31 Day Challenge: No Spend Month

Through the month of March I am going to be challenging myself to spending ZERO extra money on random things. This is  going to be a major challenge for me, considering I spend my weekends shopping in-store and my weekdays shopping online – thanks to Ebates.

So, for the entire month of March I plan on only spending money on necessities like bills, blogging and food.  I have a few planned blog posts coming soon so, I can’t stop now!
My bills are the usual credit card, rent, car payment and groceries. I won’t be enjoying my Taco Tuesdays, weekend dinner dates or any shenanigans with my friends ( with the possible exception of St. Patrick’s day!).  I’m getting sad just thinking about this! With that said – I think it is going to be important to allow myself a little leeway so I don’t go too cray.  I will allow myself 2 coffee splurges for this, but NO shopping! I’m setting that plan early so I don’t feel guilty for for it later.

• Groceries
• Bills
• doggy food and treat
• blogging
• Will continue to contribute to my retirement
• Car payment
• Insurance
• Credit Card payment
• Gas
• Rent
• 2 coffee splurges – most likely a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks

How I will make this happen:

• Give up eating out, buying daily coffee, buying wine, getting my nails done and shopping. Basically not spending money on anything frivolous.
• Cancel all my Subscriptions. Typically I have 4 subscriptions running and I canceled each one. I usually have Vinebox (wine, duh), Fit Fixins for a meal prep service, It Works products and AdoreMe.com shipped to me monthly. I am soo sad to see the VineBox canceled, but I seriously have enough wine to bring me well into April. This alone saves me $200 a month. The only subscriptions I am not going to cancel will be my Apple Music, Netflix and Adobe.
• Try to use most of the ingredients I have in my pantry to cut down on my grocery bill and also not waste any food.
• Meal prep and plan! I think this is going to be extremely important. This will help with not wasting any food and only buying what I need.
• Find other ways to enjoy my time.
• Shop my own closet. Instead of buying new clothes i’ll try to create new outfits with what I have.

Here is what I want to get out of this challenge:

•  Increase my savings account by $800. For me, that seems feasible. I also plan on working more hours at my day job to make this happen (and probably to keep my mind from wanting to shop..) – I plan on putting all extra funds directly into my savings
• Realize I don’t need as much as I want. Hopefully by not just going out to shop I will realize that all these trips to the mall are unnecessary. I don’t need hundreds of candles…. right??
• Use the food I have in my pantry. Maybe that sounds weird, but I have so many things in my pantry that have been overlooked due to the new food I continue to buy. I’m not talking about the pantry necessities, I’m talking about the snack foods and pastas. This will easily help me save money on my grocery bill, also.
• Find new things I enjoy that don’t cost money. I have been DYING to go lay out on the beach and just chill.. maybe read a book which I have been enjoying lately. Although relaxing on the beach wouldn’t be something new I enjoy, it is definitely something I have not been doing enough of.

My biggest problem is my impulse buying. I have a major… thing… for candles, daily coffees and new clothes. Sometimes I just buy things simply because it’s cute or on sale
and that all adds up!

I will be making weekly updates to keep you all posted!

Do you have any tips for me? Have you tried this no-spend month? I would love to hear from you!

See how week 1 went: [here]
See how Week 2 went: [here]
See how Week 3 went: [here]
See my Final Report: [here]