No-Spending Challenge Results and Some Exciting News

No-Spending Challenge Results

I’m way overdue in giving you an update for the no-spending challenge results. I apologize for this. And I must tell you my life had a major surprise that I wasn’t anticipating but that I wasn’t completely shocked by. Usually when people talk like this, they are about to announce that they are having a baby. And in our case…it’s true! Right now we are 27 weeks pregnant with a daughter, Julia Grace (or Jules as I affectionately refer to her as). Skip to the *paragraph if you don’t want to read anymore about pregnancy.

Being in my 40s I can say that this pregnancy is much harder than when I’ve been pregnant in my twenties and thirties. The first trimester I was pretty much in survival mode-making do with the minimum. I was so nauseated and more tired than I could even talk about, I had to sit so much. I would often teach choir sitting down, and as soon as the school year ended, we road tripped from Washington State all the way to Houston, Texas, west to California and north back up home in an epic trip. As in, I didn’t go home from my last day of school-my family picked me up from school, and we were on the road again. We’ve been gone more days in the summer than we’ve been home. For sure.

As hard as it’s been to be pregnant at 43, there are some MAJOR benefits at having older kids when you are pregnant. When you are pregnant, you get to share your joy with your husband, and the grandparents are usually as excited as you are. But with our older kids, they are also as excited as we are. The joy is experienced exponentially! They’ve also been raised to help around the house, so they are equipped to help me when all I could do was sit during dinner prep time. Extra bonus: when I’ve craved, let’s say, something yeasty, Abbie made fresh homemade bread. It really doesn’t get better than that!

Fact is I still do a lot of sitting as I am waving goodbye to the second trimester and eagerly anticipating the November due date. Nausea left me about week 20 and has been replaced by acid reflux. That’s what happens when your short, your muscles are relaxing (letting acid through) and your torso is compressed.

*Back to the challenge: so I can’t believe I did this, but I only recorded numbers for three weeks. Ugh. I’m posting it anyway because this is what I have. And these numbers are from January. Double ugh. Anyway, I am planning on starting another no-spending challenge because it’s August, and that’s often when I go for it since my piano lessons have tapered, which means our grocery money is depleting.

My numbers were HORRIBLE this time! Worst ever. For a 4 week total in a challenge, these numbers are awful, so for an accidental 3 week total, these are crazy bad numbers. I think part of it was coming off of Christmas and needing to restock along with two birthdays in our immediate family. Anyway, I’m getting back on track and using these numbers to propel me to watch things better.

• For the No-Spending Challenge #1 parameters, go here. For the No-Spending Results #1, go here.
• For the 4 Week No Spending Challenge #2 parameters, go here, and for the No-Spending Challenge Results #2, go here.
• For the 4 Week No Spending Challenge #3 parameters, go here, and for the No-Spending Challenge Results #3, go here.
• For the 4 Week No-Spending Challenge #4 parameters, go here, and for the No-Spending Challenge Results #4, go here.
• For the 4 Week No-Spending Challenge #5 parameters, go here, and for the No-Spending Challenge Results #5, go here.
• For the 4 Week No-Spending Challenge #6 parameters, go here, and for the No-Spending Challenge Results #6, go here.
• For the 4 Week No-Spending Challenge #7 parameters, go here.