Birthday lunch today.. it's ok I'm still on track.

So today was a coworkers birthday and I went along with the group to treat him out for lunch.  It was a tough decision since I brought lunch to work today.  However we're a really close working team and I did allow myself one purchased lunch a week, so this will be it.  We went to Boston Pizza and it was very tempting to have an individual pizza, but the thought of calories/fat/carbs had me choose the lemon baked salmon w/ veggies and side salad.  It was alright, it did the job.  What hurt was the cost.  $18.00 w/ taxes!  Ouch!!  But I knew that healthier eating (especially eating out) came with a higher price than just a burger and fries.  I also pitched in $5 for my coworkers lunch.  With tip, total lunch: $25.

That's way more than I had hoped, but the good news is that yesterday was a No Spend Day! Yay!  It felt good at the end of the day to look back and realize that I didn't spend a penny.  I packed enough food for the entire work day, didn't feel deprived and had no cravings.  It was a really good day.

Today after work, I will need to run to the grocery store to pick up a few more things to make it through the week.  On Sunday, I'll make sure I've got the meal plan all worked out so that next week, I'm making one single trip to the supermarket.  I'm feeling good about this and know that I can stay on top of things.

On a side note:

I carpool with a coworker and yesterday on our drive into work he had to get some gas.  We pulled into the gas station and there was a sign indicating that gas needed to be pre-purchased.  So my coworker stepped into the gas station and after a few minutes I realized that he was still in there.  I looked into the gas station to see what was going on and he seems to be at the register trying to pay for the gas.  In the past he mentioned that finances were tight at the moment so I started wondering if he was having trouble finding the cash or credit to pay for the gas.  He came back to the vehicle and asked his wife for $20.  Luckily it all worked out, but it seems that he had no cash or credit to use.

It was a reminder to me that I was lucky to not have ever been in that position and thankful that I'm working towards never being in that position.  I feel bad for him though, as he's mentioned in the past that his wife loves to shop, and only shops the brand names.  I hope that they realize that they can't continue spending the way they do and decides to make some financial spending habit changes.

Addition of Health & Fitness goals

As I mentioned in my last post, on top of the No (Low) Spend Challenge, I have also started a health & fitness challenge to get into the best shape possible before the end of February.

What does this mean?

1. No more hashbrowns for breakfast (works hand in hand with cutting out coffee shop purchases)
2. No more snacking on muffins and/or donuts (again helping with the coffee shop purchase goal)
3. Complete 3 1-hr cardio sessions a week
4. Complete 4 weight training sessions a week
5. Drink 3 glasses of water a day (usually after my morning cup of coffee, I have nothing else to drink all day, so this is a big goal for me.  Eventually I'll work up to 8 glasses a day)
6. Substitute the not-so-healthy meal options for healthier meal options - white rice -> brown rice, fried -> baked/grilled
7. Ultimately I want to have a defined waist (possibly some ab definition)  It's quite the stretch goal and it's a very aggressive time line.

So in total I have just over 7 weeks to reach that ultimate goal.  In the end, I hope to be eating healthier, not because I'm working towards a goal, but because that's just the way things are.  I'm quite excited to start searching and trying out new recipes.  Whenever I come across any awesome recipes, I'll make sure to post them.

1st update of 2012

Ok, so with this being my first post of 2012, I feel like there's so much for me to write about.  Since Christmas I really haven't had the time to write a post, except for the post regarding joining the No (Low) Spending Challenge.  And how is that going?

I gotta say, it's going pretty good.  On top of this challenge, I also started a health and fitness challenge.  DH is helping me reach my health and fitness goals.  With that, I've had to run to the grocery store a few times to pick up groceries that better fit my healthier eating.  These grocery expenses will come out of the overall food budget, so I'm focusing on staying on budget.

Current 2-week budget (til January 15th):

Food: $180.00
Used so far:  $88.42

Transportation: $120.00
Used so far: $0

Coffee Shop: $0
Used so far: $0 (although I've only been back to work for 2 days, but so far so good)

My goal this week is to set up our ING sub-accounts so that we can start saving for Christmas 2012 as well as have accounts for a car maintenance/repair fund, and a new blinds fund.  I haven't figured out yet, the amounts that will be deposited and at what frequency (semi-monthly, monthly) but if I can get the accounts set up, that's the first step.