Well the last two weeks have been tough with school and I haven't even hit our major midterm tests (3 more weeks). I've fallen behind in trying to make contributions to our Roth accounts. I've fallen behind in the housework. Even worse I am struggling with getting all this information organized and somehow crammed into my brain. They say there's still room.. but somehow I am doubting it. I've never been good at memorizing things -- concepts great. Memorization. Ugh.

However, I also haven't had time to buy anything! Our spending is about the same as it was two weeks ago. Going to do a couple store runs this week, but it's almost getting harder to find stuff we need and spend the grocery money. As I've been shopping sales with coupons, we've been stocking up. If I bring home any more pasta, DH would kill me. Still some things that I would love to have a bigger stock of. I'm aiming for a 3-12 month stock of items depending on what they are. Meats are closer to 3 and toiletries are 1 year.

As I was clearing out closets, I was making room for my stockpile of stuff we use. We have a grand total of 3 small closets in the house, tiny rooms and just about no wall space. I love my house! No seriously I do for now, just hoping in a few years to have one that's a little more "remote," with more land and more natural light with an open floor plan.

To add to my savings:
$5 from a survey

Got my federal refund and paid off my second smallest student loan! Another small, but important milestone. Guess I get to update my totals. February is looking like a great debt month -- maybe I should enjoy tax time more often.

Updates on $20 savings challenge:
$2 for Walking and Eating Healthy today
$100 from the tax refund

Also got ahead on some school work this weekend.

Time to set some new financial goals!
1. Keep grocery spending below $200 a month, including dog food, cleaning supplies and toiletries.
2. Get my entire debt down to

Well, the $20 Challenge has really worked well to motivate me towards saving a lot more money. I planned on using rebates that I got from Riteaid, Walgreens and so forth towards the grocery bill. However, since my grocery bill is below $250.. and probably down to $225 this month even buying the extra things that are either free or money making after rebate, I'm putting any money into my $20 savings challenge.

So from January Riteaid is $17.97
Savings from State Tax Refund $24.53

(This is 10%, the extra is going towards either tuition payments, to prevent new debt or paying off existing student loans. I can't wait until the federal refund check. Yes, I know we shouldn't be getting "this much back," but as I already have more deductions that just the two of us... school expenses, contributions to IRAs, and mortgage interest are huge helps and nowadays the majority of our expenses)

So far in February I got one of my student loans paid off! I'm pretty amazed, that we are down to one income, maxing out the 401k, paying for most of the future tuition/books/etc out of that income and paying off student loans and the house. (There's no credit card and no car loans or other debt). On top of that, my emergency fund/saving challenge money is actually starting to build up. In a couple more months, I might be able to start contributing to our Roth IRA again.

Well, Definately have the grocery/dining out bill below $200 monthly now with no problems and stocking up. Rebates/coupons have been great. I don't want to go any lower, although we probably could. I feel if I can save more money, I will probably use it to buy fish or fresh (vs frozen) veggies more often.

For the good news, since I haven't been eating out and have been exercising (sporadically), I've lost 10 pounds in the last 2 months. Most of this I think comes from just not eating out. This was an unexpected *bonus* as I'm not dieting or trying to lose weight. So cheaper and losing weight. I think I can deal with this.

January totals including Savings Challenge and Debt is updated.