To kick off our journey to a minimalist lifestyle, my husband and I have been discussing a "no spend year".
This was inspired by my recent audiobook purchase of A Year of Less by Cait Flanders. Her story had popped up into my awareness from time to time for the last several months. It would be mentioned in an article, a book I read would reference it, or it would come across my feed on social media in some way. Finally, I decided to download the book on Audible, and I was not disappointed.
Beyond the initial story of her spending restrictions for the year, the author went into a lot of her personal life as well. She struggled with events that were going on outside of her control, she explained her process, and she even changed jobs in that year. Overall, the story inspired me to make a drastic change in my own life. I decided to take on a challenge that we had never attempted before.
Not only do we have a house full of stuff to go through, but we also have debt to pay down. And we also have expensive items that we need to replace, like the laptop I've been operating off of for the last decade that was a refurbished model when I bought it 10 years ago.
I've decided to coin this a Spend Less Year because we're not going to stop purchasing items all together, but what we do choose to purchase is going to be well thought-out and agreed upon OR already listed on are pre-approved shopping list. (We've been working on making that list for this past week)
If I'm being honest, I'm a little nervous about telling my family that we're doing something like this. I think they would be supportive, and at the same time I think that they would see themselves and their priorities as exception to what we are doing. I feel like they might not understand if we said we can't participate in something because we're not spending money in that area... We're also not planning to go over the top with Christmas this year, but gifts for holidays and birthdays are still listed in our approved spending.
Our goal is to get on a better track with our debt payments. Have a couple of accounts we need to address that are not even getting payments right now, and there are other ones I know we could be paying off a lot faster. We also have a number of things that we need to upgrade (Hello laptop that works without a power cord!) and we like to focus on "where our money is going".
Our Spend Less Year
Starting August 1st we will ONLY be allowed to purchase the following items:
- Basic Pet Care Items (litter, food, etc.)
- Groceries that we Meal Plan for
- Basic kitchen supplies (bags, foil, paper towel)
- Toiletries (toilet paper, shampoo, etc)
- Cleaning supplies (detergent/dish soap)
- Cosmetics (if I run out, nothing extra)
- Gifts (limited to Holidays, Birthdays & Special Events)
- ONE Souvenir per trip we take (optional)
We are NOT allowed to buy...
- Fastfood (unless on a trip out of town)
- Coffee On-the-go (unless traveling on a trip)
- Craft Items (unless a specific item needs to be replaced/purchased then we will discuss it)
- Home Decor Items (an issue of mine)
- Books
- New Clothing (unless it is in replacement of a worn out piece)
- Hair color/Beauty Supplies*
*Hair color is a funny one for me, as I have a boxfull of colors I really need to use or get rid of, so this is really challenging me to use what I have before running to the store for something new. I also work at a store that sells makeup, hair care and acessories, so I'm really challenging myself to NOT spend my paycheck there.
We will be keeping a close eye on money spent on food. We are limiting our "eat out" budget to One Meal per week, (unless we're on vacation out of town). We will be meal planning for what we buy, and I'm hopeful we can go grocery shopping once every two weeks. Going to the store less will help us avoid temptation in purchasing stuff we don't need, and it should encourage us to eat what we have at the house.
As I'm sure you noticed, fastfood and coffee on-the-go are out. That will help our health and our budget. We've made some allowances for things we might need to do if we are on a trip out of town, but for the most part we would like to keep those items to a minimum.
As for our "Approved Shopping List", we are still solidifying that, so I will post the final version in my next post. ^_^
This past January we did a Fiscal Fast. I was unemployed at the time and freaking out about money. Similar to yours, but ours only lasted a month and was used as a way to clean out our pantry of all the items I'd been stockpiling for years. Y E A R S.
ReplyDeleteThe website I found had stories of the family being down to dry beans and rice for the last week of their fast. I'd become so good at stockpiling we still had a quarter of the stand-up freezer to go through and I had no problems making the recipes from the Outlander cookbook w/out a trip to the store. Being able to finally defrost the stand-up freezer was wonderful. Now with me in school we're trying to do the same thing. We still budget for a meal out once a week - yay for the local restaurant's "Tough-Times Tuesday" cheeseburger special! We tend to eat the same food each week so the food shopping is pretty easy. Good luck and let us know how you're doing along the way. I'll be commiserating I'm sure.
Oh! We also do the "one souvenir" from vacation also. Well, two - a magnet for the fridge and an ornament for the holiday tree. It's a great way to look back and remember the fun.
Omgosh I have tried the "go thru your cupboards" challenge a couple times, and it never works out for us. 😅 I've been slowly working thru cans and frozen goods by meal planning around what we already have on hand, and that helps a bit. Kudos to you though, I don't think that's easy at all!
DeleteBut hopefully this challenge will keep us from stockpiling too much "extra" stuff. That's the goal anyway. Nice to know you reached a happy balance!