No Spend February...

It's February which means it's no spend time again. It's our fourth year. I personally love it. Coming off the spending frenzy of the end of the year, it's a nice change for me. I am, quite frankly, done shopping. We have no birthdays, anniversaries, etc until June so I like the 'cold turkey' aspect of a no spend month.

What, exactly, does 'no spend' mean @ September Acres?

-No shopping -that means we won't roam the aisles of Target buying stuff we don't need & sometimes don't even want. No trips to Costco. Grocery shopping is okay but limited as we are also eating from the pantry this month.

-No vacations - Easy Peasy as school is in.

-No going out to eat - If we are invited to go out as a treat we will go but otherwise we don't.

-No movies, bowling, etc. - That's pretty easy for us, except I haven't seen "Contraband" yet. Oh well, we'll be able to get it on DVD before you know it. I can wait.

So basically, no unnecessary spending. I think it's good for our bank account (the money we save goes into savings) & it's a good exercise for all of us to realize that we have so much and we should use/play with and enjoy it. I feel like sometimes we just buy, buy, buy and never really sit back and enjoy it.

I'd love to hear if you do this and how your family does it. I'll do a recap at the end of the month to see how we did.

Comments

Sonny G said…
I wish you good luck with your plan.

I did this most of 2010 and I'm almost embarassed to say how much I saved. I'm not even one of those huge spenders who uses retail therapy to cure everything lol. Still the amount when I tallied it in jan. was amazing.
Granted I dont have kids wanting or needing something constantly so my spending had only 1 culprit- Me..
I'm doing it again this year as a challenge to see if I can spend less than I did in 2010. I dont think folks realize how much Unconcious spending and thus unconcious living they do..
again I wish you the very highest success with your plan..
You'll probably be shocked at the money you save.
February 4, 2012 at 10:47 AM
Suburban Princess said…
Did you see that Extreme Cheapskate show? One of them does this sort of thing and they live debt free. They figure if they can get by on what they have then they can use the savings to enjoy their lives.
February 4, 2012 at 10:57 AM
Coffee and Cashmere said…
Such a fantastic idea!! I think we are going to try this in March. Think and try are the key words. Thank you for sharing!
February 13, 2012 at 10:07 PM
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