We knew we had to do something big to start off the new year, we just weren’t sure what it was going to be. So we got started, made a plan and took action. Our final decision was to do a No Spending Month!
Honestly, I’m hoping this No Spending Month will turn into a sort of No Spending Year – inspired by Cait Flanders who did a Yearly Shopping Ban to help pay off all her debt – but we’ll see how it goes. It’s hard to set it in stone given that we will be working on lots of projects in the coming months, notably working on the house.
But the great thing about setting goals about saving money is that you can make your own rules. Nobody is going to tell you that it’s wrong to do this, or it’s not OK to do that. It’s all up to you. A No Spending Challenge might look a little bit different for every person. That’s the beauty of it.
For us, saving money by “not spending,” means:
- No coffee or tea when we’re out of the house
- No restaurants
- No takeout
- No new clothes
- No cosmetics (that’s on my end, obviously)
- No new books, notebooks, and movies
- No new tools (unless it is absolutely necessary)
- No household items
- No new electronics or appliances
Basically, no buying things just for the sake of purchasing something. No splurging. No treating ourselves to something nice. Instead, we will find joy in what we already have, and make the most of our time doing activities that don’t cost any money.
Another thing that we always add onto our list when it comes to a No Spending Challenge is minimizing our grocery shopping. Given the fact that we stockpile, we are able to focus on trying to use as much of our staple foods as possible. We also have lots of soups in the freezer, so those are on the menu this month as well.
Speaking of menus, let’s talk about Meal Planning. A great way to save money is to start Meal Planning. I urge you all to start planning your meals, even if you don’t always stick to it. Having a list of 7 meals each week makes grocery shopping easier, more convenient, and best of all – CHEAPER! So start now, you literally have nothing to lose. Except your money, if you don’t do it.
Should you need help getting started, I now offer Meal Planning Services! Feel free to click through the active link to read more about it or to work together.
The only things we will be paying for this month are the following:
- Mortgage/Rent
- Electricity Bill
- Internet Bill
- Phone Bill
- Fuel
- Car Insurance
- Home Insurance
- Groceries (Budget is set at $200 for the entire month)
- Household Necessities (if we run out of toilet paper or dog food, for example)
Aside these things, there will be exceptions. As mentioned, we’ll be doing some project on the house and we’re excited to share our progress! The only other exception I can think of is if we want to go out and use our gift cards that we received for Christmas – I swear if we don’t use them, we always end up losing them.
We’ve also decided that the No Spending Challenge will be focusing on personal finances, with the goal to save money for repaying student loans.
If you like the idea of our No Spending Challenge, why don’t you join us, even if you just start today – any progress is a step closer to reaching your goals! We’d love to hear from you in the comments, let us know what you think and how you would go about doing your own No Spending Month.
If you liked this post, you might also like:
[…] case you missed it, we are currently doing a No Spending Month, so meal planning is more important than ever. We’re trying to minimize our monthly costs as much […]
[…] you haven’t read our previous blog posts, you might not be aware that we are currently doing a No Spending Month challenge, so I thought it would be a great idea to share with you some of the activities we love […]
[…] you believe our No Spending Month is almost over?? Me neither! But that doesn’t mean that our weekly meal plans are over. To […]
[…] though the No Spending Month is over, we are still sticking to our weekly meals. Saving money by meal planning is one of the […]
[…] month of February has been a bit more hectic since we finished our No Spending Month, so our meal plans don’t always go quite as planned. With family visiting this weekend, and […]
[…] we only need to buy 5 things when we get back home. Given that we’re currently redoing our No Spending Month challenge, this is fantastic for our limited […]
[…] case you missed up mentioning it on social media, we’re doing a No Spending Month again this January. So I thought it would be a great opportunity to share with you a No Spending […]
LOL I guess every month is a no spending month for us!! The last restaurant meal we had was a pizza I won from the Christmas contests that Boston pizza had. I can’t imagine buying coffee or tea at those expensive coffee places everyone likes to go to (I drink a pot of coffee at home before I head to work, thats enough for me) I was lucky enough to get three garbage bags of clothes given to me that I went thru and I might have to buy socks for work soon, but thats about it. And unless my monitor finally goes, I wont be having new electronics any time soon (its going black in the bottom right hand corner, it prob will die one day but its only about 10 yrs old, so its all good)
Amazing!! I’ve definitely been cutting down a lot on shopping since we started doing our No Spending Month challenges in general. It’s been more challenging since I started my new job at a clothing store, but I’ve only purchased two sweaters so far, which I really did need to add to my wardrobe after getting rid of all the not-so-nice pieces that had been sitting in the closet for a while. Now that I’ve pared down to only the things that I love, I definitely see what Marie Kondo is talking about in her books when she says you don’t feel the need to keep buying things! Except for socks, which I actually really need to buy soon because lots of them have holes!
[…] in the freezer, as well as in our stockpile. Now that January is starting, we will be doing another No Spending Month so we will be limiting our grocery purchases to a […]
[…] our No Spending Month, our goal was to purchase groceries and gas only. We gave ourselves a budget for groceries, but not […]
[…] previous done a couple of No Spending Month challenges. The most notable one was definitely our No Spending Month in January 2018 to start saving for our Tiny House. Not only were we purposely living a more frugal […]