Had a very nice (relatively) low-spend weekend. I went to see the cherry blossoms in DC on Saturday. Before I left, it occurred to me to pack lunches for myself and my friend so we'd be less tempted to spend money. Since I drove and provided lunch (sandwiches, chips, bananas, and cheese sticks), my friend graciously offered to cover parking, so in all nothing out of pocket other than gas and food already paid for. Saturday evening, SO had one of his half-season games. He gets 4 buddy vouchers, but since he wants to use those for his dad and best friend, he offered to pay for my ticket if I wanted to go. We took snacks and drinks out of our entertainment budget, so that was $35. We also had his best friend's birthday party Saturday night. On Sunday, I spent the afternoon at the dog park. Trying to get in as much time with DD1 as possible before new puppy comes in.

On Sunday, my allergies hit pretty darn hard. I have terrible allergies year-round and take 4 medicines (plus an inhaler as needed) regularly to control them. It still isn't doing the trick. I looked like Rudolph and was miserable. Here's hoping today is better. Although I already have a headache...

I think the stress is getting to me. Despite eating well and getting a fair amount of exercise, my weight isn't dropping. I'm also losing my motivation to do anything and even got spendy these last few days. I dropped $57 on new clothes (5 blouses and a jumpsuit) and $67 on a living social deal for a car detailing. My car is now fully mine and is excessively dirty given how much I live out of it during the winter. Detailing my car has been something I've always wanted to treat myself to yearly, but this is the first time I'm doing it in 4 years. I think once I get all of the junk out of it, I'll feel much better.

On a happier note, heading into DC tomorrow for the Cherry Blossom Festival. It should be a nice day, and I've never seen them so I'm excited about that.

(Potential) new puppy is feeling much better. We won't get her until the following Sunday, but I was really hoping to finish out the approval process this week because that would be a huge weight off my shoulders to know we're already approved. However, since they knew she was ill and not going home this week, the volunteer delayed getting to me, so our home visit is next Thursday instead.

Easter weekend was nice. My mom made it safely to the Phillipines. She was worried since there was a typhoon near there when she was leaving, but all is well. SO had to work both days, so I planned a little fun for Saturday night. We have food coloring and 4 dozen eggs. I decided we'd channel our inner child and color eggs since we eat the hard-boiled ones anyway for breakfast. SO hadn't done this since he was about 8. His eggs were very childlike, but adorable He also worked on Sunday. I'm a little peeved because it was a gorgeous day, and his was one of the only places open for Easter. The GM, who decided to stay open, didn't even bother to come in which really upset me because that just seems like terrible leadership. I think SO felt bad about it because he suggested we walk the dog over to the nearest shopping plaza and have dinner out. Since we rarely eat out and we were walking, we decided to indulge ourselves a bit. We also left the waitress a sizable tip as we were the only outdoors customers, and she was so kind both to us and our dog.

We also met the potential new puppy. The one I'd had my eye on based on pictures and what the foster mom said, wasn't feeling well. She was curled in a ball and sleeping, so we met another one of the females. She was very cute and sweet. However, when the foster mom roused the one we wanted to see, things changed. SO was holding her, and he just pointed at her and said 'This is Riley.' This week we'll go through the process which involves an interview and home visit. If we're approved by the board, we'll get to take her home next Sunday. I'm a little concerned about the home visit. This agency is really adamant about placing dogs with the right homes, and so can be a bit selective when it comes to approvals. My concern is that our apartment is a bit on the small side. While there is definitely space for another large dog, I can see where some people may disagree. My feelings on it are that because the apartment is small, I am forced to make sure they get out and about to expend their energy. We have already set up her crate and plan to make sure the person doing the visit understands that we know what we're getting into. SO and I both raised large dogs from puppies, so this isn't our first rodeo. And by the time, she's fully grown, we'll only be a couple of months away from moving into a larger home. Fingers crossed it all works out!

This will be one of the busiest weekends I've had in a while. For starters, the pet expo is this weekend. I had brought a groupon last month, and since the cold will be back, I plan to take DD all 3 days, so he can get out and see something new.

SO and I have been like ships passing in the night this past week, so we are flexing our meal plan to make tonight Date Night after the pet expo. I have a groupon for a really good Mexican restaurant that his friend happens to own, so I'm hoping for less than $20 bucks from our entertainment budget.

