We’ve reached the end of our 2nd No Spend Month, and I’ve been putting off adding up the final totals knowing the totals weren’t going to be pretty. We went WAY over where I wanted to be. Clearly the spending diet worked against us this month.
I’ll just get it out of the way, our total spending was $1,764.41. Ouch. Ha, I should call it the “Spend Way Too Much” Month. That’s over $500 more than our last No Spend Month. 🙁
Want to learn more about No Spend Month?
How To Start A No Spend Month,
5 Lessons I Learned From Our No Spend Month,
July Is No Spend Month At Our House
The places we overspent were:
- Clothing: $85.45 (All necessities, but not in the budget.)
- Birthdays: $233.50 (Overspent a bit here since we didn’t pre-purchase things throughout the year like I usually do. This includes special birthday meals, as well as gifts for 2 of our kids, and 2 birthday party gifts. I’ve learned how to not go overboard on birthday parties.)
- Cash: $142 (Mainly allowances, and haircuts. Here’s what I learned about how to save money on haircuts and hair color.)
- Eating Out: $192.88 (Complete waste of money, so frustrated with myself over this category.)
- Groceries: $786.87 (Way over our usual budget, but the majority of the extra money was for sale items and stocking up through a food co-op. Learn how a grocery price book can help you save money while grocery shopping.
A month of no-spending is the perfect way to reset your spending habits, but doing it alone can seem downright scary. What if there was a simple resource that offered a month of daily challenges for spending not just less, but absolutely ZERO.
Read 31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero: Freeze Your Spending. Change Your Life. to learn more!
This month was all about falling off the wagon. We did really good for the first half of the month, but we blew it towards the end of the month while we were dealing with a lot of stressful things, as well as sickness all around. I had viral bronchitis and it was pretty much impossible for me to keep up with cooking, cleaning, and everything. It proves to me that there are times we need to let loose of the financial reigns a little, and that we should plan for it. Maybe budgeting a few hundred dollars extra a month and putting it in a high-yield savings account would be a good idea.
Learn more: How To Budget
I’ll keep track this month and lower our monthly spending. Maybe cash spending will help, we’ll have to try that in March when we’ll have more cashflow.
Time to pick myself up, dust myself off, and try, try again.
Have you tried a No Spend Month? Was it successful? What was the limit on your spending?
Kelly
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