Welcome to The No Spend Month Challenge. If you’ve landed here and you’re not sure what No Spend Month is or why you should participate, read the introduction post to get all the answers. For the rest of you, I’m so glad you’ve chosen to participate in our little experiment in frugal living. I hope it will be a rewarding experience for you. Quite honestly, I’m thankful not to be doing this alone this year!
The Rules
We’ve set the goal for spending $620 for all food, household, and transportation expenses. That number does not count all of our monthly bills like rent and utilities. It does not include healthcare expenses that may be necessary. It also doesn’t count gifts for others.
We came up with this number by looking at our ideal budget for groceries and gas and made that our goal. Let’s just say this represents a significant decrease from what we spent last month! It is strict enough to make us be really mindful about what we are spending and what we are buying.
What will your No Spend Month Challenge be? Everyone should make your own rules for what will be the best challenge for your family. Last year we set our spending goal based on our monthly grocery budget alone. You may want to keep it simple and just swear off dining out and buying coffee all month. Maybe you want to make a specific goal to save up for something special or to make a contribution to a cause. Perhaps a whole month sounds too daunting and you want to pick one week to try a No Spend challenge.
Get Started
Still not sure? Check out the posts from all the previous No Spend Months.
Introducing No Spend Month
Great idea! I can’t wait to follow along and be inspired to make some changes.
WOW- that seems low for food for an entire year! I am so curious on what you eat. I am sure it can be done but you must grow your own food and process it?
Oh goodness! I wish that was our food budget for the year, but alas it is just for one month. It’s actually usually much higher. We have been trying to cut down, but since we are committed to eating healthy real foods, organic, and grass fed there is only so much we can do.
This is such a good idea. We really need to sit down soon and do an overhaul of our budget. Not because it’s going bad, but because I think we could be more mindful.
This is cool! Hubby and I have started talking about constricting our budget and saving more…well, paying off school loans, actually!
Oh student loans! I just can’t bear the thought that at this rate we’ll still be paying them back when our children enter college! That is definitely a goal for us too.
If you need help or tips along the way you let me know. This would be a fun post series to do but this being what it is I do this almost every month! At least 6 months out of the year minimum. God bless my pantry ;-)
I have helped many friends in need but found that no one else cared to learn. I saw 2 of the same topic on one blog hop just now and it only just opened. I am glad people are waking up. Many will find it more of a challenge than they imagined if they give it a true shot.
Teri
PS unless you travel allot that is high for food and necessities so you can do it! I routinely spend less than $500 a month and have pets.
I will follow you!
Great idea! I have written down all my expenditures for years in a notebook – that way I know where the money goes and if I keep up with throughout the month, I know how we are doing with the budget! I have 10 children, 7 of whom are still at home but the others frequently eat with us for dinner (of course spouses and their children too!) I try to spend under $400 per month on food. With meal planning and eating out of the freezer, I can. Having our own family milk cow helps too!
I would love to have you share this on Thursdays at Tasty Traditions: http://myculturedpalate.com/
Wow! $400 a week for such a big family is truly admirable! I would love to know more about how you do it. I will be sure to stop by and link up. Thanks!