Scale: January's Zero Spending Challenge

I keep ruminating on one of my guiding words for the new year:  Scale.  Into my head pops the image of my ever friend and foe, the bathroom scale, and then an image of an old-fashioned balancing scale, and then a photo that illustrates proper balance and scale from my how-to photography book.

After the images, come the words:  scale back.  The practical side of me (and my husband's gentle admonishments) point to the need to have a January spending freeze after a couple of months of loose spending.  Ruth at Living Well Spending Less blog has a 31 day challenge with lots of ideas and encouragement. It's not exactly zero spending, but the ground rules are to only spend money on essentials.  

Today I'm starting with Day 2:  Inventory the Pantry and Freezer.  The calendar is clear, I've printed her cute inventory sheets, and I'm ready to see what is hiding in the hinterlands of my 3 pantries and 2 freezers!  The real challenge will be creating meal plans using only what I have, instead of my recipe caches.  

Another challenge will be resisting temptation in the stores.  My children all received multiple gift cards to mall stores, Kohls, and (oh dear) Savers.  They will want to go shopping and they will need an escort.  I will have to think of willpower like a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it.  That concept comes from a self-help book I listened to on a long drive to see family over Christmas called The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McDonigal, PhD.  It contained many ideas to help develop focus and restraint based on current brain research.  I'm a sucker for books about brain research, even though I realize it is a new frontier and all science is tentative (thank you for that reminder, Apologia Science!)

Time to get to work.  Let me know if any of you want to take the Zero Spending Challenge with me.  See you next year!