get myself in order and my house, i took advantage of the lovely sun today and got 4 loads of washing done and dried. Yay no dryer needed. you see one of the tricks to pulling off these challenges is to get yourself organised, the rest just falls into place.

so tonight i have cooked a cake, a big batch of bickies and i have yogurt on the go in the yogurt maker. all these will be included in the kids school lunches.

I'm going to do some more baking tomorrow and this will be put in the freezer for the kids for lunches as well as after school snacks.