Hi, I’m Amy & I live in Dallas with my 5 (mostly grown) kids and my full grown (mostly grown) husband. Off and on, throughout many many years, I’ve fed & clothed the family for $100 a week. Just not consistently. Well, to be clear, they have consistently been clothed. I started this blog to keep me on track with my $100/weeks, so I don’t get distracted and off track.
Current household members and needs include: 3 sons that are bigger than me and eat a LOT, with some special dietary needs, that are pretty manageable. One keto husband who’s dietary needs tend toward un-manageable 🙂 Two grown daughters who sporadically live/eat here on the weekends, but are mostly away at college during the week. The daughters are responsible for the majority of their own food & clothing needs.
The fur babies I’m responsible for feeding include: one mama cat who was (surprise… not…) pregnant and ended up being our cat, along with 2 of her kittens that were un-adoptable (and kicked out of Petco for life… I’ll post about that sometime if you have a long minute…), one elderly cat who only eats lettuce & ice cubes, 3 dogs, 2 geckos, enumerable fish that reproduce almost weekly… and well… that’s it and enough! They all eat very well, included in our $100/week budget. Including homemade treats. And fancy shampoos. uh-huh.
I run the $100/week on a cash envelope system. Details are documented in Week 0. Along with the game plan for the year, which includes what clothing needs need to be met for the boys & me.
$100 weeks are very manageable for lots of different sizes of households and needs, and may be used for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we might need a financial reset, or the trajectory of our finances is about to land us in a ditch. Other people chose to live below their means so they can jump off the “work/buy new stuff treadmill” & live more authentically. For lots of people, $100/week is their financial reality, or they might consider it financial abundance. Others would like to free up more $$$ to shop at Target. This is a judgment free zone, ya’ll. I’m somewhere in the retire early/but still like to eat category.
This blog will document how to live with abundance on a super low dollar amount, still eating tons of fresh fruits & veggies & whole foods. Very few processed foods. And I do still get fancy coffees each week (sometimes several!) and that’s ok! …and it’s also really important to me that the boys wear new shoes. I don’t consider myself frugal, I do not coupon (although I used to be the coupon queen.. more on that later if you’re interested). And yada yada, I’ll add more about me soon!
I realize that different areas of the country have different prices and availabilities of food. We’re in a suburban area, with abundant food at mostly reasonable prices. Even so, I fully expect that some weeks I might fail miserably, and some weeks I’ll be the winner winner. It’s all about about goals & moving forward. I hope that my posts will be entertaining and encouraging to you & yours.
Love, Amy