I have been keeping track of spending, re: Michelle's "No Spend Challenge." And it seems that there are some months when I just bleed money. The car registration and inspection were due by the end of the month, a car repair of a safety system sensor, a quarterly prescription came due. The spending on food so far is zero - I have canned and frozen stuff from my garden, I have enough eggs and milk (and powdered milk) and flour and such to last. When the ripe (and still ripening) fruit is finished off I have frozen fruit. When Michelle mentioned this I decided I wanted to try it so I did my grocery shopping for the stuff that was already on my list on the day before the month started. Clearly there is some planning ahead that goes into this.

I do have some non-cash shopping to do this month is with points or gift certificates. Birds in multiples are finally visiting my bird feeder and I have a supply of bird seed, but if I need more I have a gift certificate (from the holidays) for my favorite feed store. Also, my bank offers points for my VISA card, and some of the points annoyingly "expire" every year. So I used most of them this weekend to keep from losing more. I ordered an enamelled cast iron 5.5 quart dutch oven (Cuisinart). The score point site only lists items, no reviews, but the Amazon reviews for this pot were excellent. I'm looking forward to trying out my new favorite pot soon!