A documentation of my journey to improve my life
Tag: budget
What have I learned living on $250 for a month? I’ve been asked this a few times over the course of my challenge and each week the answer seems to be different. I guess that’s kind of the best part of doing these challenges and writing this blog, I’m always progressively learning and changing my understanding of the world I’m exploring that month. Just thinking about the growth and development I’ve gained over the course of this month makes me believe that...
First off I’ve always been a car guy. Not a car guy in the sense that I could take one apart and have any idea how to put it back together again (not my forte at all) but a car guy in the sense that I love driving my car. I am the proud owner of an Octane Blue 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer that I bought brand new off the lot (my first new car). I’ve put over 160,000kms of road trips...
What if you woke up one day and you found that without warning your whole life had been completely flipped upside down? What if your house, your job, your financial security and everything you knew were all of a sudden ripped away and you were forced to start from the absolute bottom. What would you do? Would you breakdown, fall apart and give up or would you brush yourself off, pick yourself up and will yourself to move forward? It’s a...
To most people living on a whopping $8 per day means cutting down to just the bare essentials. Get all your food, cheap transportation, hunker down, do as little as possible and hope no unexpected disasters happen. Would this allow you to survive on your meagre budget? Sure. But how boring does that sound?! If I was going to do this month long budget challenge I wanted to do more than just survive it, I wanted to make it epic! Sure I didn’t...
It’s Molly again, reporting back with reflections after my week of accepting Ryan’s challenge! As I mentioned in my first blog post, I regularly spend $400 a month on groceries; $200 every 2 weeks equating to $7.14 per day. And let me tell you, this is not willy nilly spending! To make this happen I have to plan my meals down to the T to make sure I spend my money the best way I can. The Strategy At...
Big Plans For The Day This was supposed to be a good day. Actually I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while. Funny how just when you think things are going fine and you’ve got everything under control, that’s when life will pick you up, whip you around and land you so drastically off course that you’re not sure how you’ll find your way again. I woke up at 6am on Friday nervous and excited about the busy...
My old roommate and good friend Ryan Majeau and I often debate, about pretty much everything (we’re both stubborn). One time we got into an argument (debate) about whether it was more expensive to buy your lunch out everyday or spend the time to make a bag lunch. His argument was always for eating out. He figured by the time he bought bread, lunch meat, cheese, and veggies to make a sandwich, then added a granola bar and maybe an...
Who’s Got What It Takes To Live Without? Of course living on $56 for food, gas, entertainment, and booze for a week is crazy; it’s ridiculous, drastic, and near impossible. That’s the point! This challenge is supposed to be an exercise in extreme budgeting practice. It’s meant to throw you in an uncomfortable situation and see how (and if) you handle it. What if $56 is all you had? What if your world changed in a second and you had no other choice...
Self Inflicted Pain My first day of this new challenge was by far the most difficult. Being so busy rushing around with the end of last months cooking challenge I didn’t get a chance to go grocery shopping for this month. This meant when I woke up day one I was somewhat limited on my food selection. From 6am when I woke up until after 8pm all I had to eat was two eggs and two granola bars, which I had to...
“Why only budget $250 for a month, that’s crazy!” Let me first begin with my motivation for this month’s budget challenge. I suck at budgeting This could be due to a lot of reasons but mostly because I am simply not a planner. Planning involves foresight, scheduling and attention to detail, all things I’m not naturally astute at (unless you look on my resume). I’m more of a spontaneous, adventurous kind of guy. I plan what I have to (the big stuff...
