Joyful July's No Spend Days Challenge!

cathybird

This challenge is all about helping people to save money by setting aside days every month where you deliberately don't spend unnecessary cash. Over the short term, it can help you have a more frugal month. Over the long term, if you stick with it, it can help change your mindset because you get out of the habit of frittering money away and start automatically holding off from spending instead. It also helps you delay purchases, which in turn means you lose interest in a lot of things you might otherwise impulse buy.

Another good thing with this challenge is we're all in it together, and people will help you on bad days and cheer you on on good days, and the support and accountability can really help make it easier to keep going with it. And if all else fails, there's always next month

To join, just post the number of no-spend days (NSDs) you're aiming for in July and you are on your way!

Tips for the challenge:

1. If you've never done the challenge before, it's probably simpler to start with a goal of 10 or (at most) 15.

2. It is fine to exclude necessary expenses eg petrol, groceries, pet food, etc, when it comes to deciding what is and isn't an NSD. It is also completely fine to exclude automated or recurring payments such as bills, mortgage or direct debits.

3. It does help to post every time you notch up an NSD, or at least every two or three days ... it's easy to lose track! If you want to keep track of your NSDs in your MSE signature, that can be really motivating too

4. It also helps to bookmark the thread, it's much easier to find.

5. NSDs are trickier than they seem and easily derailed. It can work better if you notch up as many days as you can in the first half of the month, or think of the month in thirds so if you're aiming for 10 NSDs, try to do 4 days in the first 10, 3 in the second and 3 in the third. And if you feel that you're falling behind, there's no shame in changing your target! Sometimes life just gets in the way, and the challenge should be fun, not a grind.

July

Off to a start =

5 days =
10 days =
15 days =
20 days = Target reached = Target beaten =

cathybird

July targets

beanielou 19

cathybird 15 Crazycatlady2 18 GeorgianaCavendish 19 IndiJonesi 11 jammy dodger KajiKita 15 lianne1984 10 LittleMissDetermined 18 Makingabobor2 15 MrsCautious 12 mummy2threeboys mummyjane Optimistic Saver Pauper1 QueenJess Rupacomp 15 Saver-upper 15 short bird 18
Newcomers welcome

Makingabobor2

I'm in again. Aiming for 15  this month please. 

beanielou

Thanks as always cathybird for the new thread.

I dont count payments going out from the bank, food shopping (unless I go over budget or buy things I should not!), petrol, physio or cat food.
For me it's the buying treats that I try to keep on top of~~usually chocolate or cake!

lianne1984

Thank you for the new thread 
Good luck everyone!

Saver-upper

Thank you for the shiny new thread cathybird.

Just to re-iterate, for newcomers, the rules really are your own. For many years, I always chose to exclude milk and bread (because my 4 children were little/growing, and they are 2 basics that I would hate running out of just to save an NSD.) The other spend I allowed was petrol/diesel, because saving an NSD by running out of fuel on the motorway is a bit silly really  )

Only in the last month or 2 have I started excluding public transport (son's student monthly ticket, and I have started using public transport more since Bristol introduced Clean Air Zone, which charges me £9 every time I drive through it  )

So it is perfectly ok to set your own rules, and change them to suit. The goal is simply to become more mindful of our spends.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk 

KajiKita

Saver-upper said:

Thank you for the shiny new thread cathybird.

Just to re-iterate, for newcomers, the rules really are your own. For many years, I always chose to exclude milk and bread (because my 4 children were little/growing, and they are 2 basics that I would hate running out of just to save an NSD.) The other spend I allowed was petrol/diesel, because saving an NSD by running out of fuel on the motorway is a bit silly really  )

Only in the last month or 2 have I started excluding public transport (son's student monthly ticket, and I have started using public transport more since Bristol introduced Clean Air Zone, which charges me £9 every time I drive through it  )

So it is perfectly ok to set your own rules, and change them to suit. The goal is simply to become more mindful of our spends.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk 

I think this is spot on. What I tend to differentiate between, is discretionary spend and non-negotiable spend. So if I have a food delivery that = non-negotiable for me (happens every week, we need to eat, it’s budgeted for) but if I decide I want extras such as posh smoked tofu from the health food shop, unless it comes out of my monthly cash pocket money (set amount each month, once it’s gone it’s gone) then the transaction for that item counts as a spend and that is not an NSD for me. Basically unplanned / extra spends on my credit card are non-NSDs. 

What I have found, over time is I am no longer spending all of my cash allowance ‘pocket money’ each month (I will only withdraw £40 of the £100 I normally budget each month between the most recent and next payday) so I think my habits and attitudes around all spending is changing too. 

KK

QueenJess

Declaring a NSD today. Only real spend will be paying for a parcel to be sent, but as it’s a sale I made, it doesn’t count as I’m still up!

MrsCautious

Hello, I wasn’t around for June, but I’d love to join in for July please. Thanks so much for running the challenge. I’d like to aim for 12 NSDs. 

cathybird

July

Off to a start =

5 days =
10 days =
15 days =
20 days = Target reached = Target beaten =

July targets

beanielou 19

cathybird 1/15 Crazycatlady2 18 GeorgianaCavendish 19 Crazycatlady2 18 IndiJonesi 11 jammy dodger KajiKita 1/15 lianne1984 10 LittleMissDetermined 18 Makingabobor2 15 MrsCautious 12 mummy2threeboys mummyjane Optimistic Saver Pauper1 QueenJess 1/17 Rupacomp 15 Saver-upper 15 short bird 18
Newcomers welcome

KajiKita

1 today 😊

KK