$$ tracking = Success

Remember back when I made goals for each month of the year and promised to keep you updated?

Well in February it was all about tracking every penny we spend.

Did you hear that people? Every penny. Even the free cash-money.

Josh and I almost never have cash, so when we do we call it free money and we can spend it any way we want and nobody cares. It's our (very bad and very loose) version of "allowance". So this challenge meant we had to track even free money. Something that goes against everything I leave about freedom in money.

But I did it.
And it was eye-opening.

Turns out our little family of four eats. A LOT of money every month.

Also February was sortof an odd month spending-wise because we paid off da-baby (worth every penny!) and didn't pay our mortgage because of a refinance. So...bonus.

Because of our no cash approach to spending (eat it Dave Ramsey!) using Mint is insanely easy for us. But (by far) the biggest benefit of this challenge was my new familiarity with the software, the charts, the graphs, the budgets, the ins and outs of the program, which means I'm still tracking (almost) every penny we spend because it's just so easy.

Anyway, here's a graph showing our (slightly frightening) spending habits for February. I'm curious, does it look anything like yours?

To hold me accountable for all the months so far......click here.