Tomorrow and Sunday, I will be visiting the dog adoption fairs where DD2 (hopefully) is supposed to be. I want to see how she interacts with others as well as myself, SO, and DD.

Also tomorrow, I will be going to visit my mom to drop off the meals for my brother and wish her well on her trip. She lives 1.5 hours away, so it's not exactly a quick trip.

On Sunday, SO is off. In addition to visiting DD2 and the pet expo, we will probably price out things at BJ's. We're trying to avoid buying anything else until April, but it's literally going to have to be 4/1 as we're running dangerously low on stuff. Sunday evening is the finale of The Walking Dead (my all-time favorite TV show!). SO is making stuffed baked potatoes, and we may invite his best friend over to join us. (Side note: I totally just had the idea to dye the stuffed baked potatoes red like zombie guts which is kind of gross, but also a great theme idea...)

Today, I am going to go have the parking pass removed since the weather is nicer. My complex charges $40/mo for garage parking, but street parking (which there is plenty of) is free. The garage was a godsend in the winter, but now that it's warming up, I can deal with street parking. That $40 comes out of our joint account, but will be more than repurposed for the pet charge for DD2.

The other area I was able to save is my phone bill. As you may recall, I pay the full bill for my family. About a year ago, I switched to mobile share bringing us down to $160/month. Last month, I switched again during a special. I'm not sure what the final average price will be, but this month, it was $132! That's including 7 gigs up from the 3 we had before (realistically, we use just over 1, but pricing wise, it's actually cheaper to have the higher rate plan). I'd still like to eventually be only paying my bill, but while my mom is still working on cleaning up her own stuff and with my little brother just entering the work force, it's nice to be able to continue helping them while saving a little.

My boss sent out a link to NY&C who's having a huge sale. I even added 5 dresses to my cart, but when the discount codes didn't apply to the clearance dresses, I decided not to buy any. Each dress was only $20, but I ended up deciding not to purchase. If I do win more than $300 on my 6-month dietbet, I may put aside $50 for some new clothes.

The extra nice thing was after I talked myself out of it, my boss ended up buying me one since they were only $20 bucks.

The scale finally moved! 2.3 lbs. to go by next week to win this month of my Transformer dietbet.

I haven't really been posting about this, but SO and I have been looking at getting DD2. This one will be a female as we've learned it might be better to integrate a female dog into our pack. There is a great Pyr mix that turns 8 weeks early next week. We are 90% certain we are getting the all white female with black raccoon eyes. Her name will be Riley. All 'startup' costs associated with her will come out of our joint account, particularly SO's commission for the month. After that, we are done on the pet front. 2 DDs and 1 DC

I've been reading into the concept of once a month cooking. Anyone have any experience with this? Pros...cons? Tips for starting out/handling it with a small freezer?

I've been working on my credit cards recently, but when I last checked my credit report using CreditKarma, I noticed something else dinging my score...old medical bills.

For several years now, I've been dealing with LabCorp regarding a $538 medical debt. My EOB from that visit stated my owed amount as 32.32. A few weeks after receiving the first bill, I sent in the EOB and requested an updated bill. They continued sending a full bill, and with everything else going on, it just dropped off my radar. After seeing it in collections on one of my reports, I finally decided to deal with it. I called the Collections agency and explained that I had never paid it since I'd never received an updated bill. She requested I send in the EOB again and call the next day to verify it. I forgot the next day, but just called and was told my owed amount is now 32.32. There is a $5 processing fee to do it over the phone, so I will send in a check instead. I also requested that they remove it from my credit report once the account has been settled.

My other credit report has a $90 collection on it, but that was fairly recent and just a dumb oversight on my part.

Hopefully, paying these will help bump my score up.

Also, SO is shaping up to have a pretty great month at work, so hopefully I'll be able to use some of that to still make a sizable payment to my CC. (Just fyi, this is money we spent on getting the apartment ready/pets/groceries before SO's paychecks were more consistent. I track it in our budget to be paid back as we get extra funds.)

I have one remaining magazine subscription for Cosmo and Elle that was a combined deal. Since it's coming up for renewal, I recently cancelled Cosmo thinking it would also apply to Elle since I got them as a combo deal. However, the other day, I noticed a $15 automatic renewal charge for Elle. I immediately cancelled and got a notification that I would be issued a $15 refund for all unsent issues. Imagine my surprise when today, I had a $20 renewal charge from Cosmo. I repeated the process. I'm writing both here and made a note in my budget spreadsheet to monitor these refunds.

