Frugal Accomplishments 12/15-12/22

I am a bit late with this post thanks to the holiday's and a few sick kiddos. We however do have lots to talk about this week.

The biggest frugal accomplishment this week was changing from our current homeschool art class to a 4h art class. We had been using the base arts and crafts center for our art class which wasn't really working well for our family. The classes were at the same time as our son's bus drop off. So I either had to hire a babysitter to get him off the bus or drive the 30min to the class, drive the 30min back home, get son off bus, drive the 30min back to the base, pick up the girls, and drive the 30min back home.  Only the oldest two children were able to participate so that is 2 hours in the car for them driving back and forth. The total cost of the class was $200 per semester plus $160 for babysitting for the youngest 4 children. Not my brightest decision.

As much as I appreciated having 2 hours once a week all to myself while the kids were in their lessons and the little ones were with the babysitter we couldn't continue to do so long term. I mentioned to a friend that we were no longer doing art lessons and she told me about a 4h art class for homeschool children. The class is in the mornings so it no longer interferes with the bus drop off schedule, the twins are able to participate, all their friends are present, and it is FREE. Done!

I think the best part for the oldest girls was realizing that their artwork would be displayed at our local farm fair this spring.













We stayed on budget for our grocery shopping this week, ate at home for the majority of the week (out daughter did get a happy meal after being seen in the ER for a virus), and avoided the majority of the consumer driven insanity that is taking place out in society.

This week we also kept our budget tracking software up to date, worked on our excel spreadsheet outlining our financial goals for 2015, tracked all of our large upcoming expenses (summer camp, birthday's, etc), calculated our sinking fund totals for the coming year, and found that we are very close to being able to max out our retirement accounts!

Over all we had a pretty frugal week! I would love to hear how your week went!