I’m a little more than halfway through my Buy Nothing month, and it’s been going really well! I feel more in control of my money and my spending habits, and it’s making me think about what I want my financial life to look like when May is over.
Before this challenge, I wasn’t spending money like crazy, but I also didn’t feel as if I was being very intentional about my spending habits. I’m not one to drop a bunch of money on clothes or frivolous items (if anything, I need to spend more money on clothes… says the girl who hasn’t bought a new sports bra in years). But my food budget was out of control. I was spending a lot of money eating out (an average of $100 a month) and I was also spending a lot of money at the grocery store (maybe somewhere around $250-$300).
I shop the sales, eat leftovers, consider my pantry before a trip… I try to do all of the things that I’m told to do to save money on groceries, but I’m still not very thrifty when it comes to groceries. I’m okay with paying slightly more for food, but I’d still like to lower my food budget drastically.
So this Buy Nothing month has really been a test to see how I handle not eating out on a regular basis because not spending money on clothes and such isn’t a huge problem for me. All emails from retailers are funneled into their own special folder on Gmail, and considering I have more than 300 emails sitting in that folder with the earliest one dating back to January 20… well, I barely remember that folder is there. When I go to Target, I’m usually armed with a list and I stick to my list. I don’t go to the mall because malls make me anxious. Shopping? Not really my thing anymore! My food budget is where the majority of my discretionary income is spent. Followed by entertainment, like movies and special events.
I’m 16 days into my Buy Nothing month and it’s going massively well, but just like anything, there have been highs and lows.
Here’s what’s been good:
- Meal planning
I enjoy meal planning, but I haven’t been very successful at it lately. This challenge has forced me to be more intentional with my planning to make sure I have something planned for every meal, every day of the week. There’s no “Oh, I’ll just pick up a sub on my way home from work” if I forgot to plan for something. Nope – not allowed. So I have to make thorough plans and it helps me to feel much more in control.
- Having less waste
I admit that I can be very wasteful, cooking something and intending to have 3-4 days of leftovers, but only having 1-2 days of leftovers. But now I’m finding myself wasting much less food and actually consuming all of my leftovers. That’s just one less meal I have to cook! (And I haaaate cooking. Ugh.)
- At-home roommate dates
My roommate and I set aside one night a week for each other, and that used to mean going out to a movie (which could cost upwards of $40 if we went to our pricey movie theater since it includes a full meal with the movie) or going out to dinner. But she was on board to stay in this month for our dates. The first week of May, I cooked for her and then we watched a movie on Netflix. The second week of May, she cooked for me and we played a trivia game. This week, our plan is to make homemade pizzas and watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban!
- Not worrying about money
There’s something so gratifying about not spending money, you know? It’s powerful. I don’t have to worry about having enough money for this event or that outing. So much of my life is spent worrying about money and what’s in my bank account. Taking the pressure off this constant worry feels so good.
Okay, so that’s the good stuff. What’s the bad stuff?
- I had to break my rules once
A dear friend wanted to celebrate her birthday with dinner out and I couldn’t say no to that. (Well, I could, but I didn’t want to.) I had to break my rules to get her a little gift and for dinner (though another friend ended up picking up the tab, which was crazy generous of her and I’m looking forward to the time when I can pay it forward.)
- I’m not saving nearly as much as I thought I would
Why is living so expensive? And where did all my money go when I was spending all my discretionary income on eating out all the time? Before I started this challenge, I was so excited about all of the money I was going to save but… it’s not as much as I expected. Hopefully, things change over the next two weeks! Sigh.
- Planning events is tough
I completely forgot that I am participating in the ColorBuzz 5k this weekend with my mom. We’re going together to pick up our race packets on Friday night (since they charge you money to pick it up on race day – seriously?!) and then the race itself starts at 8pm on Saturday (but we’ll be at the race site much earlier than that!) These events fall during the time I would eat dinner, and since I won’t be at home, it’s just easiest to just grab something on the way, you know? We’ll see what ends up happening, but I never realized how tough it was to plan stuff like this, factoring in the fact that I’m not supposed to be spending any money!
I have thoroughly enjoyed this challenge and spending less money, but it has also made certain things more difficult, especially with the phase of life I’m currently in. I definitely want to try to continue eating most of my meals in, allowing 1-2 meals out on the weekends. I want to continue to lower my grocery budget and maybe even continue my ban on shopping for the foreseeable future.
But I still have 15 days to go and I am curious to see what other epiphanies I’ll have over these next two weeks. I’ll be sure to give a final overview of my challenge – and a look at what’s to come next for me!
