Fiscal Fast – 7 days no spending (at all)

catznine

Fiscal Fast – 7 days no spending (at all)
I’ve started a Fiscal Fast this week after watching Jeff Yeager’s you tube videos on frugality! It’s a bit like the store cupboard challenge but more so! In this case you stop spending for 7 days! Completely and absolutely (well apart from really necessary bills dd’s etc) You live on the food you already have in but also no spending on greeting cards, papers, presents, drinking, cinema, going out etc., You are allowed to fill up your car with petrol and get in a stock of milk for the kids.

I just wondered if anyone else had heard of this. It fits well under the old style banner, a kind of mix of the no spend days and store cupboard challenge!

I am on day 4 today and it is very illuminating! It is not just about the spending on food but every other little thing that you would open your purse/wallet for! I have had to stop myself going out shopping twice already and I thought I had cracked this frugality life! J Yesterday it was to get a little present for my daughters new kitten! Instead I found some fleece and ran up a little blanket for her bed instead! I could also have knitted a little toy mouse from wool scraps.

If I have been missing an ingredient for a meal then I substitute or make up the meal as I go along! Getting some interesting meals from the slowcooker this week! Today we have a quorn, leek, onion and courgette casserole on the go! (Hoping to get to the bottom of the freezer as well) Ilona on her “Life after Money”blog mentioned that the store cupboard challenge doesn’t go far enough as we can go to the shops if we want to! This challenge is like imagining you are snowed in and have no choice but to manage and find ways of coping! I appreciate that with small children this would not be so easy but maybe on a quiet week (no school trips, birthdays etc) it would be possible.

Anyone else fancy giving this a go? I am hoping to have saved about £50 on food and maybe another £20 on unplanned spends! I am definately going to do this again!

If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply!

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daska

:rotfl:

I had this planned for this week (well, tbh I have it planned for most weeks) but I've already had to get loo roll, some economies are just too great :rotfl:

Justamum

This is the norm for me. I only have one lot of grocery money each week, spend it on Friday and then it's gone until next Friday.

I don't need to top up anything in the week because I now have a Master List of everything I normally have in my cupboards which I go through every week and make my shopping list from that. I had to start doing it because I would invariably forget something vital.

PipneyJane

Please tell me more about the Jeff Yeager videos. I've never heard of him (or them).

mummybearx

I have a feeling that if I decided to do this, I would simply plan ahead. I would buy in next weeks birthday cards/presents etc this week, I would meal plan and buy in all food I needed. Not exactly no spending for 7 days, cos I would spend it all this week instead lol

I understand the concept of what the video and yourself are trying to do, but I feel I would cheat at it :rotfl:

pink_numbers

I try to do a week's grocery shop in one go. Then I try to make it last 9-10 days because I always end up buying more than we need for 7 days. If I didn't do this, when food stock gets low, I would just go out and buy whatever I fancy and end up wasting a lot of food.

Also means I can put away a week's worth of gorcery money into savings every so often which is fabulous

EDIT: I love Jeff Yeager, he plays dumb to make what he teaches accessible, but is incredibly smart.

Frugalista

Justamum wrote: »

This is the norm for me. I only have one lot of grocery money each week, spend it on Friday and then it's gone until next Friday.

Me too. Also we are in a very rural area and it would cost me too much in petrol to "pop to the shop" on a whim :eek:.

To be honest, I actually find it quite mindboggling that people can't think/plan what they would need to get in for one week only without the need to "top-up" shop . We have been snowed in here, in the past, for up to 10 days and have simply carried on as normal - probably even eaten better as stocks dropped :cool:.

[Deleted User]

Today is day five of my NSDs this week I still have my food money purse untouched and hope to carry on until at least the weekend I have run out of bread but have two packs of wraps in the freezer so will have them for lunches this week,or failing that some crispbreads instead of going out to buy bread.I have a two litre box of longlife milk that will do my needs as well and enough fruit and veg to keep me going I am going to see what I can do to eke things out further this week

catznine

I didn't do a shop at all this week so I had to cope totally on what I already had in, only really possible if you have a good storecupboard I guess. It means I have saved the whole weeks housekeeping. (If I get through to day 7 that is! ) Also it is not just food but all the other little things our money gets spent on. For instancegiving a home made present & card, reading papers on line, waiting to get home for that coffee, inviting friends round for a drink instead of meeting them at the pub, not staying for a coffee after Church, etc.

If these links have worked the first takes you to Jeff Yeagers website

http://ultimatecheapskate.com

This one should be the you tube that explains the fiscal fast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbrttmcgZ_0&feature=related

and this one is a really good interview albeit a longish one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5VU6BrH8o&feature=related

I really do appreciate some of you are already doing this and I applaud you for doing so well but I found it very educational and it is helping me to focus on saving some much needed pennies! We have had a huge drop in salary recently and I wondered if this might help someone else in these difficult times!

anguk

I'd love to try this and I think I would manage quite well but I would struggle to get my OH on board, today for example he fancied some black pudding so drove 8 miles to the butchers he likes to buy some! Now he doesn't know what he wants for tea despite the fridge, freezer and cupboards being full. He drives me mad at times! I think it would be much easier if you lived on your own or had a cooperative OH.

Justamum

catznine wrote: »

I really do appreciate some of you are already doing this and I applaud you for doing so well but I found it very educational and it is helping me to focus on saving some much needed pennies! We have had a huge drop in salary recently and I wondered if this might help someone else in these difficult times!

I'm sure it will. Before I did my master shopping list I used to have to pop out for extras which meant dipping into the overdraft . I just got so flaming irritated with not knowing what I had in that I just got an A4 pad and pencil and went through the cupboards, fridge and freezer. It kept getting added to for a few weeks when I remembered something I should have had in which wasn't there when I made the list!