Ringing in the New Year on A New Budget

So this is our 2nd day of 31 Days of Buying Nothing. We are headed to my Sister In-Laws home for dinner (pizza) and fireworks this evening. I was stressing last night because we have committed to buying nothing but necessities and I love to wow at dinner parties and spoil others with my food, how was I going to pull this off and not feel like a slacker? So after racking my brain and cabinets I decided to make 2 big batches of homemade breadsticks with marinara dipping sauce and garlic butter sauce. Who doesn't love homemade bread and breadsticks are the perfect companion for pizza. My SIL was thrilled and my husband is just over the moon, he is a bread a-holic in the worse way. Thank the Lord for flour, yeast and water and we only had to spend $1.26 on crushed tomatoes for the marinara sauce.

31 Days of Nothing Challenge

These last few days I have been addicted to frugal homemaking blogs. These last few months have been hard on our budget and we are reaping the harvest from that this month. With 2.37 in our bank account since the 23rd we have had to be creative, and felt led to trust the Lord for His provision. So we took extra video games and accessories to our local Game Stop and sold them (after all they were just collecting dust). That got us through last week, now we did have 2 weeks worth of groceries in the house which is BIG blessing. We were excited to see what God was going to do for the remaining 2 weeks. Then hubby's work blessed us with a 10.00 walmart card which we are using today for dish detergent, butter and crushed tomatoes. And we will save the remainder of the gift card.  So anyway while I was scouring these blogs I came across Learning the Frugal Life's 31 Days of Nothing Challenge and hubby and I decided to go for it. It will allow us to give our budget at least 31 days to rest and heal, but hopefully this will become a way of life for us. So will you take the 31 Day of Nothing Challenge with us? You essentially set aside 31 days and commit to buying nothing but necessities and of course pay your monthly bills and mortgage. I am excited to see how much we will have left over after our 31 days.