~Wasting Change~

I guess I will own this, not that I am proud of it... but we are quite a wasteful family. Not with everything, but enough so that I decided that it was time to make some seriously drastic changes if these peeps want to take an impromptu and somewhat expensive vacation this year.

We had bowed out of the whole idea of a vacation since the littlest princess got her braces but once I figured out how much food, stuff...aka...money, gets lost, used improperly, stolen, thrown away or goes bad...I figured if I can change this, and right now, we could take some seriously awesome spur of the moment vacations.

I started reading some pretty cool articles and then I found one talking about, "Making the Spare Change." It gave all kinds of ways to find money and save money and keep money and then find some more.

First on my list of "finding money," cleaning out all of my purses and the toy bins and junk drawers and car ash trays. After 3 purses, (and that is all I have cleaned so far) I almost fell off the chair. I had almost $68.00..in change. I told everyone that they are going to need to go through all of their nooks and crannies and find all the loose change. I know it is there, I have seen it. I have 33 more purses and bags and backpacks to go through by Monday. I am figuring that I will most likely, have over $400.00, in change alone....... and for me, that is huge, to clean out all my bags (that, and to have all that change accounted for)!!!! Every penny we have will be going towards the surprise trip.

The second change: Well, I have heard it so many times before but I really have never ever followed it. Pay ME first. Makes sense but I guess I just never did it. I started it this weekend when I went grocery shopping. At the end of checking out, the checker always says...."you saved $XXX.00 amount of dollars today." I decided that, that amount saved will be immediately withdrawn from my account with cash back, and put into another account that only I access. I hope to eventually incorporate the savings when I wash the car myself or do the bug spray thing myself rather than pay someone else to do it. I had stopped using all my coupons awhile back but am getting back into the swing of things with them so that will help even more! My ultimate goal would be to save $2,000.00 a month. I have not explained to everyone that we will be using all the things that we have before we go and buy more, in an effort to cut back and be a lot more aware about how we are living, but I know it will be much easier with them going back to school and not being home 24/7 anymore!!

I think for this week, two big changes should be enough to push me nearly over the edge. I would love to hear from anyone...even the blog stalkers that never leave comments, on how you save and how much is normal to try to save because maybe I am missing a boat and should be trying to save even more with a family of 5????