Spending Ban

I’m going to preface this post by saying that I do not understand why talking about money is such a taboo subject.  I’m going to talk about it anyway.

Do you remember a while back when I made it my goal to save $8000-10,000 by March 2017? That wasn’t just something to say, I had every intention of making that happen. I STILL have every intention of making that happen, and I’m almost there.

Back in July I came up with the idea of putting myself on a spending ban. If it isn’t immediately clear to you, a spending ban means no spending outside of what must be paid.

For 1 full month there would be no frivolous spending. No buying things just because. Any money that would be going out for the month was accounted for. Obviously, all of my bills still need to be paid and that is already worked into my budget. The other things that I have to spend money on are somewhat flexible. Gas and groceries change price depending on the day, how much I get, etc. I looked at previous spending to create a budget for those.

For the purpose of general savings and not just for this month I looked into lowering some of my permanent bills. I had no luck finding cheaper car insurance but I did manage to get my phone bill lowered by $10/month.

As of August 1^st the ban began. As is normal, when I tell myself that I can’t do certain things those things end up being exactly what I want to do. I found myself wanting to go shopping a lot for the first week or so, but it eventually passed. Winning at my own challenge is very appealing to me and I had every intention of doing so.

I considered ahead of time that we would have one night in August where we would be going out and likely couldn’t escape from a little spending. My answer to that is our “occasion” piggy bank. Sometime back Ryan and I started saving any cash income in a special spot for use on special occasions, vacations or rainy days. We decided we would be willing to spend a specific amount that night and that is all that we took.

At the end of the month I saved almost exactly what I had hoped for. I went over on my grocery spending but spent less on gas. I made a little bit more than I was expecting as well. I also discovered that this month was the perfect time to use those gift cards I’ve been carrying around for over 2 years now and that allowed me to spend a day at the mall with my friends and not feel any pressure to spend.

I consider my first spending ban a success and I am now on my second one for the month of November. I also finished all my Christmas shopping in October which should allow me to have a stress free November/December where I am able to save money instead of going into the red as so many people do. The fact that November happens to be a 3-paycheque month certainly doesn't hurt either.

After November my next challenge will be to survive a 2-3 month ban sometime in the New Year!