First week in the books!

Well that wasn't so bad. In fact, it was relatively easy and very enjoyable. I already knew that I had been spending WAY too much money on food that eventually would go to waste but I also came to the rapid realization that my frequent trips to the grocery store were more out of habit and serving as entertainment value and novelty during my week more than anything. I am already formulating a plan to implement changes after the 30 days are up which I will share at a later date. However, I've already learned that this attempt at minimizing has become much more than just saving time and money.

I continue to hear the phrase my grandparents may have uttered during the Great Depression when running low on necessities which was to "make do". I'm hardly in dire financial need and supplies are truly not scarce, but I've learned to not give in to immediate gratification on numerous occasions already and improvise after running out of household staples. For example, one day I wanted to make chocolate-zucchini muffins but needed two eggs and only had one. I decided to make a flax egg and add that to my recipe and it came out great and no one could tell the difference! On another occasion, I ran out of both half and half and oat milk. Before giving it much thought, I googled "homemade oat milk" and turns out it's incredibly easy to make and tastes even better than store-bought. My girls seem to be getting into the spirit of my quest as well and my daughter hopped out of the car to grab a large zucchini in a boxed marked "free" in front of a house near our neighborhood without balking. I've been slowly minimizing my household possessions as well and reducing clutter and clothing items to those that hold meaning and bring me joy. Speaking of joy, this past week I went to the Oregon Coast on an overnight trip with my oldest. I woke up early one morning and collected numerous sand dollars while the tide was out. After nearly filling up my bag I thought to myself, "what am I going to do with all of these?" and an idea came to me. Later that afternoon, I went to the beach again with my daughter and bag of sand dollars in hand. I strategically "planted" them for young beach goers who weren't out early enough to collect whole shells of their own. It gave me so much joy to watch teenagers literally scream when they found a couple sand dollars and another little boy and mom so surprised to see an intact sand dollar that the mom took pictures as the young boy proudly displayed his newfound treasure. Who would've thought that my attempt at saving money and time would have led to these increased feelings of gratitude and joy that I'm experiencing:-)