To be successful with money you plan with a budget; to have a successful No-Spend Challenge takes some planning as well.
In addition to figuring out your “why,” you need to decide the length of your challenge, what you’re not spending on, and make your budget. All this will give you the picture from start to finish of how much money you’ll save to put toward your financial goal.
Budgeting For a No-Spend Challenge
“The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
The things that make life worth living demand a long obedience in the same direction. It’s not always an exciting road, but the things that bring the most value are at the end of it.
Financial freedom definitely takes a long obedience. And that starts with my favorite frenemy, budgeting.
Americans paid $15 billion in overdraft fees in 2016 alone, not to mention the late fees. Getting all your bills and payments down on paper or in an app makes you aware of your expenses so you can avoid paying for carelessness.
Furthermore, declaring on paper (or Excel spreadsheet) what’s worth spending money on makes you self-aware. You’ll probably make your budget and wonder where all that extra money is going while you’re living “paycheck-to-paycheck.”
Once you figure out how much you can save, spend it as soon as it comes in. Pay your bills early, make an extra debt payment, transfer it to a different account, whatever. Declare that you’re going to succeed before you get the chance not to. You can only have confidence and organization to pay things off early and above the minimum if you have a budget.
Like the No-Spend Challenge, budgeting is not one-size-fits-all. I love planning a budget, but I hate being restricted by one. After dozens of budgets and challenges, I don’t need to budget as strictly. But I started out with a stricter budget and consistent tracking, and it’s what I recommend to all newbies 먹튀검증.
So if you suck at budgeting as much as I do, don’t be discouraged. You can still pay off your debt and suck at budgeting, but you can’t forget the budget altogether. It’s an essential part of the equation and makes the process faster and easier, even if it doesn’t seem that way all the time.
You don’t have to be a perfect budgeter to be a budgeter. We’re not really good at math or financial concepts. We kept our heads down, played by the rules — no matter how hard they got — and came out on the other side. And you can too.
So no matter how bad you suck at budgeting, you need a written budget every month. If life gets crazy and you muck it up, fix it and move on. Don’t wait until the next month to try again or give up. Just keep going.
Planning Your Best Challenge
People are very confused when you say “No-Spend Challenge.” Sometimes they think it’s skipping all bills, others wonder what you do for food.
There’s no one-size-fits-all challenge. There are a lot of ways to do it, and they produce similar results. Today you might only be able to give up Target runs, but a year from now you could eat for a month without buying groceries. The point is that this is your challenge and you get to decide the parameters.
But once you decide, you have to stick to them.
Here are a few ways to do it and my personal suggestions to get the most growth in the least amount of time.
What’s on Your No-Spend List?
No Spending on Particular Items
Start by cutting out coffee, restaurants, clothing, etc. Look at your purchases from this year. What’s taking more of your money than you’d like? That’s a great place to start.
No Spending on Impulse
This one is broader than the last method, but still allows for a few luxuries that are planned in advance. You’re basically giving yourself a $0 personal budget. Before the month begins, plan the times you need to work from a coffee shop or if you need a certain clothing item. Then you can buy only those items — and nothing else.
Spend Only on Groceries and Gas
This is the most common way I do a No-Spend Month. It’s no impulse spending and no luxuries. This is an effective way to make an impact on your savings. I take it a step further by trying to clear out my pantry stockpile over the month and spend as little on groceries as possible. If you never feel like you have enough time to plan meals, you’ll be surprised at all the extra time you have when you’re not out spending money!
Pure No-Spending
This is great for short spurts, like a day or week. I wouldn’t recommend this method for longer than that, but if you’re really into challenges, then have at it. And let me know when you do it because I’d love to interview you about the experience.
How Long Are You Going?
No-Spend Day
These are a great way to wet your feet, but they’re not as easy as they sound. You still need to plan ahead for lunches, gas, etc. It’s a bummer to fail during a No-Spend Month, but it’s downright deflating to fail a No-Spend Day.
No-Spend Week
Going five or seven days without spending is where it starts to get difficult, but it can be exhilarating. You can always “accidentally” not spend on a random day, but you are guaranteed to make some hard decisions when doing this for a week.
I recommend starting on a Monday and going through Friday or Sunday. Use the Sunday before you start for grocery shopping, filling up your tank, and prepping your meals for the week. Make it as easy as possible for yourself to leave your wallet at home for the week.
No-Spend Weekend
Depending on your schedule, not spending on weekdays could be easy. It was super easy for us when we were both working three jobs and just eating snacks for dinner. The weekend is harder because it’s meant to reward you for making it through another work week.
It’s hard not to spend money with all that free time. If someone asks you to go out on a No-Spend Weekend, don’t be ashamed to suggest a free event or activity. Eighty-one percent of millennials are in debt, so chances are, they could use those savings too.
No-Spend Month
This one’s my favorite and the most popular length. I highly recommend doing a No-Spend Month. It’s probably the most difficult of the challenges because you’re always so close, yet so far away from the things you want.
