No Spend Weekend

This month we exceeded our monthly budget ($450) by January 25th therefore in an effort to keep our February grocery budget on track (will deduct January overspend from February budget) this was a zero grocery spend weekend. Time to clean out the cupboards and dig around in the freezer to make it to the end of the month.

Yesterday was crock pot chicken in mushroom sauce over rice, breakfast was scrambled eggs with bits of jalapenos, green peppers and summer sausage (left over from weekday lunches). Both turned out very nicely. Tonight I have to create something with white fish. Time to turn to allrecipes.com, one of my favorite free sources for recipes.

Instead this weekend was spent thinking and planning our future downsizing (1-3 years). A "garage sale closet" was started. Every year the town my mother in law lives in, Mundare, Alberta (1 hr away) has a town wide garage sale.

I volunteer to assist her with the garage sale but also bring a truck load of our own items to sell. The concept of the more the better especially applies to garage sales. Due to the large number of sales loads of buyers are attracted and most sellers are able to part with 90% of their goods from a 9am-2pm one day sale. I also take a break around 10am and walk the 2-3 blocks surrounding her house to get my own bargains.The sale is always held the first weekend in May (start of Alberta garage sale season when the snow is gone).

Here are the initial results of my weekend scrounge:



As I find more goods to part with all I have to do is deposit them in the closet. I can't wait for May!