Like this...
Me: we will start doing the pantry challenge in Jan. I am thinking about doing a no spend challenge at the same time. What do you think?
Hubby: explain no spend.
Me: no money spent on extras. Like clothes, eating out, wants instead of needs. You know like that.
Hubby: okay, can we list exceptions?
Me: like what?
Hubby: like the two timers I need for the Christmas lights and ....
I know he said more but I heard Christmas and thinking we are buying those next week...
so I stopped him and said... I said Jan.
Hubby: might as well start Dec 1st. We could do it for Advent.
Oh well glad I was sitting down. After listing some things we KNOW we have to have in the next 6 weeks and then I figure out half of to be dealt with WITHOUT buying anything after thinking about it a couple days. We decided there will be a 3 day wait on anything that we think we need before we buy it.
We have a small list of things to buy with most connected to Christmas like the flowers I order Hubby's parents and Daddy.
Then we listed the basic grocery list and then rewrote it as we talked about it.
Makes sense to do it Dec with Charlotte and Wilbur having their annual shots and Rascal looking to have surgery to remove the tumor. I have 9 medical appts during the next 6 wks also so fuel costs will be up.
We decided no eating out except with our one friends and that is about every 6 wks or more and we just went out with them with Son 2.
We decided no buying clothes for a year. So I went on line and researched prices for Hubby's undies which he said he was low on (LOL). The go to place that is usually the cheapest had ONE pack of 7 for $32 marked down from $42 (yes really) I went to the company site that makes them and got FOUR packs of 8 for the same price as the first place of 1 pack with free shipping. The mending basket is going to over flow as Hubby is rough on clothes. BUT we are set.
I checked cleaning products, paper goods, and personal products and think we are good.
THEN I asked what to do with the money we save.... we bounced a few things around and then decided to split it. First , taxes that we might owe, second the medical fund. We have enough to pay 1 yr of ins right now. Hubby would like to have four years in it. We also could use a couple more months in the other savings. He would also like to pay his truck off earlier than we had planned( we planned a year earlier)
So this is going to be interesting. We came in at budget for Nov.
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1 week ago
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It's good that your hubby is supportive of your idea for a no-spend challenge. And $42 or $32 for 7 pair of undies - wow!Well done with finding a much cheaper supplier.
ReplyDeleteI stopped buying gifts years ago for adults. Now I only buy for five grandchildren and several charities. We're in our seventies and no longer host xmas dinner. We make a point of dining out with loved ones some time in the month of December. We no longer buy a Christmas tree. Who do you buy gifts for?
ReplyDeleteWe give cash to the kids, grandkids and great grandson. I buy a gift for Hubby's parents and my Daddy. I buy something for our 3 dogs and Hubby. We also give a gift to a friend or neighbor for each Advent. First Advent I gave a ugly sweater cookie mix to my"sister of my heart" Second Advent I gave gamma lids to the neighbor for their food buckets. I have some canned goods to go to my other sister of my heart and the Four advent we will give cash to 2 families. One has a wife in Mexico fighting cancer (USA sent her there) and the other has a 4 yr old daughter fighting ALS leukemia over in Columbus. We quit doing dinners when the kids got married,then divorced and remarried and it tore the grandkids up trying to split their time between everyone.
DeleteTrying to figure out what an "ugly sweater cookie mix" is.
DeleteAldi's had a cookie mix that the cookie is the shape of a sweater and you decorate it with frosting to make it look like the ugly Christmas sweaters as I've been told the ones that grandma's give LOL
DeleteI am leary of these no spend months so I have never done it. Do you feel like you do a big catch up and spend like crazy afterward?
ReplyDeleteFirst time I did it, I spent afterwards. Second time I spent before.
DeleteNow it's just oh well. Most times I have found if I list it to buy the following month... we are not interested in buying it by then.
With more thought I realized it would not make a bit of difference here since all of our budget categories roll over month to month and we never spend everything in the budget in a month. We do sometimes go through and skim off the excess which we may do soon because we are looking into putting in gas logs.
Delete