Have you ever heard of a No Spend month?
I saw the idea in a magazine, and I was intrigued. I decided this would be a perfect 30-Day Challenge!
Simply put, a no-spend month is an opportunity to stop buying stuff! It’s a way to focus your attention on your finances and make you even more mindful of your spending habits. It’s also a way to jumpstart an emergency fund, pay extra toward your mortgage, pay off debt, or work on any other financial goal you might have for 2013.
If you’ve been with me since the beginning of this blog, you know we’ve gotten really intentional about spending our money wisely, paying off our home mortgage as quickly as possible, and trying to be wise stewards of what we have been given. I keep to a budget and watch our bank account closely, but I wanted to try something new this month. And my husband said okay! 🙂
As we were talking about it, we both felt that we don’t really buy much extra or make impulse purchases…but we also agreed it may turn out to be an eye-opening experiment! It’s really going to take some self-discipline and even some self-denial.
What does a No Spend Month look like?
Though opinions and ideas about what to do for a no spend month vary, we decided we want to keep our spending as low as we can. We didn’t set an overall budget, but we’re just not going to do the activities and buy things we normally do. We’re shaking things up!
Obviously, bills (heating, water, health insurance, etc.) will be paid and any emergency health problems that may come up will be treated. Other than that, we’re just trying to avoid spending!
What that looks like for us:
- No eating out
- Limited car trips (We do have two longer trips already on the schedule, so we’ll have to buy gas for those. I’m starting the month with a quarter tank of gas.)
- Eating from the pantry (There will be some grocery bills for fresh items, but I will be planning my meals around what we have on hand.)
- No clothing or shoe purchases.
- No book or educational purchases.
- No Amazon purchases (except foods and the t.p. I just bought that will ship mid-month)
- Essential purchases only!
Obviously things will come up, and I can’t predict what they will be. Since I’ve never tried this before, I’m not sure what to expect, so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out!
We’ll be doing the challenge for the month of February 2013!
Have you ever tried a No Spend Month? Feel free to join me–even if it’s only for a week! Want to post about your journey? Leave your link in the comments and I’ll share it on a future post! If you don’t have a blog, please comment with your ideas or goals!
Love it, Stacie! I’m going to give it a shot, at least for a week at a time. Break it down into smaller amounts, right? 😉
Yep! I may have really bitten off more than I can chew by doing it for a month, but I think it will be so good. I’m glad you’re joining me! A few on the FB page are, too, so far!
I have to say this an excellent idea – although I’ve just had to live this for the past few months due to our current financial situation. The good news is that I’ve learned there’s no reason that my family can not live on a very small amount of money; the past two months we lived off our pantry, didn’t go out to eat, bought only the minimum amount of groceries – usually just milk and meat, the only money spent was for a doctor’s visit and for prescriptions. There’s a big difference when you are doing this out of necessity versus opportunity, but when you attempt this realize how easy it really is for even the basics to be taken for granted. We went through this hardship during Christmas and my oldest son’s birthday – the amazing thing through it all was my boys encouragement, support and understanding. Hopefully this will be a lesson learned and never have to be repeated. Good luck to anyone trying to this!
Dawn! Thank you so much for writing this and sharing your experience. I know that it is so easy to get used to going out to eat or spending money on things I might not even think about, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how this experience plays out.
I agree that it is different when you are doing it out of necessity, and I certainly hope I haven’t offended anyone by this challenge. I’m just trying to get us out of our routine and really thinking about what we are doing with our money.
Blessings to you!
I just did this with my family for the month of January. I thought it wasn’t possible but we did it and put the money saved towards our mortgage. We completely cleaned out our pantry items. We went through all the canned goods and cereal boxes (which I didn’t realize we had so much of). Our freezer was completely empty after this. I didn’t think this was possible, but it was. The only thing we had to pay for was gas (which was my husband’s car to get to and from work). I filled my tank at the beginning of the month and only drove when needed (soccer games and practices). I still have a quarter tank left. Before starting this challenge, I made sure to calculate the amount of bread, lunchmeat, etc., needed for my kids lunches and froze them. I calculated our meat supply and made menus for nightly dinner (which I posted on the fridge for everyone to see). My entire family went along with this and we succeeded. I will definitely be doing this again because we saved so much! I will love the chance to save towards a family summer vacation this year.
I love how you’re making it work for you…and saving for a vacation is a great idea, too! I definitely think it will be good to clean out my freezer and pantry. It’s amazing how much we really have in there that I haven’t used yet! Unfortunately, I didn’t fill up my tank before the beginning of the month, but I knew we would need to buy gas. I’m just going to try to eliminate as many trips around town as I can, and hopefully, that won’t take up quite so much gas.
Thanks for all of your tips!
I will also be trying this. You will sort of be my accountable partner. I have eliminated all unnecessary trips already but my weakness is books and educational items for kids. Lets see how much money I can save.
I know exactly what you mean about the books and educational items! Thanks for joining me!
We are gonna try this challenge. I need to save money, we have some trips coming up and the money saved will help pay for those trips. I also want to use some of the money saved to pay off some debt.
I have thought about trying this. Right now my goals are to stick to just what we *need*. You know, you go to Target/grocery store with your list, but more stuff always ends up in the cart! So, if it’s not on the list, it’s a no! I am new to all this, I need to start really budgeting, and meal planning, so I can’t wait to hear about your progress and hoping I can learn from you and any others that try it.
this is not the month for me to do this, but i think it is a great idea, and i’ll be reading your posts with much interest! i think one of the great bonuses will be having a cleaned out freezer and pantry–using up all the oldest stuff! sounds great!
I’m coming a little late to the party, but hey at least I’m trying! I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while but with our new goal of paying off our vehicles ASAP (they should be all paid off by May), I decided to get my family to go along with this! So we started last week and will go until Mar. 15th. Thanks for the idea!
I think it’s great to start it anytime. It’s been a good way for us to get our focus back for 2013!
March is my birthday month so this will be my 48th year birthday gift…..am excited to see the results of this!!!
That’s a great idea, Cynthia! You’ll have to let me know how it goes!
My husband would never go for this… I could do this on the kids and I, and since I make the food cleaning out the pantry would be smart. This way any expense for the five of us would be gas. Then my husband (the sixth) we could kinda see what he spends. He hates to save money. He talks about spending our savings almost everyday. I wish I could get him on board with anything money related, we would be so well off. However I guess having a Bose system is way more important.
It has been great to clean out the pantry (and freezer)…I had a lot more in there than I thought!
My husband was a little hesitant, but he has been a trooper! Money is the top thing that couples disagree, so I can understand that would be difficult for you. Since there is usually a spender and a saver in a marriage, it can definitely be challenging. Is your husband willing to read any books by Dave Ramsey?