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"Hard to believe, but this week&amp;#039;s the week!! I&amp;#039;ve passed the $5,000 mark that I set for myself last March. Whew. At the beginning of the week I put $115 in savings that I saved on grocery shopping left over from October\u2014remember, I&amp;#039;m skipping one trip the grocery store every month and trying use up what I&amp;#039;ve got in my kitchen. Something I&amp;#039;ve been trying the past few days: Not going to the grocery at all, which has prompted me to be super-creative with our meals and I&amp;#039;ve also finally cleaned out the freezer (Goodbye frozen pizza crust that I always forgot about, goodbye turkey burgers and frozen peas that were stuck in the back.)Using up my stuff has actually been cathartic, and I figure I&amp;#039;ve saved about $50 in groceries and take-out this week. If you&amp;#039;re going to try the Save $5,000 Experiment, here&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;ve learned:   Sometimes you fall off the wagon, which is okay. Some things are hard to stick to\u2014for me it was bringing breakfast and lunch to work. I also just can&amp;#039;t use coupons for groceries. My local store doesn&amp;#039;t take them, and traveling to another town to grocery shop is impossible. I allowed myself to forego these things, but tried to save in other ways\u2014I now always go online to find coupons before I go clothes shopping, book vacations, and entertainment. I think before I purchase anything, and I always make my tea at work rather than buy it. Open a savings account now. This is the first thing you should do. I waited a while, which was dumb. Opening the account gives you a total boost when you watch the numbers climb. I swear it&amp;#039;s the most empowering thing. And having money automatically deducted from your paycheck and put into your savings is truly the easiest way to save. Change your attitude toward money. I never really got into this in the blog, but along the way toward my goal, I decided to heed the advice I&amp;#039;d heard from our money columnist Mary Hunt, who talks a lot about being grateful for what you already have. For so many of us, money is how we measure our success and what we think we need to be happy. But once you start appreciating your life and the people in it, the material stuff matters so much less. Scrutinize your bills. Over the past several months, I&amp;#039;ve lowered our grocery bills, entertainment expenses, our car insurance and our cable bill. A few things I never got to but would surely save me more: getting rid of some of the bells and whistles on our home phone (do we really need call waiting\u2014or a landline at all?), renegotiating our homeowners and life insurance, and rethinking some of our doctors (many of whom aren&amp;#039;t in network and end up costing us a lot of cash.)  That&amp;#039;s it. I&amp;#039;ve had a blast saving, and I&amp;#039;m going to keep it up. Once you start you&amp;#039;ll be hooked too!Happy saving! How much I&amp;#039;ve saved on the way to $5,000: $5,051.17, and that&amp;#039;s not even adding in the $50 or so I&amp;#039;ve saved in the last couple of days! Look at me, I&amp;#039;m actually a saver! Who would have thought. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a41955/mission-accomplished-3819/?src=shelter_footer>