The Great Financial Fast

Why would anyone want to deprive themselves of spending any money for an entire week?? Well, that's what we've been trying to do. I don't remember where I got the crazy idea (Oprah or a magazine, something like that), but Rob surprisingly was on board. Secretly, I think he was chuckling in his head, "Yeah right, Andrea. You not spend any money for an entire week." Let me tell you, it has been hard! (But I'll probably do it again next month.) We started our "fast" on Friday--no spending money for anything! It took a lot of prep--we had to be careful with the previous weeks money to make sure we had enough at the end of the week for grocery shopping, fill up on gas, put money aside for Anna's co-pay for a previously scheduled Dr. visit, close my eyes to any winter clearance sales (Children's Place, Old Navy, Kohls--this has been the hardest),...We even got the kids on board--no buying lunches or eating all the snacks in the house in two days,...

I decided that this would be our best way to "save" money to fix up and add to our house. We have several other accounts holding our "savings" for vacations, the future or an emergency, but nothing for updating our house. This is the bookshelf we plan on getting (this Saturday--I can't wait to shop!) if we make it the rest of the week (until Thursday night--only 3 more days)! It's going to go against the tall empty wall in our family room.
Unfortunately, I had to spend some money today, so we won't be able to get a recliner chair also to go in the family room. But because it was for my child's health, I'm willing to sacrifice! Evan came down with a nasty cough. I thought it was nothing big, but he started to get really wheezy. We were out of his Albuteral, so had to take him into the Dr. Turns out he has Bronchitis. Poor guy. Hopefully the antibiotic will kick in quickly. Evan loves his nebulizer, so that won't be a problem!
I will be willing to do this again. I'm hoping to abandon that need to spend. It hasn't worked, yet, so I think I'll need another financial fast or two to help me work through it!