I’m going to show what a week of money looks like and me trying my best to make it as impressive as possible. 😉 As far as you are concerned it should just be read as fiction. I’m not going to be showing any receipts.

I’m still deciding on what the best format looks like for me and after a whole 2 weeks… I’ve decided to change the focus! Instead of the having such a wide spread, I’m going to focus on Fitness/Health. One of the biggest reasons for fitness is for health, so that’s why I’m counting it as focused enough. I’m also leaning towards doing monthly challenges as progress will be more obvious. If I start a challenge every week… It could be too much, so I’ll stick to the weekly for now. I’ve also considered having other people do and write their monthly challenge experience, so that they can share the load. Definitely something I’d do once I’ve got this more established.

The no spend turned tracking

How much is coming in a week? Between the wife and I, we bring in $1075 a week. There is definitely some room for us to grow there, but focusing on the numbers, we have $110 of wiggle room a week. We have had a lot of changes in our lives which include, moving, job changes, and kids. Since we had some savings from our pre-changes we haven’t been very explicit with our budget. It was definitely a good idea to spend the week really tracking things down and writing out where the money goes. I don’t see any value in breaking down all of the spend, but the one things that I’ll expand on is the “Tools & Materials”.

This makes it seem like I’m buying a tool every week and while I wish that was the case, it’s not exactly what I mean. What I mean is that this is the budget for broken things that need to be fixed and any sort of home improvement/appliance spend. So, for example, a couple months ago we bought a coffee machine. We spent ~$180 on it and that means ~$45 a week for a month ( just to show it spread out a little). We also have a lot of home improvement that needs to be done, so that sort of stuff, while not the same every month, also takes its toll on the budget.

Anyways, that was the week. I know the original challenge was no spend, but as I was starting the week I realized there is a lot of spending I can’t really control. It also would be unrealistic to force my family to put on a fake show for something I wasn’t going to provide receipts for anyways. I hope you can take this and give your own weekly (or monthly) situation a look. I know I’ll have to do some more work on this, but knowing our spend is a pretty good start.

I haven’t focused on the gym in a while. One of the best exercises that you can do though is definitely the squat. It may not be the most fun and you definitely should do more than just squats for a healthy routine. This week though, I want to really work it.

Every day this week I’m going to be doing a form of squats. I can’t go to the gym every day, but that doesn’t mean work can’t be done. To put the challenge into one phrase… “30 minutes of squatting every day”. I’ll be doing a variety of exercises and I’ll do my best to at least record the variation. In the span of week I’m not imagining any great progress, but it will be great to see where I’m currently at. As I move through the exercises and coming weeks, I’ll be able to paint a picture of my current health so that future challenges can be put into perspective. Stick with me as I tighten up my form and set my baselines.

Check out how I started last weeks challenge to see how I did.

If you are here reading, thanks! I’m still working out the kinks and the how to. Having someone interested in challenges and stories is the dream and I hope I can continue to deliver

Feel free to share your own experience! Challenge it all!

P.S.

You can subscribe to make sure you get all the latest challenges. You’ll also be one of the first to find out on future updates.