Wednesday Financial Update - 1 Month In

So here we are just about one month into my reboot of my no spend year and I'm doing really well. Last week I took some time to just focus on spending time with the babies and getting back into my fitness routine (I do LES MILLS workouts at home through their On Demand platform, it is amazing.) I only made about $80 last week, which is definitely below my weekly income goal, and you know what? I'm okay with that.
Typically this would've been a cause of anxiety for me. How am I going to pay my Sezzle or After Pay bills? I won't have enough to buy that fabric, book, makeup, or article of clothing I've been coveting all week. This week I didn't care. I think this is probably the first week in a long time where money wasn't at the forefront of my thoughts all week.
You know what else? my daughter's finally starting to call me Mommy, sometimes she comes to me for play time instead of my husband, and she loves snuggling with me in the morning after breakfast. She sees that I'm more present every day and that makes her happier because I'm happier. When I'm playing with her, I'm with her. I'm not worried about how I'm going to find time to finish jobs because now I only work when she sleeps. This is what I wanted when I decided to be a stay at home mom and it's finally coming to fruition because I'm not worried about making as much money as I can so I can acquire all the things.

I mean, who wouldn't want to hang out with these guys all day? (Please note: tiny baby man was only under the blanket for the purpose of snapping this really cute picture.)

I'm not trying to say anything about stay at home vs. working moms, I know every family is different and not everyone wants to or is able to stay home with their kids and whatever makes you and your family happy is what's best for them. I'm just saying that I wasn't present, I wasn't here for my children in the way that I should be because I was worried about being able to work as much as possible so I would have money to acquire things I didn't need simply because the act of acquiring things made me temporarily happy. I was just going through the motions of the most important part of my life and the only thing that would've done in the long run is show my kiddos that the most important thing to me was money and things, and that's not right.

 

The very best thing about this no spend year, even though I'm only a month in, is that it's making me a better mom and, at the risk of sounding cheesy, that's worth way more than any of the things I've acquired with the money I've made these past couple of years. 
This week I didn't buy anything that wasn't an allowed expense per my no buy rules. I bought a bolt of Pellon Easy Pattern from Joann because I'm almost out of the tracing paper I've been using to trace my pattern pieces for sewing. I use this every time I sew so it is a general supply that I'd need to finish all of my sewing projects and that's an allowed expense. I also purchased two knitting patterns, one for a market bag and the other for reusable makeup removers that I'll be using to make items to sell. Business expenses are allowable under my no spend rules, within reason. The total cost for the patterns was under $10. I also purchased my Awesome Con tickets and have subtracted that money from the total amount of money I plan to reserve for that event. 
Come back next week and I'll tell you a bit about how I've started to structure my day to ensure things get done around the house, the kiddos get plenty of play time, and I get just enough work done to meet my income goal each week.