Well today is cleaning prep day. I know I won’t get to it all as we have small group and I’m in charge of dinner. Plus Thursday is our full day. I help host a mom’s group in the mornings that is quite the endeavor and then small group at night – with me making clam chowder (a recipe I acquired as part of this challenge. I had clams on hand but no recipe and a friend with a tried and true recipe I’d been meaning to try!)
So I have a few goals today and it will take my husband to get them all done.
After small group we’ll need to tackle these things…
1. I have some crafty/administrative stuff to do for a women’s conference that I’m helping with.
2. We have about 5-6 loads of laundry we will need to fold.
3. Garbage and recycle out.
4. Tidy toys/shoes/and counters.
5. Collect dirty laundry for a few more loads.
That is not the entire “cleaning prep checklist” that Ruth Soukup provides with her free printables but I know it’s even more then we can expect to complete.
That said tomorrow I’ll try to tackle the rest of the prep. I will be gone Friday evening and most of Saturday for our church’s women’s conference and know that the big clean will have to wait until Sunday anyway. So I’ll just do an adapted version and catch up Sunday or Monday.
My very pregnant body makes chasing me kiddos and doing these more physical tasks a bit harder so I’m giving myself a bit of a break while still accepting the challenge.
Okay… day’s complete and here’s what we did NOT spend on…
1. Kids and I did a bunch of pick ups through our Buy Nothing group. I’m telling you… find your local group. They’ve saved my bacon this month. I had some supplies I had forgotten I’d need to fulfill my commitments at Breakaway – the conference I’m attending and helping with. Buy Nothing friends saved the day. They provided 8 small unused journals for leader kits, pillar candles, free standing chalkboards, a burlap/silver table runner, individually wrapped chocolates and several other items I am forgetting off the top of my head. Plus a huge stack of craft/scrapbooking paper we realized we needed in our Illustrated Faith activity room last minute. It’s these last minute things/commitments that can kill you me. But it didn’t break me this time. I just told my awesome community what I needed and they jumped to help! I picked up and some even delivered to my door.
2. I was able to triple a batch of clam chowder for 9 adults and 9 kids and not need to buy! Buy Nothing folks gifted the red potatoes and onion, I had clams in the adopted freezer (that I was just going to toss but was inspired during my freezer inventory to use!), celery, herbs, milk and a group member dropped off bacon since it’s a staple in the recipe and I didn’t have the ingredient. (We usually all contribute something to the weekly dinner so this was not a rarity for us.)
3. I am using what I have on hand. And bororowing. This makes a huge difference!
Things we did spend on…
1. I guess it is still in the “bills” category but man did it feel like taking a hit since we had lost track of the need to renew BOTH our car’s tabs. My husbands were overdue we realized late on Wednesday night and mine expire next week. YUCK! “Absolutely necessary” but wish we could’ve avoided that expense.
Insights so far…
I looked back over our spending on our account and so far so good. We have quite a few bills due the first half the month but still are track to saving several hundred dollars and should be able to save a big chunk next pay period.
This came at a great time. We are hoping to close on a house early next month and the downpayment we have been saving and the necessary costs to close are slowly creeping in. We are lucky that this month we’ll have some extra spending so far.
What we accomplished…I am super impressed because we got everything done on my goals list. Husband was a champion and helped a ton. We did go to be super late but it leaves me with a shorter list for tomorrow and some inspiration to get all the prep done and maybe even venture into some of the BIG clean items. Then Sunday I’ll really hit the “to-do” lists!
Day 8 signing out!