It’s the last day of January and it’s time to take a look back and see how I did this past month with the Contentment Challenge. It was harder at times than I was expecting, but so rewarding when I chose to say “I don’t need that right now.”

Let’s see how I did:

• Something I was hard on myself for was a pretty expensive trip to Sam’s Club – but it was just unfortunate timing when we ran out of toilet paper, napkins, wipes and diapers – let’s just say it adds up pretty fast!
• I did have to buy a new tea pot – just a week into the challenge we noticed rust in our old one so we agreed that a new one was a necessity. I found the cheapest electric tea kettle on Amazon (going electric this time to save room on our stove and so that it won’t rust) and used a gift card I received from participating in a survey with the hospital I had Ethan in!
• We did spend some money for two fundraisers – first we bought some girl scout cookies from one of the neighborhood kiddos (we always like to support them because we know it is going to be our kids walking around with fundraisers someday) and we also went to a fundraiser for Mike’s brother’s baseball team so spent some money there as well.
• I only went on two paid playdates – both to the Children’s Museum that we absolutely love!
• I only paid for a sitter twice this month…it was so nice having that uninterrupted time to focus on business stuff!
• We went over on our grocery budget for the month – pretty significantly (this is something I’m hoping to do better with next month!)
• I got rid of 4 large garbage bags of stuff
• I only stepped into Target once and that was to return something – do I get bonus points for that one?!
• I participated in one social media free weekend
• And I did memorize 1 Tim 6:17-19 this month!

All in all I feel like I had a pretty good month sticking with the challenge and am excited to see what this new month brings! This month I am hoping to start reading “Present Over Perfect” and memorize 1 Timothy 6:6-7 “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.”

For those of you who missed the original post – here it is with all the details on why I’m doing the challenge and the guidelines I set for it.

And for those of you who decided to join in on the challenge with me, I’d love to hear how you are doing so far! Either leave a comment below or email me at info@alisonmishphotography.com!