Tag: no spend February

What I Learned from No-Spend February

February is a depressing month. It seems to be that way every year for me. It’s the middle of winter. Even though we now live in North Carolina, and we no longer have a snow-covered backyard, the days are gray and largely rain-filled. Though some shoot push up through pinestraw-filled beds, Spring feels far away.

Our daily routine, which I have a hard time with on good days, feels unbearably heavy. (And as I write these lines I roll my eyes at myself, because, geesh, my life is so so good in the giant cosmical scheme of things. But feelings! They’re there for the feeling, right?).

On top of that, I added a No-Spend Challenge. Here were the rules of the challenge:

The Rules

  1. It started February 4th, because the weekend previous my parents visited and we did a lot of spending to celebrate family birthdays.
  2. It was for me only. Mr. ThreeYear traveled a ton this month and didn’t need or want to participate in the challenge. Same with the little guys.
  3. I spent on: groceries, gas, mortgage, bills.
  4. I did NOT spend money on: eating out, clothes, haircuts, home maintenance, entertainment, or pet treats for Lucy.
  5. Exceptions: I made an exception for a dinner we had planned with our neighbors, but we ended up pushing the dinner to March, so it didn’t apply.
I've never successfully completed a No Spend Month, until now. Here's what I learned from my No Spend February challenge. #nospendfebruary #nospendmonth #nospend #frugalfebruary #nobuymonth #debtfree #financialindependence
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A Year of Good Money: No Spend February

This year, my family is focusing on making better spending decisions. To that end, we’re (I’m) engaging in twelve money experiments designed to help us reexamine our spending patterns and hopefully, get better at them. I’m calling this the Year of Good Money.

Last month, we launched the year off with the “Stop Eating Out” experiment. We pledged to not eat out at all for one month. We’ve always spent several hundred dollars per month on restaurant eating, and that has vaguely bothered me for a while, because I don’t feel like we’re getting as much value from eating out as we’re spending.

In the past five years, our eating out has averaged a whopping $258.40 per month. If that money were going to one amazing meal that we enjoyed with friends, or something of that nature, it would be one thing. But most times, it’s a couple of visits to the Mexican restaurant, a night of take-out, or other underwhelming food choices that we don’t even enjoy that much.

January’s Experiment

So how did we do last month with the experiment? Honestly, incredible! We spent $0 in our Eating Out category. We had one exception when Mr. ThreeYear insisted we go out for sushi, paid for my his birthday money, so we did. I didn’t count it because it was his birthday, and his birthday money.

Other than that, we enjoyed an eating-out-free January, and the best part was, aside from the sushi excursion, no one seemed to miss it.

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