This is Day 1 of what DH and I call "The Quit". Before I got up, he'd made and eaten his breakfast so when I got up I made a cup of coffee, sipped a little of it, checked email, then cut his hair for him. Rather than have that "man losing his hair but not admitting it" thing going on he keeps it cut very short all over. I like it but then, I think bald is sexy. I do! Yul Brynner was one of the sexiest men in my opinion. And while DH has much more hair than shaved Yul, I can only hope he is someday totally bald! So yes, I cut his hair for him and that's always a nice savings.

I also shaved a spot on his back for his nicotine patch and placed it on for him. It isn't sticking too well but it's there. I might have to use some medical tape to keep it on. Mine is on my left arm. And we're each in possession of a small piece of straw. It gives us something to hold in our hands and in our mouths. It really does help with the physical habits acquired during years of smoking.

So far, so good. We aren't yelling, snapping or biting one another but it's only been a short time. We'll see how the day wears on. The nice thing is, even if we have a rough day, at the end of today we'll have saved close to $10. How 'bout that, sports fans? I need to get my quitmeter up and running. It really helps keep with motivation.

So, here's to those of us who are bald or love bald, saving money, and quitting smoking. May we be successful!

It was a good day at work. It wasn't quite as busy as I like but it wasn't horribly slow, either. During my lunch break I ate my turkey pastrami sandwich and a few of my chips and drank iced water. Spending today? Nothing, zip, nada, zero!

I got home a bit ago and decided to sit for a few minutes before making dinner. It won't be anything fancy, trust me. DH is having chili dogs and I'm having chicken tamales topped with chili. Later I might have a chili dog but right now that doesn't appeal to me.

In the past, he'd suggest that we go grab something and I'd heartily agree. But tonight he didn't suggest and I didn't bring it up or even consider it. Rather, I asked him to give me a few minutes to rest before making us something to eat. He agreed and we'll soon eat our frugal but tasty dinner.

While at work I priced the store brand nicotine patches. 14 of them cost $24.99 plus tax and that box will last us one week. So, even while we're using them we'll be spending less than we spend on cigarettes. Gotta love that!

I just talked to my other half about our spending habits and the ways we waste money. He agreed with me immediately that we need to stop the waste and also agreed to some tactics I have in mind to help. One is that we stop smoking. The other is that we limit eating out to once a week. So, this Friday when I get paid I'll buy nicotine patches. The last time we used them I only needed them for 5 days and he needed them for about 3 weeks. If it goes that way this time we should have the $40 a week we normally spend on cigarettes freed up by the middle of February. And if we only eat out once a week, we'll see the savings there immediately!

**Quickie update** I was feeling a little hungry and thought about making some scrambled eggs and beef sausage. But I remembered some of the spicy chicken I used to make quesadillas was still in the fridge so I made myself a spicy chicken and cheese quesadilla and microwaved it. It was better than the skillet ones a few nights ago and I used up most of the chicken. There's still a little left, just enough for a quesadilla for DH for lunch. I asked him to please eat that up when he gets hungry. He kind of halfheartedly nodded but just now made himself a beef sausage sandwich. This isn't going to be easy!

So, wish us luck!

Last night when I couldn't sleep I perused some blogs. Ima Saver had a brief entry in hers about using the envelope method. I like her way of doing it so I figured out how much we would need to put back per week if we did it the way she does it rather than how we do it now. In reality, there isn't much difference but my mind was reeling last night so I was up late playing with numbers. What was left came to about $200. The shop income varies but that's a rough guess. Huh? $200 a week after we pay bills? We never have that much! So, where is it going?

