I’ll take a day #8 to go!

Yesterday was a day of reflection on the first week of The No Spend Challenge.  I’m proud of myself for getting through the first week with only minimal damage (under $40)!  Ha!

Yesterday was also a success because I didn’t spend anything.  Only one more day till the weekend.  The weekend means, that for one meal each day, we get to eat out a meal.  I realized yesterday how much I am looking forward to that.  I think it will make our meals out together a little more special because the meal will be more like a “treat” then just something we always do.  I feel like that is a great side effect of this challenge.  You start to appreciate things more, when you aren’t just spending money frivolously. Date night will be good!

This brings us to day eight of the challenge.  It actually contradicts what I am looking forward to this weekend!  It’s all about making and eating restaurant style food at home.  There are a lot of great copy-cat recipes listed (unfortunately very few of which are vegan) that people can attempt to make.  Thankfully we have cut out eating out to just two meals a week so we have very minimal damage.  Plus we are small family of only two as well.  But for bigger families I can see how this would be of great benefit and probably healthier too.

I feel like I need to make a vegan, child-free version of the No Spend Challenge!  Don’t get me wrong there are great resources out there for the vegan families as well.  One cook book I can think of is Thug Kitchen.  (You may actually need to be child free as well to own this book.  It is very funny but includes a lot of adult language).  It also includes a ton of great (fool even the meat eaters in your family) recipes.  Oh yeah and you don’t have to be Chef Gordon Ramsey to cook any of these recipes!  I am not a cook, so if anything is too complex, I will not even want to waste my time attempting to make it.  The chefs from this great cookbook really speak to people like me.  Making the recipes easy to follow and they even offer solutions to mistakes that maybe made along the way!

So bon appétit and enjoy your weekend together over some great meals!  Can’t wait to hear about how everyone did.  And remember to share those recipes that work as well as the ones that weren’t so great!