The Freeze Is Lifted

Let's take a moment to look back at April 1st, where I voluntarily put myself on a spending freeze.  Today is April 30th, which means my month of no spending is officially over.  And let me tell you friends, it was a very long month.  Let's recap, shall we?

If you remember, I gave myself a few guidelines exceptions to "no spending":

|| House Spending:  I'm happy to report that I didn't buy anything for the house all month!

|| Clothes, Shoes, Makeup, Etc:  I surprised myself here.  I didn't buy anything I didn't need.  Let me explain - last weekend, we went to DC for a wedding.  On the Wednesday before, I realized that all of my fancier dresses were in storage.  So I needed a dress!  I found a cute one, 75% off, and I had a giftcard.  In the end I only spent $35 on it.  I'd call that a win!  (You can see the dress here)

|| Clothing for the girls: I had allowed myself to buy A shoes, and both girls capri leggings.  I didn't buy either!

|| I gave myself the out of using giftcards I had from Christmas.  Besides the above dress, I used part of one for a sandwich. 

|| Food, including lunches out:  I'll be honest here, I slipped on this a few times.  What can I say?  #ilovefood

Overall, I think I did pretty good.  I'm proud of myself for not running to the mall when stressed, or killing time at work by shopping online here and there.  And the fact that I didn't buy the girls anything all month really needs to be documented.  That hasn't happened since I was pregnant with E!

Moving forward, I've decided to give myself a budget each month.  I'm ashamed to admit that I've never done that before.  I looked at budgets today, discussed with Lindsay what was "normal", and still have no idea how much to budget for myself.

This will be for purely spending - lunches, going out, clothes, shoes, makeup, subscription boxes, etc.  Basically, anything that only benefits me.  So, world wide web, help me out - if you don't mind sharing, how much do you budget for this each month?