Our family has two No-Spend months a year. 1. "No-spenduary": January is a great month to not spend on non-essentials! Christmas has provided lots of toys, wants and needs to enjoy this month. We also eat rich food in December and need to get back to a healthier diet. Finally, we live in an area of the country that experiences a cold and wet January. Staying in with a home cooked meal and a book by the fire is something to look forward to after the hustle of December. 2. "No-spendtember": September is a great month to challenge your family to cut frivolous spending. After the back-to-school shopping in August, no one should need clothes. And let's be honest, how many parents take the kids clothes shipping without bringing home a new toy?? Laptops and new phones have been purchased for those college and high school students in August. If you garden, September is a harvest month so food costs should be lower. (I am sure your co-worker that gardens is begging you to take zucchini by now!) This is the month we start saving discretionary money for the upcoming holidays. I know, those pumpkin spice lattes come out this month, but try pumpkin spice zucchini bread and a cup of coffee at home! God bless!
my Dad used to say "watch the invisible spending"!! The coffees, magazines and other impulsive daily spends. He showed me that I was spending £600 per year each year on coffees. He also said that when you make a big spend, you must see it in terms of your gross salary, e.g. if you're taxed 20% on each 10k, then if you spend 10k you must see it as 12k. This is because we think of our income in terms of our gross salary, not our net salary. all good advice
Something that really helps to avoid stops to McDonald’s is that we eat lunch BEFORE we leave to run errands and I make myself an iced coffee or herbal tea in a tumbler so I am not tempted to stop for snacks/drinks, saves me $5-10
I am actually just starting my three month no spend and I am doing pretty darn good. This is not my first spend and the first one that I did I was able to save $3000. I know everyone will not be able to do that but every little bit helps.
We did one in May and we saved $700 😱. We moved the money to our emergency fund so its now fully funded. We are doing it again for July but this time the money saved will be used to prepay our mortgage.
We do it every single year in February. We call it Austerity February. I love it. My family tolerates it. LOL. We don't eat out, we don't buy things we don't absolutely need, we eat what we have in the pantry and fridge/freezer, we don't do paid activities, and so on. I also use this month to go through our budget, trim expenses, cancel subscriptions, unsubscribe from marketing emails, clean out our paper records and get ready to file our taxes. And finally, it's my declutter month. I go through every closet, drawer, etc and look for things to sell, give away or donate. For us February is the best time - it's the shortest month of the year, but also it's a good time after all the holidays but before taxes to ensure we'll be prepared to pay our tax bill.
Love this! About to do a No Buy July myself and am trying to see it as more of a game rather than deprivation. It’s a good time to practice contentment and one thing I love to do during these is an at-home spa day! I’ll give myself a facial, manicure, etc. using items I already have!
You can’t always return clothes depending on the ToS. Most of the time it’s 30 days within purchase with receipt for cash back. Beyond that or without a receipt it can be a store credit. Sometimes it’s not returnable.
If I would just stay off Amazon- I would save a lot of money, but it's too easy just to "add to cart", but I did start adding things to my cart & making myself wait 24 hours to see if I really still wanted it. That alone has slashed my purchased by a 1/3!
I was amazed when my daughter in law ordered a high chair on her phone in like 3 clips. I rarely on line shop but never with my phone. It just too easy to buy online. I’m so happy that’s not one of my issues. I have plenty of others😄
Top tip is to cancel all streaming subscriptions. It's not just the money you save. Look at your Amazon/Netflix/Whatever history of what you've streamed the past few months and add up all the hours you spent watching fictional people live their fictional lives and have fictional adventures, instead of living your real life with real people and having real adventures yourself. Go on your own trips! Socialize yourself with the real housewives of Whatever Town and solve crimes yourself (there are plenty to investigate these days).
I'm so impressed that you like The God Father. :-) I am a HUGE fan of "no spend days". I challenge myself every month to have at least 20. I generally only spend extra on dining out, my pets for special treats or my gift sinking funds. Very rarely do I outspend those areas and if I do, I take from balance of other sinking funds to cover.
We keep an every dollar budget but even with that ,we try to use up the groceries we have and "shop" out of the pantry and freezer. I do the same thing with my craft items. I use what I have vs buying new stuff . Saves lots of money!
The Right Way To Do A No Spend Challenge-Another way to succeed is to actually focus your energy on earning money instead of spending it. Plan a yard sale during this time period. It’s a fantastic way to clear out unused items and build up your savings account too.
I totally agree with you, Don’t just stop spending for a week and then splurge at the end. Instead, put all the money you saved into a pre-determined place. These are the most popular ideas people use, Invest the extra cash
Replace your debt card with a new one. That automatically shuts down your spending...you have to deliberately update your card info for every purchase.
One thing I do all the time to avoid impulse buys is to put it in my cart and wait at least 23 hrs. Many times I don't end up buying. Sometimes, on vendor sites, if I leave stuff I the cart they start offering discounts over the next few days. Lots of time I stoll end up not buying but if I do I save money at least.
Brilliant! We do no spend the last week of every month and buy nothing at all. Then we have no spend January July and October where we just buy food fuel and bills
Loved this video Rachel!!!! Thanks for sharing these great tips! I will do a no spend challenge for July! Thanks for the inspiration for it! Love ya Rachel and your RU-vid channel!!!! You have amazing content and information!
I had already been planning a No Spend July so thank you for the motivation and tips. We are a family of 6 so all the tips to make it thru but have fun are appreciated. Thank you!!
Funny- I’m working on my “medicine cabinet”. My mom moved in recently with us. And her insurance provides credits every month for otc and healthy food- we make a list and shop. We get what is needed and go shopping an activity. A win on most occasions,
Thank you for explaining how to do a no spend challenge. I never really understood it other than not spending money - LOL I love True Crime stories too. I am also trying to read more often - I have SO many I want to read (a lot from Ramsey Solutions LOL).
Thank you for sharing these ideas!Something that helps me is to not open emails or texts from companies I shop from that are offering sales. Also just to unsubscribe from ones I no longer use. If I am not browsing I am not tempted to buy 😂
Yup, I immediately delete the emails telling myself, I'm not buying anything anyway. When I know I'll need something, I know a new deal will be available
I'm going to do this job for 1 year starting in january. This however would not include renovating my bathroom and fixing the things that absolutely must be.
Subscriptions new years day order a new bank card. All subscriptions will not go through and the ones u really miss u can sign up2 again if you MUST..!!!
I’m doing this now for December. Going great so far and am not into Christmas anyways. I really don’t need anything and need to pay off my credit card.
Just deleted Uber eats! Really not sure why it was on there anyway. Well I know why but it doesn't make any sense. Bolt now... still looking at it and deciding!
I decided to have a no clothes buying for a whole year. In regard to everything else I mostly don't buy anything new, so the clothes is my next challenge...
Most weeks are no spend for me I've been paying my necessary bills food gas I haven't been going out and spending money on clothes or household items like furniture or knick knacks the only debt I have is a car payment and that is a very small one I put $12,000 cash down and my trade in was $5,000 last August I had thought about taking out more savings and paying cash or cashing in some 401k paying it off but decided not to it's good to have a small amount of debt as long as you pay your bill on time and I've been paying extra when I paid off my house 5 years ago I took a hit on my credit score all my credit scores have always been in 800 plus. My only income is social security no job pension but I am still able to put a set amount of money into my savings every month. When you started talking about the real housewives having clothes in their closet with price tags on it reminds me of a friend 4 years ago myself and another friend helped this friend clean out her room that she had racks and racks of clothes on she said take whatever you want I took two good-sized totes of clothes home I don't expect anyone to agree with me but this is my decision
