Life on the road

My home is my ….

Last Monday was when I made a public commitment to sticking to a $300 per week cash budget. I said then that I would come here every Monday and give a report on how we did. So, here is the report for the first week of Cash Monday.

We went to the bank and drew out the cash, and divided it up between us. FabGrandpa got to hold $120 and I got to hold $180. Yeah, I was the divider, and I also was the one who had to pay for more stuff, so I got more money. It’s just like that around here.

We went out to breakfast 4 times (all at Cracker Barrel); we drove out to Brenda once (about a 250 mile round trip); we drove up to Sedona once (about a 325 mile round trip); we ate lunch out twice (once for Mexican food, once for gluten free pizza in Sedona); we bought groceries, cigarettes, high dollar vitamins, and ice cream and milk at the convenience store (very high dollar!!!). As you can see, we had a very good time of it.

This is NOT how we live every week, but it was our first week on this budget, and our first week in town with our friends. So, we went driving more and out to eat more than we usually do, and will probably be doing more of the same this week.

The bottom line: We have $36.80 left of our $300 this week. Week one, on budget.

We drove up to Sedona through Jerome today. The scenery was beautiful, breathtaking in places. I couldn’t chose just one for my Project 365 today, so here are 6 eye candies for you to enjoy:

The last one is for Alan, who manages an Ace Hardware in Georgia:

We have decided to put ourselves on a $300 per week budget for the winter. This means taking the cash out of the bank once a week, on Monday, and putting it in our pocket. Putting the debit card away, out of reach. This cash in hand has to pay for groceries, gas, cigarettes for him (yeah, I know, grrrrrr!!!), beer, going out to eat–basically whatever we want to do each week, we can do, as long as we have cash in our pocket.

We’ll see how long we can do it. I think we should be able to have cash left over every week, he thinks it won’t be enough. Last winter we tried to do it on $180 a week, but always fell short and had to get more money before the end of the week. So, I’ll be posting every monday from now until the end of April, to say how we did each week. What do you think? Do you think we’ll be able to live and have some fun on $300 per week?

We had planned to go exploring with Lynda and Charlie today, but when I called Lynda said Charlie was sick and didn’t feel like getting off the sofa. And FabGrandpa was the same–he coughed all night long until he finally moved from the bed to the sofa. He has been feeling puny all day.

So, I was left to entertain myself. The other day when we went to Camping World, I bought a couple of spice racks. I already had one, a three tier one, but I had too many herbs and spices to keep them all in that one. So, I got out my girlie tool kit and put the new ones on the wall. The wall under the kitchen cabinets leans at a funny angle because it is in the “nose” of the trailer, so it was a little hard to get the screws started, but soon I had it all done. And now I have room to put all of my seasonings in the new spice racks. I think I did a great job!