You guys, I did it! I completed No-Spend May!
I feel so good about myself today, knowing that I completed this challenge. It’s a crazy thing, you know? This idea of going an entire month of not spending money on anything but necessary purchases is just a little nuts. It means turning down plans with friends, scheduling my weekends so I’m not tempted to eat out or go shopping, and just… taking out the choice of spending. It wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t all that hard. I think I was finally ready to commit to this challenge this time around.
What was most challenging about not spending money was turning down lunch plans with friends. For someone who grew up with friends who were solely school friends, not let’s-spend-all-weekend-together friends, I’ve loved having a more active social life than I have had in the past. And I’m always worried it’s all going to be taken away from me. Like, I’ll wake up one day and all my friends will be gone. The rest of my days will be spent as a hermit. It’s this fear that should probably be talked about in greater detail in therapy, so I’ll just say that I do not love saying no to plans. I hate disappointing people and I felt like I had to do that a lot this month. It was necessary, but it didn’t always feel good.
The other challenging part of not spending money was that there were just some nights when I was either sad or lonely or had a rough day… and all I wanted to do was order a pizza. Instead, I had to own my feelings while I heated up another plate of leftovers in the microwave. It’s an interesting realization; I’ve always known I’m an emotional eater (I’d seriously love to know who isn’t, though), but I’m also realizing that I engage in restaurant therapy when I’m feeling sad. Kinda like retail therapy… I want someone else to cook for me, I want some other kind of comfort food. I don’t want leftovers. And yet… I had the leftovers and the world did not stop spinning. And I felt better about myself for doing so.
What is most curious to me is how I feel today – nervous. I’m proud of myself for completing this challenge, but I’m also nervous about where I go from here. I liked how I felt this past month – in control, on top of things. For the first time in a really long time, I felt like I finally had enough. I was able to get ahead on bill paying and even pay off my cruise deposit in full (which isn’t due until the end of September, so it was a big deal for me). There was no cringing as I logged onto my bank account to check my balance.
So the last thing I want to do is to go back to how I spent money before. For me, the point of a no-spending challenge isn’t the physical act of not buying anything; it has more to do with the emotional pull that spending money has over me. It’s to figure out the why behind the spending.
I use shopping as a crutch, as a way to make myself feel better, as a way to fit in with everyone around me. I don’t shop nearly as often as most people, but when I do shop, it’s usually done impulsively and because I want to fit into this consumerist culture I live in. Shopping has always been something I do to impress other people, rarely for myself. Thankfully, over the past year or so, I’ve been able to shed this need to shop and have new clothes in my closet or new things in my house at all times. I have downsized my closet and minimalized my home, now adding pieces intentionally – things that I know I need, not things I think I want.
Eating out is my biggest struggle when it comes to money because I truly enjoy eating out and it’s one of my favorite ways to socialize. I’m not much of a cook and spending time in the kitchen is more of an annoyance than anything else. So this part of my no-spending challenge was really difficult, but man, was I able to save a lot of money. I took away the choice to eat out, which made everything so much easier. There was no thinking involved: I can’t spend money, so I can’t eat out. Done and done. Maybe I’m more of an Abstainer than I realized.
The truth is, I’m not exactly sure where I go from here. I want to have the choice to eat out if I want to, but I want to limit the number of times I do. I want to continue thorough meal planning and eating in as much as possible, both to save money and to save calories. I don’t want to spend impulsively, but I know I’m not perfect and that will happen from time to time. I want to place an emphasis on saving as much as I can. And I think it’s also time to invest the time and money into budgeting software (specifically, You Need a Budget) to take this one step further.
I’m really proud of myself, though. I’m really proud of finally completing a no-spend month when I’ve failed at them in the past. How did I do it? I just took away the choice to quit. Quitting wasn’t an option. I knew I had to see this through, for myself. I stopped letting other unnecessary things take precedence over this thing I really wanted to do.
And I can’t wait to take on this challenge again.
Congrats on completing this challenge! I can see how it would be really tough to only buy essential things and not treat yourself to anything for an entire month. I am sure that your friends understood why you couldn’t join them for lunch, especially if you told them about your no spend challenge. But I know what you mean about feeling bad. I felt bad about things like that when I was doing Whole30.
I am more of an abstainer myself. I do better with structured rules about things and am just not good at moderating in certain areas of my life. I used to be so bad about buying coffee EVERY SINGLE DAY so in 2010 I made a rule that I could only buy lattes on Friday and 6 years later, I still abide by that rule, except when I’m traveling and don’t have access to a coffee pot/creamer I like. And I limit myself to one lunch out per week but lately I haven’t even been doing that because I’ve been liking the salads I’m bringing more than anything I would buy. So maybe put a rule around how many times you go out to lunch or for dinner per week and try to be strict about it? Or limit yourself to meals out when there are others with you? Good luck finding your balance going forward!
Congratulations! it really is an awesome, wonderful filling to take back control of finances, to say no to the consumer society we are a part of and to really LOOK at how and why we spend our money. We are doing the no-spend challenge shortly after the kiddos leave for the summer and I’m already so very excited about it.
Awesome job!!!
Maybe you can continue meal planning, so that you always have something ready to go so that your fallback isn’t eating out, but then allowing yourself to say yes to social plans involving eating out?
Regarding budgeting software, I’ve been using Mint for the past year, it’s free, and it’s been working great! I’ve also heard good things about Dave Ramsey’s Every Dollar which I think is also free. Just some things to look into before you spend money!
Congrats on the no spend challenge completion! That is not hard.
I’ve been budgeting a lot this year as I went from full time work in a small town (limited spending options, lower cost of living) to part time in a larger city. I can’t abstain, because I do so well for a while then BOOM I go crazy. Having a budget for my spending was eye opening to how I used money, and has been a valuable lesson for me. Good luck with however you decide to keep going! And let us readers know; I love reading about budget tips etc.
I’m in a bad spot financially currently because of a broken AC and flights I just booked to Spain. Reading this has made me more motivated to just get back on the not spending wagon!
I totally get what you mean about not accepting meal invites. For me it’s a little more about embarrassment about not being able to afford to eat out and not so much that my friends will leave me.
That’s an awesome accomplishment! Go you!
So proud of you. You’ve inspired me to do this for June. This will be hard since I tend to shop after work to avoid going home alone. Love you.
Congratulations on completing it! I failed pretty miserably, but I’m forgiving myself and moving on. I might do it again in July (we have family vacation in June and some expenses getting ready for that) but May was just hard emotionally for me. While I don’t really do retail therapy or eat my feelings in restaurants, it was harder to say no to myself then too. I bought a Scentsy warmer for the boys’ bathroom, some jewelry from an MLM show for a friend, a pair of LLR leggings, and the last week I ate out almost every day for lunch just to get myself away from my desk at work. So I could say it could have been worse but it certainly could have been better too.
Well done you!
This weirdly made me think of something my mother said to me as a teen when they wouldn’t give me the freedom to go out and hang out /do stuff with my friends and I had mad resentful FOMO. ” You know, Charlie will always be your friend.”
My current thing is balancing my lunch spending. One way I do socialise is week day / work day lunches with friends who work or study in town. So far limiting it to one a week, or a $20 budget, seems to be working. It does help that a supermarket is just a few minutes away so if I haven’t gotten my act together and brought lunch, I can run over there in a pinch.
CONGRATS! So awesome! I would like to do this but not sure if it will happen in 2016. Maybe September or October! Definitely not during the summer 🙂