What area of your life is most of your discretionary income spent?
Congrats on making it half way through this challenge. It’s not something I have ever done but I think it would be a fun challenge to try at some point. I think the outside factors that are out of your control, like friends’ birthdays, would make it most challenging. That’s how I felt about doing Whole30, too. I was fine when it was just me on my own or with Phil, but when we were eating with others, it was really challenging as I had to be the high maintenance person who brought her own food or made dinner or avoided certain things that were served.
I track my spending pretty closely and I would say most of my discretionary income goes to groceries. I have tried to rein in my spending a bit and try to be mindful of sales and such, but have come to accept that it’s expensive to eat healthy! I’ve cut way back on clothes shopping over the last year. I was never a big shopper, but I was buying more than I really needed to.
I did pretty well the first 1.5 weeks, but this last week has not been super successful. And I didn’t bring lunch today so I’m probably going to have to go get lunch today. Sigh.
You’re doing really, really well! We eat out A LOT. Way more than we should. This is definitely something we are trying to change in the immediate future as our financial goals are changing. I’m OK with planning social events with friends but there are at least 2 nights a week when we stop for takeout just because we don’t want to cook. A lot of this was due to having tons of appointments during the last couple months of wedding planning, so we should be home a lot more often after work now. Our grocery spending is tough too with Pete working at a grocery store – it’s so easy to say “pick this up today!” and not stick to our weekly budget/list. Now that wedding spending is over, I’m really hoping to pay down some credit cards and start saving!
You’re doing great! I usually eat out every day for lunch and then once or twice between weeknights and the weekend. I don’t feel bad about it though because I budget money to spend in those spots. However, last week I brought leftovers for lunch twice and this week I plan on bringing leftovers 3 days. And I’m going to put that saved money towards a trip next year.
As for budgeting, I HIGHLY recommend YNAB. I know you mentioned it previously, but it seriously is awesome because it’ll help you answer “And where did all my money go when I was spending all my discretionary income on eating out all the time?”. It’s like $5/month now (but you get a free trial) but you’ll save WAY more than that $5/month. It gives you a visual of all the categories your money is going to. You can save and know exactly what’s saved. It seriously changed my life. No joke. If you do try it, I recommend signing up just before the start of a month, so it’s easier to get it set up. You get a 34-day free trial, so if you were to try it out for June, I’d sign up like on the 29th.
Reading through your experience, the first thought I had was “I am really curious how much I would spend on X if I only spent money on myself”… because I was looking at your $100 eating out and $230-300 grocery spending and I was like “we spent more than twice that much” (at least on groceries), but then I remembered that I am also living with a guy who eats for three people LOL
I think you’re doing pretty well with this no-spending challenge, but I can relate to your comment about feeling like you’re not saving as much as you thought you would. Yes, life is expensive and even if you consciously cut out certain purchases and in doing so save a significant amount of money, it never feels as much as you want it to… unfair, really.
P.S. Did you realize that you picked an image with “German money” (old German marks) or was that coincidence? Either way, made me smile when I saw it 🙂
Entertainment/eating is out where we spend most of our money, too. I have been more mindful of how/when we spend our money eating out, though, since our no-spend challenge earlier this year. We are definitely doing another one after the kiddos leave (I feel like we bleed money while they are here as our grocery bill triples!) and I can’t wait for it. I love not spending money, really and truly. I find it so rewarding!
This is so interesting to me! I once tried to do a spending fast for six months and that failed REAL quick. I am terrible when it comes to total cold turkey approaches. It’s funny you mentioned that saving isn’t really any easier. I think it’s so easy for money to be absorbed somewhere else somehow without us even knowing. Groceries are SO expensive too. I feel like when I try to spend less on them somehow I end up spending more and it makes NO sense to me!
Right now I don’t spend too much money because I spend whole days inside a house with a baby and then go straight home. But when I was taking classes, I spent so much money at the vending machine eating crap! Ugh. I can’t believe it myself. I think it’s important to structure you’re day so that shopping is less of a temptation. Even when we menu plan sometimes if I go grocery shopping with Erik I’ll see something and be like “oh I want to try that!” We always end up spending more when I come with, haha!
I think most of my discretionary income probably goes towards food. I like to shop at the Farmer’s Market and buy organic when possible and also we get takeout at least once, if not twice, a week and I go out for lunch usually once per week. I don’t really do a ton of shopping anymore, and when I do it’s usually at the thrift stores. Lately I’ve been spending some money doing fitness things like drop-in yoga, a new bootcamp class I joined and a new running group I joined. I’m sure that will even out as I adjust to my new city more and find my groove though.