1. Please introduce yourself and tell us why you have decided to spend nothing (or spend significantly less) for the Month of September.
My name is Kristina. For a long time now my husband and I have had the goal of paying off debt, saving, and eventually (within a year or two) saving up enough to afford the down payment on a house.
Although I am a SAHM, my husband makes more than enough money that we should have been out of debt with a positive savings YEARS ago. We live in a very inexpensive small house (for our area) don't drive new cars, and don't have tons of stuff. And yet we trudge along, STILL in debt, and only making a small amount of headway.
A few weeks ago we sat down and really looked at what were were spending: Waaaayyy to much on dining out and on alcohol, lots of little things that nickle and dime'd down our paycheck, and big splurges every few months (a new set of wood working tools for Aaron, a trip to another city to visit friends...)
We want to try being hyper-conscious of our spending. We've decided that we will not be dining out at all this month, with the exception of using a couple of gift cards, and one friends and family trip to the Farmers Market. We will not be drinking any beer and wine unless someone else brings it to our house (we often have community dinners). And we will not buy ANY unnecessary stuff.
2. No spending is hard work. You need a plan. Please tell us your game plan -- how do you plan to approach no spending for a month?
To quote Mad Eye Moody, "Constant Vigilance!" We know what we need to do: we have just been unwilling to step up to the plate and DO it in the past. We're starting by being super-accountable to one another and to ourselves. If I have the urge to buy something I'm going to tell Aaron right away and discuss it. And vice versa. If I feel like I can't get by another month without a pizza stone, or Aaron is certain he needs a rabbet plane, we will both be on board to really talk the other down and say, "NO. We don't need this. Is buying this now more important that buying our house? Because every little nonsense purchase we make is taking us farther and farther away from our future home."
I also need to REALLY get on top of the cooking. I love to cook, but as of late I have not been terribly consistent. Often times Aaron needs to buy lunch at work. If that happens three times a week (common) and he buys a snack every day then we've lost $150 for the month that could have easily gone into savings. That is $1800 over the course of a year: a LOT of money. Same goes for our evening meal or lunch: often times we go out because I've been to tired to cook, don't have anything ready, and nothing in the house is easy and quick to cook. One dinner out a week costs us $30, and a trip to the Farmers Market costs $20 for breakfast. If Denali and I have lunch out once a week it is $15. So we've been going through about $260 a month, or well over $3000 a year in dining expenses! Not good!
So between Aaron's snack and lunch, my lunch out with Denali, and our family dinner out and breakfast at the market we are eating away almost $5000 a year.
(Oh lord, I am in shock as I write this all out).
3. Be specific! What are your goals? How many no spend days is right for you? Do you have a savings goal? Debt repayment goal?
As of this summer we were finally consumer debt free for the first time since we were seriously dating. Unfortunately right after we paid off the last credit card we decided I needed a different car and got a reasonably priced used wagon. Sadly it was about $1K over what we wanted to spend, and then needed about $2K in repairs, including its 90K service (which we thought had been done) and brand new tires. So that put us in debt another $3K, and then we managed to spend a bit more. Darn it!!!
*We have managed to pay off $2K of that, leaving us with $2K more. If all goes well it should be gone by the end of October.
* After that we have a mandatory Thanksgiving trip that we need to go on (no option not to go as it was my idea and the whole family is flying/driving in for it). We did the math last week and discovered that by driving we can save $900 over taking the train (we'd need a sleeper) or flying. So we'll brave an 18 hour one-way drive to make that happen in November. That will mean that we can pay off debt this month instead of acquiring MORE debt in order to pay for tickets.
*I am planning on making sure that Aaron has some kind of lunch every work day so that he doesn't need to spend $15 every day on lunch and snacks.
* We'll keep doing what we usually do for Denali's new clothes: buy used or shop the sales.
* We will be very careful about purchasing other items. Chances are we don't need them.
My name is Kristina. For a long time now my husband and I have had the goal of paying off debt, saving, and eventually (within a year or two) saving up enough to afford the down payment on a house.
