Over the last month, our family has participated in a no-spend month. We do not have a huge stockpile of food anymore, so we did spend our normal grocery/toiletry budget of $100 per week, but we cut out going out to eat and any other extra spending.
It was a fun experience, and I learned a lot this month:
A No-Spend Month Can Set You Up for Good Financial Habits
Although it was a bit difficult at first to not spend little bits of money here and there, it quickly became a habit. I didn't want to spend money. I wanted to save it, and see how little we could spend.
Have you ever had a hard time stopping your spending after shopping for the holiday season? You get into the habit of buying lots of things (even if they are gifts). Well...this was the opposite. I got out of the habit of spending money, and now I think hard before making a purchase.
Now that the month is over, I feel like I've gotten out of the habit of going out to eat, and I don't really even want to go out to eat. That's a bit deal! I typically LOVE to go out to eat, and it's usually our budget weak spot. Setting up this habit will help us with our budget going forward (not just for this month).
We Can Have Lots of Fun as a Family Without Spending Money
We spent a lot of time this month playing board and card games together as a family, and we had so much fun! We didn't need to spend any money, and it brought us closer together as a family. The added benefit, I got more spontaneous hugs from my boys because of all the extra time we spent together.
I plan on adding some additional games to our family Christmas list so we have lots to choose from. Our go-to games this month were SKIP BO and Clue.
We Saved Money
This one should be fairly obvious, but we saved some extra money as a result of doing the challenge. We don't typically spend tons of money each month anyway, but we did save extra money that can go towards our emergency fund. Normally, we would have spent this money dining out or on small purchases here and there (that can really add up).
Have you ever done a No-Spend Month? What did you learn from it?
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Frankie Perez
I really want to try this. My fiance and I are saving for our wedding. Do you have any extra tips.