Thank goodness March is over, and I can happily say that we made it through the entire month without picking up any fast food. I’m shocked that we actually made it through the month, I really had my doubts that it could be done. We are going to celebrate on April 1st with a few meals of take-out, so there goes last month’s savings, oh well.

So here is how the month went. Week #1 brought the complaints, and me obsessively stocking the kitchen with all of the needed staple items for meals. Week #2 went smooth, but the dishes were starting to pile up a bit, and the kids really wanted those Spiderman toys at McDonald’s. Week #3 was so tough, I really didn’t think that we were going to make it. I was really tired of cooking non-stop, and James had a few words to say too. Week #4 seemed to go better, and we were all happy just to count down the last few days before April.

The dishes really, truly took over the kitchen. I think I literally only had 2 days where I got them all caught up, and the kitchen wasn’t a total wreck. Also baking all of those homemade goodies from scratch not only used a ton of dishes, but I used 20 pounds of Flour in the month of March, crazy.

Now for the Savings: Well this was interesting, I really thought that not going out vs. purchasing more groceries would even out, and then I decided to factor in gas money. It is one of those things that you wouldn’t really think about, but all of those extra trips out to idle in the drive thru waste a lot of gas. I started noticing just how much gas money we were saving by Week #3, I needed to stop for gas, but my hubby hadn’t had to stop for gas at all. Each of us were stopping for gas at least twice a month for about $20.00 a trip.

So let’s break down the numbers:

• Gas Money, it is usually $80.00 for two cars, and this month I had to stop and fill up once for $30.00, and James $0.00! So far that gives us a savings of $50.00!
• Grocery Money: I decided to average out the last 3 months, and put the average against March’s grocery totals. Seeing the totals kinds scared me… Well I was definitely over for the Month of March by about $91.15, so there goes the great gas savings. Now I’m down $41.15 in savings.
• Now for the fast food totals. I averaged the last seven months of fast food expenses, and it gave me a total of $199, yeah I know it sounds like a lot… Well for the entire month of March we spent $0.00!!!
• Here is the Grand Total: Gas Savings $50.00, Grocery Overage -$91.15, but Not Going Out In March for fast food saved $199.00, so that gives us $157.85 in savings!

$157.85 isn’t too bad, but I have to admit I really don’t want to see the kitchen again for quite awhile. Thanks for following along on our Not Going Out In March Challenge!