Most people think it takes 21 days to build a habit, but it’ll take you many more than that to break bad spending habits while simultaneously trying to build new healthy ones. Whatever you’re giving up, a month is a good amount of time to train yourself to cut back.
No-Spend Years and Beyond
Doing a No-Spend Challenge for longer than a month is hard, but it’s an extremely efficient way to change your life and bank account. And I love efficiency. Doing a challenge over multiple months means you’ll likely experience every temptation your life has to offer —often multiple times — and you’ll see your financial growth a lot faster.
People blog and write books about not spending for an entire year, or sometimes longer! If you’re sick and tired of being in debt and ready to make a BIG change in your life, then a No-Spend Year might be right for you. Here are some great books from some amazing people who stopped spending for a year or more:
- The No Spend Year by Michelle McGagh
- The Year Without a Purchase by Scott Dannemiller
- The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
- The Spender’s Guide to Debt Free Living by Anna Newell Jones
Easy Steps to Prepare for Your No-Spend Challenge
1. Get Your Necessities
You’ll need some essential items and products around depending on how long and to what extent you’re challenging yourself.
If you’re doing a No-Spend Month with no grocery shopping, make sure you prep some slow cooker-ready freezer meals; or if you’re doing more than a month, make sure you have any necessary work/special event outfits.
Sit down and look at your schedule for the next few months and figure out what you need. Chances are, if you don’t have at least a month’s notice, it probably isn’t a “need.” Also check toiletries, cosmetics, pantry and kitchen items. If anything’s running low, grab it before the month begins so you don’t tempt yourself with extra shopping trips.
2. Tell Friends and Family
Don’t be embarrassed to tell everyone you’re doing a No-Spend Challenge. In fact, you should tell everyone. People with the best intentions for you will still ask you to spend money, but making your challenge known will keep these temptations to a minimum.
This is also where you can ask people to be your encouragement buddies. This is basically a commitment to telling you not to buy that dream accessory and how good you look with that extra money.
I’ve found Instagram to be a great place to declare your challenge and find encouragement. Hashtags like #debtfreecommunity, #nospend, and #nospendmonth will show you what other people are doing and how they’re doing it. Instagram has proven to be an awesome community of people tracking their debt freedom progress and pitfalls. Some accounts I highly recommend following:
- @inspiredbudget
- @debtfreeinsunnyca
- @easy_budget
- @thesavvysagittarius
- @thepurposefulpenny
- @modernfrugality (#shamelessselfpromotion)
3. Make a Visual Representation of Your Why
Write your “why” on an index card or draw it on poster board. Vision boards and picture collages work well too. Whatever you need to remind yourself that this is about more than just a few extra dollars in your bank account. Keep it with you, post it on your bathroom mirror, in your car, or all of the above.
4. Treat Yo Self
It’s not irresponsible to treat yourself to one last indulgence before your challenge begins. Mine is usually tacos.
What to Do When Life Happens
I love this scene in the TV show The Flash, when Flash recruits Leonard Snart to help him steal a power source from ARGUS. In their preparation for the heist, Snart has this brilliant sentiment:
“Make the plan. Execute the plan. Expect the plan to go off the rails. Throw away the plan.”
The fact is, eventually you’re going to mess up or life is going to do it for you. If this isn’t hard then you’re not challenging yourself enough. So what do you do when the plan goes off the rails?
Keep going.
Falling off the wagon, no matter how far, is not an excuse to give up and try again next month. It’s motivation to get back on that wagon, go further and fail better next time.
In a study published by the European Journal of Social Psychology, a researcher studied 96 people trying to build a new habit over 12 weeks. It took those people an average of 66 days for their new small task to feel automatic. The longest took 254 days!
The study also showed that a few missed days didn’t affect how long it took to build the habit. The more your mind and actions have to change, the longer it will take a new habit to take root. You will succeed, but you will fail first.
If you had a bender at Target last time, you know not to go to Target during your next challenge. If the coffee shop on your way to work killed your streak, put coffee in your hand before you leave the house. If lunch is your downfall, do more meal prep next time. That way if (and when) you fail again, it’s less and less of a big deal.
If the car breaks down or your kid gets sick, you can write a check or press pause for a few days, then get back on track. Responding to an emergency doesn’t mean you have to give up.
Everyone’s lives are so different I couldn’t even begin to list the reasons why you’d break a challenge. But if you need to, don’t feel bad.
Gone are the days of self-loathing and shame for not executing your plan perfectly. You’re learning to be better, and no change happens overnight. It doesn’t even happen in 21 days.
Over time you’ll gain resourcefulness in spending, and emergencies that once seemed earth-shattering will be mere annoyances.
And I am excited for you to feel that feeling, because trust me, it’s awesome.
GO DO THE THINGS:
- Make your budget
- Find out what you need for the month and purchase it
- Declare your #nospendchallenge on Instagram and Facebook
- Set up your home, workspace, car, etc to remind and encourage you (Great time to download my 100 free motivation quote cards at winning.savingwithspunk.com/nospendcards !)
