281 | 85

Dressing up as Mario never gets old.  

Life changing experience today.  We are taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace class at our church–it’s a thirteen week class.  It’s crazy.  This is the first month that we are working off a budget–using the envelope system.  We allotted a certain amount of money for groceries for the month to see what we could manage.  In past months, we didn’t meal plan, went to Wegmans probably five times a week and bought unwisely to throw dinners together at the last minute.  Or since we had no plan, we went out.  Or ordered pizza.  So I meal planned two weeks a time this month.  We did a big week of grocery shopping, and then a little week to get lunch stuff and fresh produce.  Then we did that again–so this was the last week of the month, a “little week”.  In our food envelope leftover for the rest of the month was $68.  I went to Wegmans today to shop for the week, knowing that I only had that $68 to spend and couldn’t go over.  I put all of my items at the register in order of importance, with the stuff we only kind of needed in the back.  I told the cashier to stop at $68, and so he did.  And guess what?  I had to put three things back.  But I’m okay with that–and I was proud of myself for sticking to the budget.  I’ve never done that before.  Ever.  Now let’s hope we don’t need anything else during the week!!!