One of my biggest grocery busters is our alcohol expense. Both SO and I enjoy unwinding with a drink or two several nights a week. While we could definitely be better about cutting back on this, it's really the only splurge in our grocery budget, so we're hesitant to take it away. Enter the luck of the Irish!!

My company celebrated it's anniversary yesterday on St. Patrick's Day, and ended up with a huge cooler still full of beer at the end of the evening. Since I'm one of the few people that assists with planning and execution of company events, I was able to snag 12-15 of the older beers (leftover from our last company event) since we had to clear out the fridge to make room for these new ones. I also got a huge container of fresh fruit for morning smoothies!

On Saturday, I went shopping for the make-ahead meals for my brothers. While I spent nearly double what I intended ($130 rather than $70), a lot of it was for our own pantry/apartment. I had around $60 left in the grocery budget, so that will be it. The good news is that I believe I have enough on hand to make it through the end of March. I had forgotten about the HelloFresh subscription which came last Friday. I reworked the meals for this week to include those 3 which pushed the meal plan through midweek next week. I can easily survive on pantry food for the last half a week, so going to do my best to not do groceries.

This weekend, I got hit with the spring cleaning bug. We have a list of tasks on our fridge to get done. I managed to cross off quite a bit. Cleaned the bathroom and entryway floors. Changed the tablecloth and washed placemats. Washed bathroom and kitchen mats. Cleaned the stove top and decluttered the kitchen counter. Caught up on laundry.

Plus, I hit my 10k steps both days. I really need to start pushing harder during the week to hit it. I have less than 5 lbs. to go to my dietbet goal this month.

This weekend, my cheerleaders had their competition. I was determined not to spend any of my own money, so I packed snacks for the day, and treated myself (it was 7 am on a Saturday...) to Starbucks using a gift card I had lying around. Unfortunately, I ended up leaving my lunch bag at the venue. It had been a gift for Employee Appreciation Day a few years back and has served me well since I've started packing lunches. Fortunately, Employee Appreciation Day just passed last Friday. My company had decided to divvy up all the free swag lying around rather than get new stuff, so different projects received different things. My project was not slated to get the lunch bags (which I knew because I had helped make the bags). So imagine my surprise this morning, when I found both a lunch bag and cooler on my desk in addition to the gift bag! Now I have a sparkly new lunch bag and a second cooler. We haven't used the cooler yet, but I imagine it will come in handy when we go hiking when the weather warms up.

This is my first time posting about our account. SO and I use a joint account to cover all apartment and cohabitation expenses. I contribute $1400 monthly to this account. SO's contribution varies based on his job. Using the minimum amount for SO, we have a $500 deficit in our overall budget. While his income is still leveling out, I'm fairly confident that that deficit will be covered by his additional contributions the majority of months. For months in which it is not, we have a buffer in our account, as well as several categories I can forgo to keep us within budget. Below is our spending for February. Budgeted amounts are in parentheses.

Rent (inc. trash, H20, pet fees, parking): 1411.66 (1650)
Gas: 77.13 (80)
Electric: 116.16 (140)
Verizon (Internet, cable, phone): 126.36 (126.36)
Groceries: 387.11 (300)
Entertainment: 0 (0)
Miscellaneous: 105 (0)
Couch: 150 (150)
Pets: 410.97 (200)

I previously did not have an Entertainment category. We've decided moving forward to include this as our grocery overage is mostly due to 3 times eating out. Since eating out is more fun for us, I've added a $75 entertainment budget beginning in March. Our miscellaneous spending is for a BJ's membership, reimbursements to my Jan. spending, and an account fee (only charged if our minimum balance is below $1500...shouldn't happen anymore). We budget $200 to DD and DC since we do not have pet insurance. My thought is this money would just grow and we'd have it for emergencies. Poor DD had such an emergency this month, so that's the overage there. The couch is on 0% financing until Feb of next year. The goal is to have it paid by Nov.

Drumroll, please! This time I also put the budgeted amount in parentheses, so I could see how I stacked up against it.

