no-spend

Low- or no-spend February 2023: Who’s in?

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This is not a new idea, and in fact many bloggers make it a strictly no-spend February. But I like to keep things a bit looser because not everyone can just stop buying things.

Not that you have to stop buying entirely. If you get a head cold in late February, you don’t have to wait until March 1 to hit the drugstore.

And obviously you’ll still have to gas up your car/renew your transit pass as needed, or pick up fresh produce or milk when you run out (and if you decide you can’t live without these things).

The point of this 28-day exercise is to try not to spend, and to be intentional about what you do end up buying. Pretty sure you guys are already good at that.

So: Who’s in?

Instead of buying on autopilot, a low- or no-spend February asks you to think critically about everything you want to put into the shopping cart:

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No-spend February: What have we learned?

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Really, really enjoyed the no-spend February. The month showed me that sometimes even super-frugal types are susceptible to advertising. It reminded me to keep an eye on impulse purchases. And on the bright side, it spotlighted how ingrained my careful spending habits tend to be.

I also loved the sense of community, of seeing readers encourage one another and suggest tactics to help stay on target. This has long been a sharing group; the no-spend month merely confirmed that.

It was great fun to read about everyone else’s frugal hackery, including but not limited to:

Slowing down (staycations, letting bad weather keep us indoors, craft activities, taking the time to watch TV or read free Kindle books)

Substituting (adding chopped apples to the oatmeal because the raisins are all gone; substituting not-quite-right yogurt for the sour milk in a recipe; trading a discount movie for a friend’s DVR queue)

Stretching (adding some water to full-fat milk; turning doggy bags into additional meals)

Setting things to rights (repairing a vacuum cleaner with help from a YouTube video

Sunk-cost strategies (fixing meals based the cupboard and freezer; using on-hand items to make snacks rather than buy them; bringing coffee from home vs. hitting Starbucks)

A lot of good money habits begin with the letter S.

And now that the month is over, we can all spend again! But will we?

 

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America Saves Week: Grow your dough.

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As a country, we’re not saving. Our personal savings rate is at its lowest level since the 2008 recession.

How’s your savings going?

Plenty of reasons explain why people aren’t saving: un- or underemployment, tax issues (local, state or federal), stagnant wages if you do have a job, illness (your own or a family member’s), the rising cost of living or even good old-fashioned bad luck (of all the cars in the parking lot, yours was the one that got sideswiped by a guy who just kept going).

Fact is, we have to do better. That’s why America Saves Week was created. Even if you don’t take the America Saves pledge (which apparently gives you the chance to win cash) or follow any of the suggestions in the ASW tool kit, the program might help you focus on this essential fact: It’s up to us to save ourselves – and one way to do that is to SAVE.

 

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No-spend February, Week 3: Taming the reflex.

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It has been a quiet week in Lake Spend-be-gone*. In honor of no-spend February, this has been a week without  questionable stock-ups of Tater Tots, trips to the movies or other unnecessary expenditures.

One big-ticket item, though: a plane ticket to Phoenix* for next month, which set me back close to $600, including trip insurance. Of course, I expected to pay a lot: Right now is the high season for people wanting to get out of Anchorage.

But this trip is an essential expense: My daughter is having cataract surgery, so I’ll be driving Miss Abby. Also painting her bathroom, doing a few household chores, making some casseroles and scooping the litter box. And, yeah, taking daily walks on gloriously ice-free sidewalks.

I watched “The Walking Dead” at my niece’s home for free, rather than go to a local bar and have to spring for a soft drink and a tip. The writers group to which I belong had its monthly meeting, and I brought a spice cake made from ingredients we already had. (More on that later.)

While I’d planned to get some vanilla ice cream on the way to the meeting, to go with the cake, I forgot all about it. Turns out it wasn’t necessary (very moist cake!), and besides, the forgetting jibed with something from last week’s comments section.

A reader named mdoe37 said she’d picked up a planner to help organize her household. Soon afterward she had what she calls a “hello!” moment: Don’t I already have a couple of binders at home, and couldn’t I go online for some organizational sheets to print out?

Somehow her first impulse on seeing a planner was to buy it: Look, a thing that will help organize all those other things! Upon reflection, though, she decided to return it and save a little over $5.

“It’s all about taming the reflex,” she notes.

If people take away nothing else from the no-spend month, I hope they get this part.

 

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No-spend February, Week 2: Lots and lots of Tater Tots.

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This week reminded me, once again, that retailers are ultra-skilled at coaxing us to spend on stuff we hadn’t expected to buy.

Yep, I backslid.

But since it was all in the food/healthcare category, I’m going to give myself a pass rather than regret the dollars that flowed from my wallet – or the chopped, formed and extruded potato scraps that landed in our freezer. (More on that later.)

After all, one of the points of the no-spend month is that each person gets to determine what “essential” and “non-essential” spending means. What’s vital to you might be a pffftttt…are you KIDDING me? to someone else.

For example, some people consider coffee an urgent need (DF calls it “God’s blood” – and he’s religious) while others can take it or leave it. The first group will therefore deem a replacement bag of grounds, or daily cups from their favorite java joints, as essential.

The second group will shrug and say, “Not in the budget right now” and either stick to water or bring coffee from home. Which brings me to the mad frugal skillz of a reader named Kate.

 

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No-spend February, Week 1: How’s it going?

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Last week I proposed a no-spend February. The idea appealed to some readers, for very different reasons

First – and worst! – was Yvonne Wilder’s situation. “We just went through a no-spend month in January, with the government shutdown,” she says.

All discretionary spending was cut, to the dismay of the three children in the household. (Not that what it was much fun for the adults, either.)

However, the stressful situation wound up becoming a teachable moment: “We talked quite a lot about the shutdown and budgets and they were definitely on board.”

Although the family is generally thrifty, Yvonne thinks they could stand to step up their game. January’s crash course “made us all aware of spending on wants instead of needs.”

Which of course is the point of the no-spend February: not that you can’t spend money, but rather that you become super-mindful about how and why you spend.

 

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Join us for a no-spend February.

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Is your budget suffering a holiday hangover? Were you caught in the government shutdown? Or are you just interested in getting control of your cash? A no-spend month could be the right first step to take, and NerdWallet is sponsoring one for February.

To be clear: That doesn’t mean no more fresh fruit until March, or having to shine on a prescription refill. A no-spend month is actually more like a “spend-super-intentionally month.”

On the NerdWallet “Community” message board, my former MSN Money colleague (and now NerdWallet columnist) Liz Weston describes the event as a month where you try to avoid any non-essential spending. Each participant gets to define what is and isn’t essential.

Having done a no-spend month before, Weston describes it as “kind of magical.” Specifically:

“Not only do we save money, but we get creative finding no-spend workarounds when unexpected situations pop up.

“We get clearer what’s a necessity and what isn’t, which can really help us get a grip on our spending going forward.

“We appreciate that having any discretionary spending is a blessing. For many, every month is a no-spend month because they don’t have any extra money beyond what it takes to survive (and sometimes not even that).” 

Sound good?

 

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