No Spend Challenge

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We are attempting something I’d never thought I would do – A no spend challenge! For the month of February we wont be spending any “extra” money. Of course we’ll pay our mortgage and bills but we will be severely cutting down on our variable spending.

You don’t have to do an entire month; you could do a week, weekend or even day! Some people have done a shopping ban for an entire year or more.

Why Do A No Spend Challenge

We are doing this in hopes that we will be able to put a good chunk of money on the student debt. You could also do this to jumpstart your saving, or after overspending. It’s also a good way to change your spending habits. It will help you think before reaching for your credit card and buying on impulse. It will help if you delete your credit card info from sites, and unsubscribe from store emails to reduce temptation!

Our Rules

Allowed

• All utilities, mortgage etc.
• Allowed to spend $100 on groceries (we also have some grocery gift cards we got for Christmas that we will be using)
• Donate to charity
• Food for the dog

Not Allowed

• Shopping for ‘wants’
• Take-out
• Gifts
• Spa/nails/hair

The “rules” for a no spend challenge should be tailored to you! This is totally personal and you can include or not include anything you want. Because we’re only doing this for a month we can restrict things like food and gifts pretty drastically, if you’re doing this for longer you might want to up this allowance.

To keep track of your expenses, get my printable daily expense tracker here!

What Will We Do?

You don’t need to spend money to have fun! I have all kinds of ideas for what we can do without spending money! I will share in another post what we’re going to get up to, but if you’re looking for some ideas: teach yourself something using YouTube, organize and declutter, or rent movies/books from the library are great places to start!

Challenge Accepted!

I know this is going to be challenging but I’m really excited! Fellow blogger Cait Flanders just released her book “The Year Of Less”; I ordered it from Amazon and just started reading it for inspiration this month!

The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store

If this seems overwhelming to you, you might want to start with my conscious spending challenge, you can sign up here:

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2 responses to “No Spend Challenge”

1. kiara says:

   January 31, 2018 at 5:03 am

   I think that is a very hard challenge, but also one that maybe needed from time to time.;)

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   • Jenn says:

     February 4, 2018 at 10:21 am

     4 days in, it hasn’t been too bad!

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