What do you do with non-spending day money?

Dutchgirl_2

Dear all,

Had my first conscious non-spending day today and calculated what I saved that way based on a daily/weekly budget. If you have a NSD, what do you do with the money that you originally budgetted for? I'm tempted to throw it at a credit card immediately, but I could also hang on to it for a bit in case there is a small emergency before I get paid or if I sell some more books on Amazon.

Regards, D

SunderlandBlackCat

The best chance of me having a NSD is planning ahead & remove any excuses to spend so I take my meals towork in advance so I can't forget & as I'm useless with cash I don't carry any. When I do have to withdraw cash I pay any change back into the bank to make sure I dont waste it.

mizmir

I'm going to carry mine forward to the next week and if it is still left at the end of the month pay it off the debts.

Batgirl

If you have a look at the mortgage free wannabe site there is a huge thread about a 'Mortgage Pig' this is basically a money pot that you put money in that you would have normally spent. ie if you decide to get a takeaway that costs £10 and then you decide not to because you are being good put the £10 in the pig, if you have a no spend day work out how much you would have normally spent and put it in the pig. Then at the end of the week or month you should empty your pig and pay it off you debts/mortgage. When you see how much you have saved in that period of time just by thinking before you spend this should spur you on to be good the following week/ month.

A lot of people like to save this way as you can actually see how much you have saved.

Hope this helps

Batgirl

Imelda

I take out £20 at the beginning of the week for things like lunches, postage, food and drinks at college (we usually go for a vino afterwards to moan about how much work we have to do )
But as I go through the week I put any £2 coins and change into my pig, it builds up pretty quickly.

immoral_angeluk

Our no spend days are usually the one's where DH has a day off from work. We rarely go anywhere and so rarely need to spend money. We have a weekly budget of which anything spare is put into the debt savings straight away so our no spend days count towards that.

hbl_2

I budget £30-£50 a week guilt free spend money depending on my outgoings that month. For instance, after next pay day, I'm allowing myself £45 because I want to save £30 in my ISA (to match what I'm being charged in interest on my student loan).

NSDs add up, and I've often got through a week with spending less than £10 or even nothing at all. Before xmas, I put this towards my xmas spend, and before that I would tend to pool two weeks worth of allowance and do something good with it. Over the summer I was all about experiences not consumerism, so I went surfing every other weekend in Devon, or to gigs in London/Bristol. I want to go places and meet people for all the time I'm sitting at home on my hands not spending money, rather than just needlessly buying more crap that will sit on my shelves.

So at the moment I am trying to give more of myself to others, making myself more available, but without spending too much! It makes it difficult that a number of my friends are in London, and a good handful of my close friends have moved abroad to find work - with three in Japan. I'd love to visit them, and my folks think I should, but when a flight is £600, to make it worthwhile I'd have to go for 10-14 days and I estimate that it would cost me in the region of £2000. That kind of curtails my options there. I'd rather pay down my loan by £2000 and see where my friends are in the world in 2 years time!

The other thing I desparately need to spend my spare money on is clothing - my wardrobe is seriously threadbare. I'm a jeans and tshirt kind of guy, and all my tees are holey and worn out. Did just buy jeans and a tshirt in the howies.co.uk sale so that'll tide me over for a couple of months!

Imelda

hbl wrote:

Over the summer I was all about experiences not consumerism, so I went surfing every other weekend in Devon, or to gigs in London/Bristol.

hi hbl,

where do you go surfing? OH and I got into it last year and have been going to Devon often (even when it's freezing cold).

Sorry OP for hijacking your thread.....

Bellie_2

I get paid weekly and I take out my weekly budget on friday. Any money left over on Thur that I have not spent, I put 1/4 into savings and 3/4 go on overpaying debts. You could do the same if you get paid monthly.