October was our first full month of once again setting financial goals and trying to stick to them. Here is how we did:
Save 8 months of living expenses. Thanks to our Murphy month, no progress was made on this. Right now we are still at almost 4 months living expenses (3.92 months, to be exact). Barring any more visits from Murphy (and really, it is high time he moves out!), we should be able to save at least one more month of living expenses by the end of December. We will need to come up with a plan in January, once my income is no longer coming in, as to how we will live on my husband’s small graduate assistantship without dipping into the savings we are building now.
Write a budget and stick to it. I was WAY over this month thanks to Murphy. We are trying to scale the budget down further for November.Strategically use coupons to pay no more than $300 a month on groceries. Still working on this one; I am averaging about $400 a month right now.
Have two no spending months. I recently read how the author of The Saved Quarter has a no spending WEEK instead of a month. I think that is much more manageable. We will be implementing a no spending week this month. (I’ll blog about it.)
Spend less than $200 on Christmas gifts. We are on our way to achieving this. See my posts on having a debt free Christmas here.
Have a pantry challenge for one month. This challenge will be coming soon as we are very well stocked.
Earn $1000 from selling items from the Declutter Challenge on eBay. Thus far I have cleared out 565 items from our house, and from the ones I have sold on eBay, I have earned $411.55, not deducting eBay fees. I am done listing now for awhile as it is no longer really the kids’ clothes season. I will begin to list my kids’ clothes again in February.
Save all of our change every month and put in a new car fund. We added another $23.83 to the fund, so now we have a grand total of $64.60.
Research places I can potentially publish articles and try to get some published. I am still working on this. I have been accepted to one online writing company, but I am trying to find other places that may pay better.
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