One of my New Year's Resolutions was to do a buy nothing month. I've read about other people doing them and always thought it was interesting. I'm a spender, so I thought it would be a fun challenge and have the added bonus of saving us money! After talking about it, Andrew and I decided January was the perfect month to do it, since it's right after Christmas and other than one birthday, we didn't think we'd have any reason to have to spend money.
We laid out a few ground rules: obviously, bills had to be paid and groceries had to be bought. Other than that, we didn't want to spend any money unless it was absolutely necessary. Our bills right now include rent, debt (credit card, our computer, and our vacuum), house bills (cable, gas, electric), medical insurance, and our cell phones. We also agreed on a set amount of money to spend for my mom for her birthday, which was the 16th. Other than that, no money out was our goal.
We realized fairly quickly that we forgot to factor in Caleb. He's pretty set (he doesn't really need a whole lot that he doesn't already have), but we had overlooked a tiny detail. We were running low on diapers, and we had made the decision that we would not be buying more disposables once the ones we had were gone (if you'll recall, another of my goals was to exclusively cloth diaper). So what to do? Waste the money on disposables, or spend what is arguably a pretty big chunk of money (several hundred dollars) on cloth?
Well, it doesn't make sense to throw money away, so we decided to break our no-spend rule and we hit the local baby stores and Amazon for cloth diapers. That was actually much more fun than I'd like to admit... even though it was a necessity (babies need diapers), it felt like fun spending, which we were trying to avoid. Oh well. We ended up getting enough diapers to be able to CD full time (I think we have 17 altogether), although we now do laundry just about every day. I'll talk more about that in another post, though.
Well, it doesn't make sense to throw money away, so we decided to break our no-spend rule and we hit the local baby stores and Amazon for cloth diapers. That was actually much more fun than I'd like to admit... even though it was a necessity (babies need diapers), it felt like fun spending, which we were trying to avoid. Oh well. We ended up getting enough diapers to be able to CD full time (I think we have 17 altogether), although we now do laundry just about every day. I'll talk more about that in another post, though.
Other than the diapers and contributing towards my mom's birthday gift, we did really well not spending money. We didn't eat out (we rarely do, anyway), I used Andrew's shampoo when I very inconveniently ran out of shampoo and conditioner, I didn't buy any books, I ignored emails from Zulily and all of my other favorite daily deal sites, heck, we even cancelled Netflix. I'll admit it, this goal was much easier for Andrew to accomplish than it was for me. He's a saver and hardly ever buys anything for himself, and I'm most definitely a spender. It was challenging for me to stop myself- a few times, I had something in my Amazon cart or I had plans to pick something up at a store, and then I'd remember that darn no spending thing. But overall I was a lot more dedicated to it than I had expected. I didn't even let myself spend money that I had on a gift card. More than just saving money, I felt like this needed to be an exercise in learning the difference between a need and a want.
I'm happy to report that I'm looking forward to doing it again. Maybe not this month (there are a few things I'd really like to buy again- conditioner, I've missed you!), but definitely soon. I do think I'd like to continue the habit of carefully considering things before I buy them- do I really need this? Can this wait? Can I make it myself? Can I borrow it from someone?
I'd encourage everyone to try this exercise. Knowing there was a limit on how long it would go on was a big part of the appeal for me- even though it'd be great, I don't think I'd do well committing to this for longer periods of time. Yeah, I can use Andrew's shampoo when mine runs out, but I miss my hair smelling nice and being soft. I guess like anything, it's all about balance, right?
Have you ever tried a buy nothing month? Would you? Tell me all about it!
I'm happy to report that I'm looking forward to doing it again. Maybe not this month (there are a few things I'd really like to buy again- conditioner, I've missed you!), but definitely soon. I do think I'd like to continue the habit of carefully considering things before I buy them- do I really need this? Can this wait? Can I make it myself? Can I borrow it from someone?
I'd encourage everyone to try this exercise. Knowing there was a limit on how long it would go on was a big part of the appeal for me- even though it'd be great, I don't think I'd do well committing to this for longer periods of time. Yeah, I can use Andrew's shampoo when mine runs out, but I miss my hair smelling nice and being soft. I guess like anything, it's all about balance, right?
Have you ever tried a buy nothing month? Would you? Tell me all about it!