Joint Account - 1400 (1400)
Savings (BOA) - 25 (25)
Savings (Cap. One) - 30 (30)
Insurance - 84 (84)
Phone - 164 (158)
ACS Loan - 170 (170)
Wells Fargo Loan - 50 (50)
Mariner Loan - 100 (100)
Navient Loans - 152 (175)
BOA CC - 197 (165)
Target CC - 207 (207)
Amazon CC - 403 (150)
Chase Freedom CC - 500 (25)
Chase Slate CC - 135 (25)
NFL Points CC - 50 (45)
Netflix - 8 (9)
Food - 54.76 (50)
Gas - 69.64 (50)
Clothing - 0 (0)
Bank Fees - 35 (0)
Pets - 75 (0)
Car - 0 (0)
Misc - 117.49 (0)
Entertainment - 75 (0)

One thing I'm taking away from this is that I need to start allocating money for miscellaneous expenses and a little to entertainment. My miscellaneous spending consisted of a one-off charity expense, a trial of HelloFresh subscription service, Valentine's Day, and Dietbet. My entertainment spending was groupons for the upcoming pet expo and a Mardi Gras king cake.

My February spending totals for both myself and our joint account are forthcoming, but today, I thought I'd evaluate how my goals are going.

Financial
- Build emergency fund back to $1000 (I'm really slacking on this one...I do automatically put $30/mo to savings, but there are several savings accounts with only $15 going to the EF)
- Reduce credit cards (Major

progress!)
- Add savings categories (No progress...)
- Increase retirement savings to 10% (Will be done automatically to coincide with raises in June)
- Build $200 buffer in checking account (Done - 2/6)
- Build $1500 buffer in joint account (Our buffer is about $1300 right now)

Personal
- Lose 10% of my weight (I'm just over 6%!)
- Win at least 4 months of my dietbet (1 win, 1 loss)
- Adopt a puppy with SO (We're following a set of puppies who are about a month old.)
- Get dogs outside for more than an hour 4 times a week (Waiting for DD to heal/the weather to not suck...)
- Cook more from scratch (Doing great on this - note to self: this should be a future post)

Blogging
- Blog at least twice per week (Check!)
- Post monthly budget and month in review entries (Check...even if they're a little delayed...)
- Participate in one 'challenge' quarterly (Not sure about this one...I'm doing dietbets, but that's not an official challenge...)

There's definitely going to be some budget adjustments for SO and I's joint account. Although, I think we are doing one thing correctly. I have a $200 budget for the pets. Whatever is left after food/pet expenses each month will be put into the connected savings account specifically for the animals. Since we are just starting out, it hasn't built up to anything yet, but I definitely see the need for it. Last week, DD was playing in the snow when we noticed blood. We got him home, cleaned him up, and found a huge gash in his paw pad. By yesterday, it was still a wide-open gap, so I took him to the vet. It cost $245 and poor pup now has stitches in his paw. I'm working from home these next few days to ensure it stays bandaged as he likes to rip the bandages off. I hope it is able to close up and heal as DD is so bored.

Due to SO's large payment in the beginning of the month, we were able to comfortably cash flow it, but I did decide to contribute $100 that was going to go to a cc, so that it felt a little more even.

Last Friday was my last day with the babysitting family. I had planned to roll off at the beginning of Feb. and even tried quitting midway through. At least, it's finally over. I'm grateful for the experience as it allowed me to live rent-free for a year and a half. However, these past few weeks have really put a damper on the experience and I'm really glad it's now behind me.

The $400 I received as my last payment will be split between the Chase Slate and Chase Freedom cards.

I will go for a bit without a second job, but in March, I plan to follow up on a pt position at a cheer gym. Also, if the dance group asks me to return, I will do shows for that as well in the summer.

The title's a bit more dramatic than the actual situation, but with all the progress I've been making, this kind of irks me...

My office finally moved the water dispenser back to our side of the hall, but it's been out for about a month now. We had one 35-pk of bottles, but that ran out a few weeks ago. SO was kind enough to lend me his All Clear Camelbak (one of his Xmas gifts from me). It purifies the water for you in 1 minute. I've been using it at work regularly. But yesterday evening, I left it at cheerleading practice. So today, I don't have any water in the office. I could just be dehydrated all day, but it's very cold and I can feel my skin begging for water.

Long story short: I have to buy a bottle of water at the cafe downstairs.

It's really irksome because I actually have bottled water at my apartment. 2 seconds of forethought would have saved me $2 and a lot of self-scolding...

