Today is the day!

It's Friday.

It's May 1.

It's time to start working a little harder to save money. We like to set a "budget" but you see it in quotes because we do not follow it as closely as we would if it were capitalized and not in quotes. The months usually start off good, but things come up, we get invited out to eat, we get lazy, we "forget" that we had a "budget" to begin with. If it is not set in stone it is very easy to stray from, and this is how it has been for us, it's never come out of quotations.

But not today. Not this month.

And hopefully this will set a better standard for us so we will not just have one good month, but we will be able to make this our natural lifestyle.

I will be doing lots of cleaning this month. Cleaning up our budget. Cleaning up our house. Cleaning up our life. I am excited to get rid of more clutter, challenge myself to spend much less, and to just simplify life a little more.

Some of the things I will be doing this month and the people who will be helping me:

1. Planning a whole month of meals. We will not be eating out and I cannot plan on this once in a while. I usually do this by the week, but the month will be very fulfilling and will help me to watch for sales as meals are approaching. Yes, it will be challenging too! Once a Month Mom has been a great help and inspiration in this area.

2. I have been working on getting rid of some of the junk in our house as of late. So much clutter, so little space. To help stay motivated with this, I am going to join Simple Mom and her Spring Cleaning schedule over here.

3. I will be doing lots of evaluating of the things I buy, especially of my "wants" vs my "needs." It is so easy to find a "need" for everything. Maybe it is today or maybe not, but someday I might really need it! This could quite easily be the most challenging of these steps I am taking in the next month.

Little steps. Simple steps. But hopefully leading to leaps and bounds of change. Hopefully leading to the simple life I am striving to live.

Got any great ideas for this? Want to join me along the way? Leave a comment if you do.