The unofficial week of gift cards is officially over. My son had gotten a $10 GC for Barnes&Noble from my aunt and uncle. I had a gift card there myself from last year with a $2.82 balance left on it. We went on an adventure this morning to pick out a book for him. We chose the classic "We're going on a bear hunt." I used to love reading that book to the kids at a day care where I worked. The book cost about $8.50 so we used the remaining money to pick up a gift for my niece's upcoming birthday and spent $4.63 out of pocket. I'm pretty happy with that even though I had hoped to spend nothing but hey, we got a gift out of the trip so it's good.
I also purchased a magazine subscription through groupon for my little guy with $10 that he'd gotten from a great aunt for Christmas. The subscription will only be for 6 issues of a magazine called Zootles but it looks very neat. Each issue features one animal and I think we'll do a week or two weeks focused activities and learning based around the animal on the issue for the month. We can even go to the library and pick out books about that animal. I think the magazine subscription will be very fun for him and me. His great Aunt gave him $50 all together so I've allotted $20 for an evening out for him and his daddy and $20 for his next horse riding lesson.
After the B&N trip I stopped at the grocery store with him to drop off a few deposit bottles ($1.10 worth) and pick up apple juice and a frozen pizza for tonight. I got a nicer frozen pizza, not Jacks our staple. After the $1.10 in bottle returns and a random $2 I found in a pocket I paid $4.89 for groceries today. I'm falling a little behind on the every other day no spend average I'm shooting for so I'll have to do a few days in a row this week. That just means I've got some good grocery planning ahead of me.
Average daily spending for 2015: $16.61
I'm very happy with where my average spending is thus far especially considering I've purchased two birthday gifts, three articles of clothing, a mini muffin tin, and a large bag of dog food all this month. I'm going to need to purchase cat food in the very near future so that'll shoot the average up a bit but 25 days into the year, I don't think I'm doing half bad. I'm also breaking my spending up into categories this year so I'm kind of looking forward to the end of the month and reporting where our $16.61 a day was spent. Ah, money fun. hahahaha!
A much happier post. I hope Abe enjoys his goodies.
ReplyDeleteSleep is good :)
DeleteHe loved reading through the bear hunt book yesterday and I'm pretty sure he'll think the magazine is great.
I LOVE that book - my kids used to love it, so it is definitely a classic :) I think the magazine sounds fantastic and I love that you are working with him, getting him ready for school. In the 1st grade class I volunteer in twice a week, sometime around February, they have to do a report on an animal that they choose - you are really preparing him well!
ReplyDeleteI think you have been doing really well with your spending - it is really hard to not spend money - especially when you have kids & animals!! You plan and plan and "oops" life gets in the way! I had planned for a no spend day but now we have to take 1 of our cats to the vet for an antibiotic shot - we can handle it, but I didn't plan it in the budget so I'll have to do some re-working but if we aren't flexible a budget will never work, right?
Sue :)
Oh goodness "reworking" the budget seems to be a specialty of mine these days, hehe. I know what you mean. I hope your cat isn't too sick :(
DeleteMy little guy plays a ton but we do learning too. He's learning his letters right now and we do some memorization, like Bible verses, he knows our address, and we made up a little song so he can spell his name by singing it. It's too cute! I'm really looking forward to doing activity based learning with the animal magazines.