No Spend January

Mar 5

Written By

It's March, yes. But this is too important not to share! In January Terrell and I got a little crazy and put away our piggy banks and debit cards and went dark.

I constantly get these crazy, anti-mainstream, slightly socialist, ideas, like not purchasing anything new for a year or hand making everything we own or living without cable or living out of our car for 2 months. And somehow Terrell always goes along with these absurd ideas! Well, back in December, I found our next challenge! Through some super random blog hopping and some pinteresting I found Rachel of The Small Notebook.

Terrell and I were having some intense money conversations about savings and all and we were kind of at a road block for what to do. So the next day (literally) I randomly found this idea from Rachel of a No Spend month. It took about 3 clicks, some frantic reading and 1 quick email to Terrell to decide that we were on board. And thus was born.....

NO SPEND JANUARY

(Imagine fireworks and balloons and cheering)

Since December is always the month that breaks the bank, due to gift buying and traveling, we decided that January was the perfect month to recuperate from this and a great way to start our year off by setting us up for frugal and intentional spending.

So, here's the gist or 'rules' if you prefer:

Choose your month
Evaluate your spending budget (food, gas, extras. NOT bills!)
Cut this amount down to about 1/3
Pull this amount out of your account in cash. NO dipping back in!
Create a plan to cut down on your excess spending

Here are some suggestions on how to make it work:

use coupons
shop at discount grocery stores
make a meal plan and grocery list and only buy whats on it
limit your grocery trips to one time every 1-2 weeks
use a calculator at the store to add up all your purchases
no eating out
no online shopping
no trips! plan some staycations

This sounds like no fun and for quite a while it was no fun. There was lots of loud joke/serious shouts of ITS NO SPEND JANUARY. We needed some reminding sometimes. Our friends made fun of us. We got seriously cranky because we were hungry and wanted to eat out or wanted to buy a toy (because we are children) or just wanted out of the house. BUT! In the end it was SOOO fantastic. We learned so much about ourselves and how we make purchases based on instant gratifications and thoughtlessness. Here is our breakdown:

Caution: shameless disclosures about to happen.

Our monthly discretionary budget of food, gas and anything that is not a bill:

800$

No spend January's budget:

300$

How much we put in savings and paid towards our debt:

500$

Seriously people. That is real. We paid off a ton of debt that month. To us 500$ is like gold. We don't make a lot, but there are only 2 of us. We don't drive very far for work and we have a great discount grocery store. So, all in all, our teeny tiny budget may make you laugh, but application is everything! Fill in your costs, how much extra money would that be in your account in just one little month?!

Full disclosure: Terrell kept reminding me that I had to include these things in this post. 1. The last week of December we bought 150$ worth of groceries that lasted more than half of the month. 2. I got some small travel expense checks (under 50$) from work that we put into our spending fund. So, our month was not perfectly in tune with our expenses, but all in all, we did it. We were frugal and disciplined and accountable. We needed the boost, not only to pay down some debt, but to remind us that spending isn't the key to happiness....