February is No-Spend Month...

...was the title of a post in my feed reader tonight. Being that we just met with a financial planner yesterday (and reaffirmed that our finances are as bad as we thought), I was intrigued. The idea is not to literally spend nothing, but to cut out all the extras for just one month and to budget the non-negotiables down to the bare minimum. So, seeing as how we just realized this week that we're actually spending over $500 per month for groceries for our family of 4, Other Half and I have settled on the magic number of $400 to spend this month for groceries, gas, and all the extras. We plan to track every penny we spend and see if, for one month, we really can do without all those little things that creep in and keep our spending to $100 a week.

So how did we get to the $400 figure? I followed house+made's link over to this post at Small Notebook and read over her advice and the dialogue in the comments. Our hope is that we'll not only save a lot of money this month, but that we'll be more thoughtful and purposeful in our spending. I don't plan on having a $400 month every month, but if we did it a couple times a year, that would be a start on a savings plan.

Guess this means we'll have to start menu planning to use up all that bounty in the pantry and the freezer. Hmm, maybe this is going to become one of *those* blogs. Don't know if I'm ready to share every last morsel we eat, but I will do my best to record our spending here...