Buy nothing for a month challenge

sharronej

Hi Bugslet,

I wouldn't think it rules you out - you're only spending money that's budgetted after all, this is the way I plan to run my challenge anyway .

Perhaps we should just carry on the Sept challenge on here and then look at starting a new thread for October - giving Rictus time to decide whether he wants to run the thread or not?

I've had a successful weekend - only spending my allotted budget and that went on a new aerial and some drill bits so my dh could put the tv in the playroom on the wall thus stopping the little darlings turning the t.v. off in the middle of the game or programme the others are watching. It'll be a tough week now though I've got very little left for food and I forgot to budget bus fare for my 15yr old's trip to school .

My t.v. is getting very tempremental so I really need to start thinking about that as well and I joined the one debt in 100 days challenge and that's creeping ever closer :eek:

Have a good day everyone

166million

I agree, I think if rictus isn't playing next month we could just carry on posting here with our own challenges. It's a great idea Rictus came up with

FireWyrm

Fine, I'll kick off then.

Days 1 to 5 were NSD's

Had to buy school uniform for two children this year, but that was budgeted for. I've managed to get through a house move without breaking into the general running money and I'm looking forward to payday on the 25th.

bugslet

Doing well FireWyrm! Having two lots of house payments to make is a bit ouch!

sharronej

FireWyrm wrote: »

Fine, I'll kick off then.

Days 1 to 5 were NSD's

Had to buy school uniform for two children this year, but that was budgeted for. I've managed to get through a house move without breaking into the general running money and I'm looking forward to payday on the 25th.

Well done 5 nsd's in a row is fantastic! My money comes in drips and drabs through the month so I've set a system of envelopes on for the coming month - I'm still trying to get them filled, I think there's a couple of hundred pound still to appropriate. I think I'd got used to just having money in my purse so I've found it quite difficult this week because it's shown me very clearly that actually the money isn't as free as I thought :rotfl: Still it's good to get back to basics!

I did get some overtime this week (£40) so I'm using that for my son's bus fares that I'd managed to forget Not spent anything that wasn't appropriated :T

FireWyrm

Tell me about it! September is going to be bloody hard. The roof on the new house has started leaking, but I still have budget in the contingency money for that. I've managed to knock all the utilities on the old house down to token payments for this month and next, but paying two lots of council tax is going to be a killer. We have food in the house, and I have £100 budget yet to be used for this month's shopping, so I'll try to eak out the food for the month if I can. We found almost £14 in assorted change when we cleared out the old house made up of coppers and silver, so we have a little money in the pot for sundries like milk. We have plenty of flour and sugar for bread making, so it's down to running groceries sensibly this month. I dont anticipate any over budget spending this month at all. Since we have moved house, I took this opportunity to re-set all DD's to the 1st of the month if possible so I know that anything after about the 5th is gravy and could potentially be used for emergencies. This month is also the last month of the overdraft (down from £2.5K in February) and I also finish paying off my dad this month. The new house is cheaper to run by about £250 a month I think and I've just had a 5% payrise which after tax gives me an additional £100 which I havnt allocated yet. I've been saving £130 a month in direct savings made up of £20 each for childrens shoes, takeaways, pin money, bus pass and emergencies. I have also been saving £30 per month in coins into the terramundi which pays for christmas next year and £30 into ING for a potential holiday - or new tyres for the car, I havnt decided.

It's tight, but if I stick to the plan, it should be very possible to get through this month with NSD's galore. I came through last month with a final overspend total of £28.45 which was annoying but far better than the previous months of £200+ which was what got me into this mess in the first place.

rictus123

Guys.....can only say sorry about lack of posting!!! This thread spurred me on and ended the month in a massive positive!! Started the month with next to no money in bank, ended up with well into 4 figures plus cards all paid off and paid for a holiday....leave next Thursday.So all the money not wasted has gone to debts or my holiday so worthwhile id say! Im not on for the challenge this month, got alot of stuff on thats not properly planned yet plus away on holiday, i will definatly be back for October where i am throwing in a couple of other goals like working at least 6 days a week = more £ in and less chance to spend it!!


will keep a much more detailed diary next month and give day to day reports with what iv been upto!! Stick at it guys, may seem a bit boring but so worth it in the end!! :cool:

20somethinghousewife

Enjoy your holiday Rictus, you've earned it.

I'm not going to be able to fulfill the challenge this month but I do find it a good place to write down my non-essential spending to keep track and look for where I can do better.
And I like to read everyone's posts here to keep me in the right frame of mind so I hope no one minds me hanging around and rambling on about every little thing I buy

This month is already a massive FAIL! It's a complete disaster as far a no-spending is concerned - and we're less than a week in :mad:

Firstly, I decided to take my 2 sets of living room curtains down to be cleaned for the first time in 4 years. They're dry-clean only so off I trundled to the dry-cleaners thinking I was being a good little housewife..... £41.06!!!! :eek::( I really wish I hadn't bothered!

Then there was something wrong with my car's exhaust which set me back £99.46

Then I saw some DVD's in A$da for £3 each. I've had my eye on them for a few weeks and the ones I bought are genuinely some of my favourites films ever, I will watch them again and again over the winter. Still, it was £9 I shouldn't have spent.

And today I bought a Fitness Ball from argos, £6.99 (don't ask :cool:).

I wish I could say that's it for this month but it's only going to get much, much worse.

Next week we go to visit some family for a sort of 'holiday'. We have to drive across three countries to get there and DH estimates it will cost £300 in petrol :eek:. Then there will be money spent while we're there.

We have some euros left from a previous trip and today we bagged up all our loose change and bought £135 euros with it! So hopefully the spending won't hinder our debt-paying-off too much.

As far as holiday's go though, it will be relatively cheap for us. Half our debt is from expensive holidays over the last few years So I'm seeing this as progress!

Then we're planning a trip to the Trafford Centre later in the month which isn't going to be cheap. We booked at travelodge down the road for a few quid in the sale a few months ago. We do it every year and it's the only time I really buy new clothes so I can't be too restrained...

So that's me, a complete disaster in the spending department this month AGAIN! But I can't see anything stopping me from being properly onboard next month and having 31 NSDs!

bugslet

That made me love 20 something! Some months are just against you!

I've had a good start to the month 4 NSDs ( should have been 5, but Sunday I did a volunteer transport run for some cats into re-homing and forgot to take some water for me, so 0.42 spent. It's almost worse when you spend a small amount!). Other than that it's been food and a dentist bill of £42.00 which is a necessary.

sharronej

haha I know what you mean Bugslet - I was quite proud of myself today because I needed bread but instead of buying one I made some bread rolls. I've had a couple of necessary spends for the back to school rush but other than that I seem to have managed ok - mind you I've not taken any money out with me so I haven't been able to impulse buy.

20something I feel your pain but if you spend some time on that ball then you can feel virtuous for getting fit

Firewyrm I'm also trying to get to the same position regarding the bills going out on one day in order to see what if anything is left - it's hard work!

Hope you all have a good nsd tomorrow