Had a wonderful, low-key weekend. SO had to work all day Saturday, so he made me breakfast (using all groveries we had), and had it set up with a single red rose, a bottle of wine, and a really sweet card. He also pointed out that $20 was hard to stick to, and he only had $1.94 left for chocolate, so I would have to wait until the sales on Sunday

I got his stuff on Saturday. I ended up overspending by $4.50 ($20 is really hard to stick to...). I bought him a card, printed out two pictures, and got a small bottle of Maker's Mark whisky. I told him he could go over by that amount, so I received a box of my favorite Girl Scout cookies: Tagalongs.

On Sunday, we went to dinner at his parents' house. We brought DC for them to meet. They all adored her. His parents sent us home with food. Between that and all of our leftovers, we're good through today. I'm going to try and make it through the week without groceries as we're well over half our monthly grocery budget of $300 and still have half a month.

I decided what I'm going to spend my $20 on. I made bang bang shrimp pasta earlier this week and SO loved it. He loved it so much that he requested that be his meal Saturday evening. On Sunday evening, he will cook steaks and stuffed baked potatoes (I plan to work out extra hard Sunday so I can enjoy the heck out that meal!). Since it's supposed to be frigid Sunday, we will be having brunch with SO's family and then probably spend the day indoors with the fur babies enjoying a How I Met Your Mother marathon. (I introduced him to the show and am waiting to watch the last season with him. We're on season 4 right now.)

My $20 will actually got towards next year's gift. I saw online that someone had written 365 notes to their SO categorized into memories, reasons they love them, and quotes/lyrics. I'm going to get a big jar and post-it notes and start this on Valentine's Day. It's inexpensive and something that he will (hopefully) treasure.

For this year, I will get a card and put my crafting skills to use. For the first 2 months or so that we dated, I wrote in a diary about our dates, how I felt, etc. I let him read it shortly after we moved in together and he loved going back over that time together. I'm going to bind those pages together in a mini-notebook, probably with some pictures thrown in.

Well, this was certainly eye-opening. A couple of things I took away from this:

1) I spend a lot more in general than I think I am.
2) The grocery budget needs a lot of work. (I had thought we were doing so well with eating at home...)

This is painful to share, but here's January's spending:

Savings (BOA) - 25
Savings (Cap. One) - 30
Insurance - 84
Phone - 159
ACS Loan - 170
Wells Fargo Loan - 50
Mariner Loan - 100
Navient Loans - 152
BOA CC - 175
Target CC - 46
Amazon CC - 25
Chase Freedom CC - 125
Chase Slate CC - 25
NFL Points CC - 50
Netflix - 8
Food - 554.63
Gas - 49
Clothing - 7
Bank Fees - 10
Pets - 923.41 (Pet fee for apt., DC's set-up & adoption fees, vet visits for DD and DC)
Car - 639 (New tires and oil change)
Misc - 425 (Furniture incl. delivery tips, family loan)
Entertainment - 12.50

One last note: A lot of the pet, furniture, and food spending went on CCs. SO and I agreed that once he started receiving regular paychecks (beginning in Feb.), he would help pay those things off. He's getting a rather large paycheck Friday which we will decide together how to best allocate to everything.

Snafu asked about my V-day plans which coincidentally go with one of my goals. SO and I decided to do a sort of joint big gift towards our health. He gave me his fit bit and we'll replace it with a smart watch for him which he'll pay for. He's definitely the flowers type, so I asked that we limit a small token of appreciation to 20 bucks. I haven't decided what I'll do for him, but since he's working, I'll probably put my 20 to making him a special dinner.

The fit bit has helped enormously with my awareness. I was really upset about missing my first goal, but since using it, I have been consistently dropping .3-.5 lbs a day. I'm less than 3 lbs. from my goal and feeling great about my chances to get there.

I deducted 200 bucks from my paycheck and budgeted it based on that. There is officially a $200 buffer in my account that I will just ignore for future budgeting. I have not had time to call yet, but I will this weekend about having the overdraft fee waived.

My emergency fund will be at $500 once my tax refund goes through. That money will also help significantly with goal 2 to reduce my credit cards. If all goes well this month, I will be able to pay off four of them and only have two left.

For several months, I've been trying to figure out how to use 3 gifts card with $2 or less. They've just been sitting in my wallet. Yesterday, after some googling, I found that I could purchase e-gift cards for Amazon and credit them to my account. I now have about 5 bucks sitting on my account for whenever I next need something from Amazon and less clutter in my wallet!