Let's figure this out. From the $200 let's subtract $40 for cigarettes. Yes, I know we need to quit but honesty is vital here so I'm stating for the record that that is an expense. Okay, we have $160 left per week. Now let's subtract $50 a week for gas, understanding some weeks it might be more and others it might be less. We now have $110 left each week. Most weeks we spend about $45 at the grocery store. Again, this varies but that's a fairly accurate figure. We're down to $65. Throw in the $8 or so a week for laundry, the $20 or so DH gives me throughout the week for whatever I might need and we're down to $37. From that subtract the drinks and snacks he likes to get when out and about and whatever little incidentals might come up. Uh huh, that's where it goes! But wait, somewhere in there we eat out and we do it too often! Hmmm, no wonder we're always short on bill paying money!

So now I know why we never have $200 after putting money in the envelopes. The question is: what can we do about it?

Well, the first and most obvious thing we can do is quit smoking. That frees up about $40 a week, though not immediately as we'll use the nicotine patch which is expensive. It's cheaper than cigarettes, though, and once we're finished with them the money spent for them will be available. We're already pretty frugal with groceries and because of dietary restrictions we can't get much lower than $45 a week so that will need to stay about the same. However, we can reduce the food we waste and further reduce eating out which will help a lot.

So if we just quit smoking and cut back on eating out, $70 or so a week will be freed up. Hmmm, in theory, anyway. This all looks fine on virtual paper but how realistic is it? That's what I don't know.

Something else for me to ponder today while at work....

I went to bed but couldn't sleep. I have a knot on my gum that is causing me some discomfort. I got up to take some aspirin and drink something hot but that hasn't helped much yet. So here I am again, reading and thinking, thinking and reading.

Here are more of my musings on creating some kind of financial plan for this year. It's hard! But putting my thoughts in a blog entry and getting feedback seems to help the process. So does reading the blogs of others. I've gotten some excellent ideas and am very thankful for that. On the other hand, I read the blogs of some members (like Ima Saver and Lux Living) and feel like such a spendthrift at times! But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If reading their blogs inspires me to do more to cut back here and trim there and save this way or that way, this is a very good thing! Again, I'm thankful.

I've thought a lot about waste the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure why but it's been on my mind. Perhaps the recent political issues in the news got it started. Then I talked to my youngest son tonight. He's an OTR driver and called me from Indiana and we got into a discussion of government waste and the national sales tax concept. Regardless, waste of this sort and that sort has really been in my thoughts lately.

DH and I are wasteful. Compared to many we aren't but compared to many others, we are. I think we're too wasteful and want to work on reducing waste.

We throw soft drink cans in the trash. That's wasteful when we can sell them for a little bit and that could be added to the challenge money or put in savings.

We smoke still. Yes, we quit for almost a year but started again. We smoke less than half of what we used to smoke but it's still costly in many ways and wasteful. We need to quit. Period.

We try very hard not to waste food and for the most part we're good about that but we do it at times. We need to put an end to it and eat or freeze leftovers before cooking something else.

We waste time. Oh, do we! We're at the shop more than anywhere else and unless we're open we're wasting time. There's no television at the shop but we stay online when not busy. There are other things we could be doing - reading books about personal finance, discussing strategies to save and the need for a plan for 2008, continuing to work out goals for our marriage, etc. Surely there are more constructive ways to spend spare time.

Those are just four ways in which we're wasteful. The first three directly impact our finances and eliminating or greatly reducing them could save us a bundle. Quitting smoking alone would save us about $35 a week. The last one indirectly affects our finances but I'm not sure what the solution to it is or if that solution would save us money.

Okay, now I'm all verklempt. Give me a moment..feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. Opinions, suggestions, accolades and spare change welcome!

DH made sales calls today and ran to the post office to mail some things. He spent $13.44 at the post office and that's it. I haven't spent a cent in days and days.

Oops, that wasn't it. He told me he also spent about $5 on a drink, peanuts, and a pack of cigarettes.

So the total is $18.44

I didn't quit smoking on the 1st as I'd planned but I did quit on the 2nd of January. This is what my quit gadget just gave me:

17 hours, 55 minutes and 29 seconds smoke free.

60 cigarettes not smoked.

$7.00 and 11 hours of your life saved.

Wow, $7 saved already! Impressive