No Spend January Challenge (the rules) 2017

This will be my fourth year for having the No Spend January Challenge. Why January?  To me this is the perfect month to not spend any money, the weather outside is usually frightful, Christmas is over, and we need to save some money for projects or travel in the coming months.  

It's important for us to have a purpose for the money we save or we lose motivation to keep us going throughout the month. So what are our plans for the money we save this year?  Well, we need some remodeling in our bedroom and this will help us get started.  Things that are needed are: new drywall, paint, and carpet. Yes, this is just exactly what I said last year but we ended up in Florida!  It was a lovely trip to visit with my sister in law.  We did remodel the bathroom a little too! Previous years it has helped fund my trip to Hawaii to visit my sister and also help someone in need.  

I'm going to put our money to spend this month in envelopes. This will help us if we need to spend more on groceries for that week. Of course this means that potentially an envelope could run empty.  On the other hand, we could also switch money from one envelope to another!

I looked back on our rules and we will keep them the same. Here are the rules for spending after all bills are paid:

1.  Eat out of the pantry -we expect to buy basic needs such as bread, some fresh fruit or vegetables, milk, meat if needed, and eggs).   We only want to spend approximately $40.00 a week though on groceries. 

2.  $20 a week in spending money a piece.

3.  Money for Gas as needed.

4.  We will eat out and buy a gift for a birthday that is in January. 

We agreed that we will not:

1.  Eat out at all unless it comes out of our $20 a week (probably will happen).   That includes no more coffee stops at McDonald’s.

2.  Buy any new clothes.

3.  No Menards, Home Depot, etc. unless absolutely necessary.

4.  No deals (Groupon, Living Social, etc) 

5.  No estate sales- it's just better not to go!  

I will make use of gift cards received for Christmas, bottle returns, Swagbucks,  Amazon credit,  barter, and coupons as much as possible.  I will give you a total tally of our grocery spending each week on Sunday with the frugal list.

So we will start this on Sunday! Have you ever done a no spend month?


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This post has been linked to Financially Savvy Saturday, The Clever chicks Blog Hop, The Art of Home-making Mondays, Motivational Mondays, Modest Mondays, Making a Home-Homemaking Party, Wonderful Wednesday, The Homemaking Party, Thrifty Thursday,  Simple Homestead blog hop, Share the Wealth Sunday, Together on Tuesdays, This is How We Roll Linky party,