day 145: no spend november

downloadable cash envelopes from today's nest :)

day 145 and the family and i are embarking on no spend november so we can all spend in december :)  i absolutely love and adore and treasure and embrace christmas ... it truly is my favourite time of the year.  that means i also spend a lot of money on christmas, lucky for me my husband never complains but it does put a strain on our budget big time :(

inspired by all the wonderful budgeting advice on pinterest, i came up with the no spend november motto for our family. literally this means we have decided to give ourselves a weekly allowance for petrol, milk, fruit, vegies, rhooibos, and the emergency items required for the survival kit over the next month.  the remaining money will go to paying off debt and saving for christmas.  more scarily this also means for the next month my pinterest creations will all have to be from stuff we have at home ...eeek!

that said, i am really looking forward to this as we have a ton of food in the freezers and pantry that would otherwise go off because i fail to use it because it's so easy to pop to the grocery store and buy everything for dinner rather than scouring the cupboards and freezers! i hope at the end of november mother hubbards cupboards will be bare and clean of chaos, clutter, and unloved foods.

to help with this task i am going to use the cash envelopes from today's nest that you can print out and make up with a register of money outgoings on the front and a handy pocket on the back for receipts. theses envelopes i found on pinterest and pinned them to my ideas for organisation board. each fortnight during november i will fill these up with my allotted money for each thing and that will be it until the following fortnight.  i am also freezing my credit card and eftpos card so i am not tempted (think of the movie confessions of a shopaholic!)

outcome: SO VERY VERY PENDING, but please wish us the best :)

my thanks to the pinners of pinterest for all the wonderful ideas for making life more frugal but still fun.  it has totally inspired me to curb the spending of this family and get the budgeting of my family sorted.  granted, no spend november is rather extreme but so is doing 365 days of pinterest creations and i am almost halfway through my year!  my thanks also to today's nest for the freely printable envelopes which will no doubt come in very handy for dispersing the fortnightly money so petrol money doesn't get chewed up by the fruit expenditure!