Although I am a SAHM, my husband makes more than enough money that we should have been out of debt with a positive savings YEARS ago. We live in a very inexpensive small house (for our area) don't drive new cars, and don't have tons of stuff. And yet we trudge along, STILL in debt, and only making a small amount of headway.
A few weeks ago we sat down and really looked at what were were spending: Waaaayyy to much on dining out and on alcohol, lots of little things that nickle and dime'd down our paycheck, and big splurges every few months (a new set of wood working tools for Aaron, a trip to another city to visit friends...)
We want to try being hyper-conscious of our spending. We've decided that we will not be dining out at all this month, with the exception of using a couple of gift cards, and one friends and family trip to the Farmers Market. We will not be drinking any beer and wine unless someone else brings it to our house (we often have community dinners). And we will not buy ANY unnecessary stuff.
2. No spending is hard work. You need a plan. Please tell us your game plan -- how do you plan to approach no spending for a month?
To quote Mad Eye Moody, "Constant Vigilance!" We know what we need to do: we have just been unwilling to step up to the plate and DO it in the past. We're starting by being super-accountable to one another and to ourselves. If I have the urge to buy something I'm going to tell Aaron right away and discuss it. And vice versa. If I feel like I can't get by another month without a pizza stone, or Aaron is certain he needs a rabbet plane, we will both be on board to really talk the other down and say, "NO. We don't need this. Is buying this now more important that buying our house? Because every little nonsense purchase we make is taking us farther and farther away from our future home."
I also need to REALLY get on top of the cooking. I love to cook, but as of late I have not been terribly consistent. Often times Aaron needs to buy lunch at work. If that happens three times a week (common) and he buys a snack every day then we've lost $150 for the month that could have easily gone into savings. That is $1800 over the course of a year: a LOT of money. Same goes for our evening meal or lunch: often times we go out because I've been to tired to cook, don't have anything ready, and nothing in the house is easy and quick to cook. One dinner out a week costs us $30, and a trip to the Farmers Market costs $20 for breakfast. If Denali and I have lunch out once a week it is $15. So we've been going through about $260 a month, or well over $3000 a year in dining expenses! Not good!
So between Aaron's snack and lunch, my lunch out with Denali, and our family dinner out and breakfast at the market we are eating away almost $5000 a year.
(Oh lord, I am in shock as I write this all out).
3. Be specific! What are your goals? How many no spend days is right for you? Do you have a savings goal? Debt repayment goal?
As of this summer we were finally consumer debt free for the first time since we were seriously dating. Unfortunately right after we paid off the last credit card we decided I needed a different car and got a reasonably priced used wagon. Sadly it was about $1K over what we wanted to spend, and then needed about $2K in repairs, including its 90K service (which we thought had been done) and brand new tires. So that put us in debt another $3K, and then we managed to spend a bit more. Darn it!!!
*We have managed to pay off $2K of that, leaving us with $2K more. If all goes well it should be gone by the end of October.
* After that we have a mandatory Thanksgiving trip that we need to go on (no option not to go as it was my idea and the whole family is flying/driving in for it). We did the math last week and discovered that by driving we can save $900 over taking the train (we'd need a sleeper) or flying. So we'll brave an 18 hour one-way drive to make that happen in November. That will mean that we can pay off debt this month instead of acquiring MORE debt in order to pay for tickets.
*I am planning on making sure that Aaron has some kind of lunch every work day so that he doesn't need to spend $15 every day on lunch and snacks.
* We'll keep doing what we usually do for Denali's new clothes: buy used or shop the sales.
* We will be very careful about purchasing other items. Chances are we don't need them.
WOULD have been a no spend day . . . until we realized the car seat we had bought didn't fit and I had to go out and spend 31.84 on another one (luckily I had some gift cards).
: Unnecessary spending
: Groceries
:
: James. Me and my 
Nothing yet!
In all fairness to me, I did have a small headstart since I had a m/c in the spring and had started buying for that babe.
, $14 Joanns for organizational stuff 
on a wind chime thing
= no drive
:
$11 @ Dollar Store 
:
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