No Spend Year: Our Focus on Intentional Spending and Living On Less

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No Spend Year is a phrase that I have been focusing on a lot the last few weeks. To understand why, it might be helpful to look back at my financial journey.

My financial journey has changed quite a bit since I started this blog. In 2016, I started this blog and started documenting my plan to pay off $34,000 in debt. I was intentional about documenting the things that I was doing to get there. In the end, I ended up paying off $36,495 in 26 months of being intentional, working 2-4 jobs and paying extra every chance that I could get.

Once I became debt free, I bought a house just a few months later that was a little bit too much for what I actually needed and worked less than I was originally working. I stopped being as intentional with my money, and slowly noticed some of the bad habits creeping back. “I have made it.” I thought I didn’t need to keep going! In December 2019, I found out that my finance and I were expecting a little one!

Then COVID-19 left my fiancé and I without a full time jobs in March of 2020 when our restaurant closed. At 16 weeks pregnant, we just were winging it without really focusing on were the money would come from. While some unemployment was coming in and I had my side hustles, I was not managing what we had and we were spending what we needed to in order to be prepared for our baby in August. 

In November of 2020, I totaled up all of the medical bills, our car payment that we added in June 2020, and some credit card debt that we added in order to prepare. We were somehow sitting a $19,634. I was sick to my stomach. How in the world did I work that hard to get out of debt, to turn around and get back in.

I have tried to not be too hard on myself because no one could have predicted anything that happened during 2020, but we are taking 2021 by the horns and making it better!

What is a No Spend Year?

In general, a no spend challenge for any length is cutting out any excess expenses and focusing only on bills, necessary spending, and your financial goals. A no spend year does not mean you are not paying your bills or ever buying groceries. I have a full blog post about what a no spend challenge all entails. You can choose the amount of time that you keep going with the challenge. Some people choose a day, a week, a month, but we are choosing a year.

It also looks a little different for everyone because everyone’s financial goals and situations are different. I have done a lot of No Spend Challenges. In fact, I have written many posts on how to have a successful no spend month. How to prepare for a no spend challenge. I have written a lot of things about the benefits I have seen in doing them, the biggest one being intense focus on your financial goals.

What are our RULES for No Spend Year?

I believe that you should create your own set of guidelines for any length of not spending money. One main reason is because it isn’t realistic to say that you aren’t going to spend a single extra dollar for a year. Things do come up, but I believe that it is important to set out guidelines for when things do arise.  When I did my first No Spend Month, I set a list of rules and some of them do still apply. Ultimately, anything in the budget doesn’t count as breaking the challenge.

Things like car expenses, medical expenses, hygiene products, diapers, groceries, and gasoline are the given basics for us. ‘

Here are a few of our other rules.

• If I sell something, I am allowed to buy something similar (clothes.. sell clothes to get clothes.)
• I am allowed to spend gifted money.
• If we do need something, check buy nothing, then Facebook Marketplace, then thrift stores, then small businesses. (in that order)
• We are allowed to get baby stuff as Carter grows. (Must sell or donate/used rule applies.)
• I am budgeting $100 for two date nights a month
• We are planning a wedding, so as long as we stay in budget, the wedding doesn’t apply.
• We are allowed to finish the house projects we have already started.
• Brandon and I each get $30 cash every month for “personal” spending. This can include snacks, takeout, or whatever we want to spend it on. 
• Business expenses do not apply to spending as long as they come from business checking

No spending money on:

• No Takeout Coffee
• Unplanned Fast food/restaurants
• No Snacks/gas station stops
• Pausing New home improvement projects til debt free
• No Home decor/ organization stuff
• New clothing

How we are preparing:

We have been trying to do a few things to help prepare us for our No Spend Year. My goal in the last few weeks of 2020 was to not go out and buy a bunch of things to “stock up” before starting our challenge. To me, that defeats some of the purpose.

One thing we did was walked through the grocery store and talked about all of the foods and snacks that we would like to keep on hand to help prevent take out or gas station stops. I made a huge list on my phone of all of the things that we could keep as quick dash out the door snacks as well as easy meal ideas for the crockpot. I will be focusing on making a meal plan that is REALISTIC to what our lives actually look like using my marker board meal planning method.

We also subscribed to diapers to help make sure we had them on hand and didn’t need to run out just to grab them and in turn grabbing other things while we were “just making a quick stop!”

We have been making a list of the things that we bring up that we should buy. Every time I make a comment about “I want…” or “We need to get…” I try to make a list of it in my budget binder with the date that we bring it up. This will help us see the things that we didn’t buy but also see how long we waited in between wanting it and actually getting it.

What our budget looks like without excess spending:

Right now, our budget is actually pretty tight with debt payments. We are currently living mostly on my fiancé, Brandon’s income. I am mostly staying at home with our son, But I do have some income from my store and a few other side hustles. My income is going mostly to debt and savings goals. We currently have $19,500 in debt (credit cards, medical bills, and a car payment) and $1,500 in savings at the beginning of the year.

As of January, our budget looks like this:

• Our Bills (Mortgage, internet, insurance, utilities): $1760 a month
• Spending (Groceries, date nights, gasoline): $575 a month
• Minimum Debt Payments: $530 a month (Goal: $800-$1000 a month)
• Savings Goals and Sinking funds: $150-$250 a month

The Goal of the No Spend Year.

We are starting the year with a 5 month old, so clearly there will be things that will be needed as the year goes on. He will grow and need clothes and different books and toys. The goal is to not spend any money what so ever, but instead to be more intentional about the things we do need and where we are purchasing from.

• Focus on what we already have
• Enjoy the things we can do together without buying things
• Pay off our debt and build our emergency fund
• Clean out the clutter of the house.
• Focus on free or used things instead of always buying new.

My hope is that we can build new habits throughout the year. Instead of running to the store to buy new things, the habit of looking for them in other places. To keep the house less cluttered with things. The goal of being intentional with our grocery spending on things we want instead of grabbing it from a gas station on the way.

What rules or goals would you add to your No Spend Year? What would be the hardest part for you?

 

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