Summer Plans

Today is July 1st and I have been busy putting plans together for the start of this month.

...And here we are.
I don't feel ready, or completely settled, but I don't think that matters. These are steps I'm planning to take to help me get to a New Place. A year from now I want to look back and see such a shift in how I live my life, that I find it hard to judge my abilities in the future. I want to say,  "Wow, look at that! You really CAN do something if you put your mind to it! Awesome job!"

So... what's the plan?

Well, as is my style, I have looked over several approaches to decluttering, pairing down clothing, getting out of debt, and I plan to incorporate a bit of each. Here's the the overall picture:

No.1 - Spending Ban

About a year ago I tried to do a spending ban. I had just read The Year of Less (Cait Flanders), and was excited to try my hand at becoming a more mindful consumer - owning less and saving more. This year, in the midst of everything 2020, my husband and I are both on board to see this thru.

Approved List

As promised, I am posting our Approved Shopping List for the Year of Spending Less. These are items we will need to replace, or have already decided on purchasing, that will be allowed over the course of the next year.

Approved Shopping List:

• A new (used) car
• New laptop (probably refurbished)
• Protective laptop case
• Work Gear (husband)
• Guestroom futon 
• New Mattress/Bed/Foundation Support
• A tattoo (both of us, me for sure) 
• Updated Gaming Console (preferably used) 
• Messenger Bag (for my husband) 
• Sustainable Items (to replace plastics and one-use items) 
• Candles (only one per month, if desired)
• Plants/Supplies for Herbal Cooking Garden
• Outdoor/Biking Gear (as needed for trips & planned activities)

Notes about the list...

The list was compiled in no particular order, but I did decide to list the more necessary items at the top. We will need a second car in the coming months, and a new laptop has been on our list for some time. Work gear is expected but unknown, as my husband is changing directions. And we have plans, once we clear things out, to purchase an affordable futon (that we've already shopped around for and chosen) for our guest room.

The candles are not necessary, as I have a collection I'm working thru, but I listed the option because I do use them regularly and I believe there is a good chance I may run out in less than a year. The "herbal garden" is a future plan as well, for when the house is cleaned up. I have always wanted to cook with fresh herbs available, so I've included it for when the space is ready. I don't expect everything on the list to be purchased immediately, but making this list did bring our priorities to light. Seeing everything we actually wanted listed out, we could also see that our money has been wasted on stuff we didn't really care...

Other than this list, and basic consumables, we'll be focusing on not purchasing anything new for our home. Books and videos will be rented from the library or borrowed. I will be cancelling my Audible Account for the year, which will be hard. We have canceled our underutilized gym membership, and we will be looking at the necessity of any subscriptions we currently have.

We have decided to keep our shared Spotify account, because we use it daily, and for the $10 per month, we believe it's worth it for the content. We don't have cable or internet at our home, and unless it becomes necessary for income purposes, we will keep to just our cell phone data service.

Avoiding Temptation

Something that Cait did her book (link to previous entry about this) that I thought was really smart, was that she unsubscribed from all digital adverts. She stopped receiving emails about sales, and anything that she might want to shop for. It will take us a moment to get ourselves off of every list that we have subscribed to, but we are planning to do the same.

My only exceptions for this are emails from Kroger (where we buy most of our groceries), and emails from the company that I work for... Even though the emails are advertising sales and new products, I still plan to review them in order to stay informed for our customers, everything else will have to be cut.

Clearing Out Clutter 

As for our excess of physical items, I will be clearing things out using three options: Throw Away, Donate or Sell. I think there is a lot of junk and paperwork that can just be tossed. A fair bit of it can be donated and used by someone else. And for some nicer items, I will try to resell them at a marked down cost to put toward savings.

I'm going to try to Throw Out or Donate most of the clutter, because it's too easy to put higher value on stuff than it really deserves. I don't want a whole room of stuff that I'm keeping, because I'm waiting tosell it. My planned limit is one month, and after that time I will donate any items that haven't sold.

I will still be using Poshmark, and possibly FB marketplace, to sell my items, but I will not be shopping in these forums. Hopefully, as I pare down my closet, I will feel less in inclined to shop and add more stuff back to it.

What do you think? Do you have any questions about our plan? Is there anything I haven't addressed that you'd liked me to share or keep track of? Please comment below, I'd love to know your thoughts!

Spend LESS Year

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.  ^_^