RAGNAR

Ragnar is a running relay race with 12 people, 2 vans, 188 miles in two days. Each person runs 3 times and each van has 6 people so the first van of people run their legs and then they have a few hours rest while the next van of people run their legs. John ran it this last weekend and he did amazing, he ran all 3 of his legs (about 18 miles ) in 2 hours and 12 minutes (or so) He was the fastest on his team for sure :) The first one he started running at 4pm and was 6.9 miles, labeled as Very Hard. He ran downhill the whole way. His second leg was 8.1 miles and he started running at 2am, also labeled Very Hard. It was uphill most of the 8 miles. His last leg was 3.1 miles and he started running at noon it was labeled Easy, and it was flat the whole way.
John's team finished in 28 hours and got 73rd place out of over 500 teams. They did awesome! My aunt Janene, cousin Jody and cousin Ben were all on the team plus my mom's cousin Craig.

Way to go you guys you did amazing.

Weeks 2 and 3 of our budget crunch

Ok so we have been very busy the last few weeks, so I forgot to post how we have been doing...
Week 2:
We spent $10 less than our budget this week so we are now $60 ahead of schedule. We went to Winco for grocery shopping...what do you guys think of Winco? I like the prices, but I feel like I'm in Walmart and I HATE Walmart. I read some reviews on Winco and most of them were bad reviews by employees. We bought some produce and it went bad pretty fast too. John likes it because it's cheap and they have everything. So I'm not sure if we will go back...John wants to and I don't so we'll see (I do the grocery shopping most of the time so it's really up to me I guess :)
Week 3: = Bad week
We blew past our budget this week...
I had to buy a few pairs of short and I couldn't find any that I really liked and that looked good on me at the thrift stores (I actually found a pair at Uptown Cheapskate a few weeks ago for 5 bucks and they are awesome). So I went to Old Navy (bad idea) and found a pair of capris, a tank top, shorts and a shirt for Gretal (they were on clearance) and a pair of shorts for me which I a going to return because I don't like them as much as I thought I did.
John also ran in Ragnar, which is a relay race this weekend so we ate out a lot and I drove a ton (I was the baby van...because I had Gretal and Jerome who's mommy needed to nurse him every few hours). So needless to say we spent an extra $40 this week.
This week we are going to be in Spokane and probably will blow past our budget again because we still have to get TJ a wedding present, a shower present for Bailey and food at Hoopfest. Oh well we did for the first two weeks which is a hard thing for us :)

Week One of Budget Crunch

It went well and we were even under our budget by $50!
We decided to "shop from our pantry" this week because we weren't going to eat at home much. My aunt Janene had us over for dinner a few times because of things we were doing so we ate at their house a lot. Is that cheating??? Oh well I don't care we made our budget and that's all that matters.
I had to get gas in my Jeep and that always sucks because it's usually 50 bucks :( Which brings me to my next idea...public transportation...
Here in Utah we have the trax which is like a subway but above ground. There is a stop here in Sandy that is about 5 miles from my house. Since I drive downtown probably twice a week I decided that I would try to take the trax at least one of those times to save some gasoline. This Friday John and I are going to take it downtown just to see how it works and all that. I am actually kind of excited. I was going to do it tomorrow when I go to my momm and me class but John said he wanted to do it too so I will wait until Friday. I will probably drive to the station in Sandy since Gretal doesn't like the bike trailer (silly baby), and then take it downtown. Plus I will have to take the stroller because we will need to walk about a mile from the stop to mommy and me.
This week we have to buy Gretal's passport and John and I both have to get gas so we are going to be cutting it close so we'll see.

Budget, Budget, Budget

I hate budgets. As do most people I guess but they really suck. John and I have been spending money like crazy since we moved here. There is just so many new things to do and new food places to try. We decided that if we want to pay off the Jeep, have money to spend in Germany, and keep trying new things that we need to stick to our budget :) So starting today we have a strict budget and by helping us to keep to this budget we have decided that we are going to:
Eat out less, go grocery shopping once a week, buy used, get a freezer (used of course) and buy in bulk when things are on sale, only buy things we need not what we want, and find free things to do, because there are a ton of free things to do here, plus we need to be working out more so taking walks and bike rides will help too.
To help us do all of this I decided to keep a "journal". I am going to keep track of all of our spending, activities to do that are free, keep a list of things we buy all the time so when it goes on sale I can get it in bulk, pretty much write down everything. I dont' know if this will help but we'll see.
Don't get me wrong we are not in debt, besides our house, cars and John's student loans but we would like to pay things off faster and have a bigger savings. I know we can do it we just have to really pay attention to what we are spending.