We live about 5 minutes away from the Cheesecake Factory, and lately hubby and I have been succumbing to temptation and picking up cheesecake for a treat about once a week. The problem is, at $7.95 a slice, it is not a very fiscally responsible habit. (It's also not very good for my waistline, but it sure tastes good!) My absolute favorite version is the key lime cheesecake.

Anyway, over the weekend I got it in to my head that I should just make my own cheesecake. So I found

this recipe and tonight I made it. My sister is in town for the week, and we each had a piece and agreed it was really good. The best thing is, I added up the costs and the whole cheesecake cost me $8.08 + a little bit of butter, sugar, and flour from my pantry. So for about the cost of one piece of cheesecake, we got an entire cake. We still have 5 pieces left!

I'm also feeling pretty good because it is the first time I've made a cheesecake

Anyway, to update my challenge, I packed a lunch yesterday, we cooked dinner both yesterday and today, and I did 6 (yes, 6!) loads of laundry yesterday. So that is $9 for the challenge. (I am tempted to add another $1 because the cheesecake was so awesome, but I'm not going to do that )

Previous balance: $63
Current balance: $72

Have a nice night everyone!

Maybe I should say "Rainy Week!" I'm not sure I remember the last day it didn't rain at least a little. But that's alright -- I am enjoying the rain, and all of the parks are looking so lush and green.

Tonight I tried another new recipe -- a potato and chickpea curry from my favorite food blog, Simply Recipes. The recipe is

here. It was *really* good. And without meat, it was fairly inexpensive as well. I will definitely be adding it to the rotation. It also made so much food that we will be having leftovers for dinner tomorrow night. Yum -- curry is always good the next day!

I've decided to start keeping track of my weekly meal plan on a separate page (I was inspired by Cassandra). I'll start this with next week's meals. I am also going to keep track of new recipes that we like by linking to them from my blog entries. It will make it easy to find them again!

With respect to my challenge, today I packed my lunch, walked to school (2.5 miles), went for a run (3 miles), and completed one load of laundry. Since we cooked the curry for dinner, that gives me $5 more for the challenge.

Previous balance: $29
Current balance: $34

So far I've found that it definitely gives me incentive to pack my lunch knowing I can add to the challenge at the end of the day Have a great evening, everyone!

Nothing much to report today, so I just want to update my challenge. I brought my lunch, we cooked dinner, I went for a run (2.5 miles), and I completed 2 loads of laundry. So $5 more for the challenge.

Previous balance: $24
Current balance: $29

For dinner I tried out a new recipe -- sweet potato and red pepper pasta -- and it was really good, so I thought I'd share the

recipe if anyone is interested. And there was enough left over for my lunch tomorrow

Also, I am finally reaching the end of all the laundry that accumulated while we had guests last week. All the bedding and towels needed to be washed, along with all of the regular laundry that I should have washed last week but didn't. I'm glad, because I hate doing laundry, but I will miss all of those dollars for the challenge!

Have a good night, everyone!