I'm getting a larger than normal refund which is nice considering I had two extra jobs and was worried I may actually owe money. My refund will 1253 for both federal and state returns.

I've already allocated it to the following: 500 to rebuilding EF, 500 to reduce Chase Slate, and the remainder will be fun money which I may split between our anniversary trip and spending.

I have wanted a FitBit for awhile, but SO recently loaned me his indefinitely. We're thinking we'll pitch in on a smart watch for him reset the FitBit for me to have.

On the way in this morning, it was seriously cold and I really, really wanted a Croissanwich from BK. Then, I remembered that SO sweetly packed my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The bagel would be warm, and my office has free hot chocolate as an extra warming treat, so I avoided stopping. It occurred to me that life is a series of small, but smart, choices and that's what adds up to a lifestyle change!

On a side note, this also helps with my Dietbet goal. I'm pretty sure I'll make it, but my weight goes up 3-4 lbs. during the day, so it's pretty hard to tell. (My first round goal is 4.4 lbs.) This morning, I was 135.6; I need to reach 134.4. Over these next few days, I will weigh in every morning and if it hasn't gone down .3 lbs., then I will need to start my day with a workout. If it's where it needs to be, then I get an extra hour of sleep

I posted a review about my experience at the vet on Yelp. They reached out to me today and have credited the remainder of the office visit back to me. Since they reached out to me and made it right, I've decided to give them a second chance as SO's pets have all gone here their entire lives. SO will be taking DC in this Thursday.

I'm not liking all the spending this month, but this has been an abnormal month with DD and DC joining us and SO's income not quite leveling out yet. Hopefully, in the coming months, I'll see some real progress on some of my goals.

I so long for the days when money stays in my bank account for more than a day. Half of my paycheck immediately went to our joint account. With the remaining half, I paid several credit cards and loans. I have about $60 in my account left to cover any gas/miscellaneous spending for the next 15 days. Looking at my schedule, I don't foresee any spending needs other than gas which won't be until near the end of that timeframe. I've pretty much cut out all eating out/random spending. The only thing we will really be spending on is the occasional pantry supplement for meals and supplies for DC (who comes home today!!!). These types of expenses come out of the joint account.

This weekend will definitely be low-spend as I will be spending most of it getting acquainted with DC and the rest of the time giving DD attention.

I took DD (for me, this will be dear dog) to the vet this past weekend. There's nothing wrong with him, but he was due for his annual check-up and I figured it'd be nice for the new vet to get to know him (he did also end up needing a vaccine). I was a bit ticked as the receptionist told me there was a coupon online for a free first visit. However, they ended up charging me for the visit. When I pointed it out, they only credited me 21 bucks of the 108. I asked why it wasn't applied to the office visit ($58), and she said something about the vaccine. However, the vaccine was still $30. I think they used the coupon to cover the cheapest item which was the nail trim ($19). Accounting for tax, that seems like that's where the 21 came from. I really wish I were better at speaking up in situations like that as I am really regretting not pushing for the $58 to be credited back.

In other pet news, I don't believe I've ever mentioned DC (dear cat) before. In addition to DD and the (future) puppy, SO and I have decided to get a cat. After several conversations, we thought it best to bring in DC first. DD has been up here about a week and is settling in pretty well, so we've started looking at cats and have found one we really like. We took DD to Petco the other day to look at her, and she seemed really curious about him, but not aggressive. When we took DD away, she was very playful interacting with us. Thursday, we will be meeting her outside of the cage (without DD), and at that time, we will decide whether to bring her home. SO's family gave him some gently used cat items, and my coworker is generously donating things as well, so hopefully expenses won't be too bad.

As previously mentioned, all pet expenses are shared between SO and I and will come out of our joint account.

...on the dietbet goal.

With the crappy weather and my insane schedule, I haven't had any time for workouts. Since my weekends are free, I'm going to double my workouts/intensity in the hopes of kickstarting my weight loss. Fortunately, it's only 3 lbs. to go, but I'm not as far along as I'd like to be.

I've been pretty proud on the financial/food goals. We've eaten out less than 5 times since moving in. And I'm staying the course with budget. I did notice I'm filling up more than I usually do, but since it's so cheap. It's coming out to spending about the same amount.