Monday, January 1, 2018

No Spend January (The Rules) 2018!

No spend January picture

Happy New Year!

I know I would see you Tuesday but I forgot about posting the rules for No Spend January!  This will be my fifth 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 for our front screen door and porch and this will help us get started.  Things that are needed are: new screen door, side lights, and a better porch light.  Last year this helped us with remodeling our bedroom and I love it!  Previous years it has helped fund my trip to Hawaii to visit my sister, help someone in need, and a visit to Florida,  


I'm going to try something new with our money we have decided we would spend for groceries.  I read about a woman who has had success with gift cards.  She puts the money for groceries on gift cards and she never overspends.  So I'm excited to try that.  The rest of the money we will spend this month will go into envelopes.  I'm going to allow switching money one envelope to another in order to help with any expense.  

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!  


Little Cheats! 
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.

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



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This post has been linked to Thrifty Thursday, 

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