The Gloves are On!

So I've made it through my first week and while it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, there were some parts that I just didn't enjoy. For one thing, I have a really nice Bosch dishwasher. Whisper quite and does the best job on dishes ever! But in an effort to save money at every corner, I am doing dishes by hand. It was rough and my back hurts from leaning over the sink plus I had used every dish in the house because I just couldn't bring myself to load the dishwasher and couldn't find my gloves. Well, found the gloves and dishes are done. I'm also not using the air conditioner in my car. This has been a huge savings. I fill up at least on and a half times per week. This week I only used HALF a tank of the first fill up! This was a savings of 75 dollars! I was surprised I got used to the heat (it's been in the 90's here in Charleston) but what really drives me crazy is my hair. It's already an uncontrollable mass, it blows all over the place and is a constant reminder of what I'm working on. Plus it's very hard to hear the radio while going over the Cooper River Bridge. I'm going to have to find some sort of a scarf to keep the annoyance down to a minimum.

Mary has survived the first week surprisingly well. She's determined to stick with the program even when she is hungry and one of her favorite restaurants is near her Karate lessons. She's becoming aware of what she's got herself into and has a great attitude about it. At 10 she has become quite enterprising. We live in a subdivision with rules regarding exterior aesthetics. She went to the houses in our neighborhood and said she would paint their mailbox posts (regulation color Charleston Green) for $5. She did five houses in the hot afternoon and each person paid her $10. She was so happy when she came home and more determined to keep going. I want more than anything for her to come away from this experience with knowledge of what it takes to really manage money, what it takes to work hard for something and what it takes to really stick with it. So far with one week down I think we're doing just fine.