I'd like to say I've been super good at not spending money since my last post, but soon after on that very day I wrote the post I stopped for gas to put in my van. What I didn't need to do for the budget or the waistline was stop for a soda and three candy bars. Oh, two of those candy bars went to the kids! I only ate one. That was $5 spent that was so not worth it.

The gas was needed as we drove 200 miles round trip today to visit another college. Great visit, but because students are moving in, we didn't get the housing tour or the free lunch in the dining hall. We were on our own for lunch and spent nearly $20 at Subway. I also bought a water for $1 later in the day. I did plan ahead and made three PB&J sandwiches because we weren't going to have time to stop for dinner. We rushed to the school open house straight from our out of town trip. We did all later eat a little more at home. It could have been worse on the spending so I'm not too upset with how it turned out.

After the school open house, we realized the need to purchase a couple more 3 ring binders and a graph paper style composition notebook. Another $9 spent at Target which included soda my daughter asked for...which I now regret getting. At least I'm aware and will work to do better. My kids rarely have pop, so when she asked I felt like treating her.

I'm trying to remember if I purchased some clothing items at Target before or after my last post. I think it was before. I had purchased three of Target's $5 t-shirts and a pair of workout capri's. This was about $40 worth of clothes. The capri's don't fit (yet), but I'm tempted to keep for when they do. One t-shirt doesn't fit right so it's going back. I expect to keep two of them. If I return one and the carpri's, I will have about $30 to put back in our budget.

Looking back, I wished I had skipped buying all the soda and candy bars, and planned a lunch from our food stores at home rather than buying Subway. Savings would have been about $27. I don't really regret the clothes, as I rarely buy any for myself and sometimes you just need a few things!!

I'm going to keep trying to keep the extraneous spending to a minimum. Luckily the art supply of $10 no longer applies, but we are required to buy a $36 music software subscription.