Frugal Living: No Spend Days

I'm sharing a few successful techniques that we've been using to save money so far this year. Today I want to share about our approach to 'no spend days'...

There seems to be disagreement out there as to whether or not 'no spend days' actually save any money. We have found that implementing 'no spend days' into our weekly routine helps us stretch our 'fun spending money' out over the month a lot easier. So I suppose that the fact that we've limited our monthly entertainment budget is a contributing factor on the money that we're saving. However, it may be valuable to see what a day is like with planning to spend zero dollars. Once you try it you can decide  if it is something that will assist you in racking up dollars in your savings account.

My husband and I chose two days of the week to not spend money. "No Spend Wednesday" and "No Spend Sunday". Now, if something special happens on one of those days (like family comes into town for a visit and we take them for dessert) we just change our no spend day that week (for example No Spend Thursday instead of Wednesday). I don't know if this sounds lazy... but it works for us.

The success for us, is that 'no spend days' forces us to plan out a few things. Like if there is a project we've been meaning to get to we might check on Thursday if we have everything we need to complete that project. This way we do not force ourselves into buying items on Sunday right before our project because we've taken the time to asess what we actually need or how we can make what we already have work before we begin the planned task.

I do believe that 'no spend days' make it easy to cut frivolous spending. Or entice your family to find new fun and free activities to do, or try new recipes at home. We love eating a big breakfast on Sunday which I now use as an opportunity to try new recipes that day.

Some Free Activities to add to your list of what to do on a No Spend Day:

-get a movie from the library
-read magazines at the library
-hiking
-biking
- playing games (maybe with a bottle of wine that you already had)
- spend time fixing something in your home together
- complete yard work
- complete a project that you already purchased the materials for
- baking or cooking
- window shop... shopping can be super fun when you know that you are just looking




Earlier This Week:

{Monday}  A Budget Update

{Wednesday} Food Budgeting Ideas

{Friday} Cheaper Ways to Work Out