Magnificent May's No-Spend Days Challenge!

cathybird

Welcome to Magnificent May's No-Spend Days Challenge! 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 this month and you are on your way!

Tips for the challenge:

1. It's totally up to you but 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, essential health spending such as dental checkups or medications, 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. 

May emojis:

Off to a start
5 days
10 days
15 days
20 days
25 days
Target reached
Target beaten

Everyone welcome to join! 😊😊

cathybird

May 2026 NSD targets 

AuntieL 15
beanielou 19
Bluekelpie26 14
cathybird 15
crazybeautiful 20
Deb 4 15
Dizzycap 10
Doris17 20
ET22 20
GreenFrogMum 10
Honeysucklelou2 10
InDebtEnby 13
KajiKita 20
laurenh1 15
LittleMissDetermined 20
loopylupin 10
Mamma2004 16
Optimistic Saver 22
Pinkpieuni 10
QueenJess 17
Rupacomp 10
Soontobeoap 15
ThriftyPrincess40 22
VickyA 2 15
Wanna Bee Free 10

🌞 🌞  Everyone welcome to join! 🌞 🌞

beanielou

Thanks @cathybird for our shiny new thread & all your hard work.

loopylupin

thank you @cathybird , good luck everyone.

ThriftyPrincess40

loving the emoji’s 😍 thank you for the new thread 👍

Soontobeoap

Hi @Cathybird. I would like to give this a try. May will be a good time because We / I am trying to get as much clutter out of the house and so trying really hard not to buy a lot more in. Can I start with 15 please.

cathybird

hi Soontobeoap, good to see you here, I've added you to the list, best of luck with the challenge 🌞🌞

cathybird

May 2026 NSD totals

NSD-ers	Totals	Off to a start	5 days	10 days	15 days	20 days	25 days	Target reached	Target beaten
AuntieL	15
beanielou	19
BlueKelpie26	14
cathybird	15
crazybeautiful	20
Deb4	15
Dizzycap	10
Doris17	20
ET22	20
GreenFrogMum	10
Honeysucklelou2	10
InDebtEnby	13
KajiKita	20
laurenh1	15
LittleMissDetermined	20
loopylupin	10
Mamma2004	16
OptimisticSaver	22
Pinkpieuni	10
QueenJess	17
Rupacomp	10
Soontobeoap	15
ThriftyPrincess40	22
VickyA 2	15
WannaBeeFree	10

Everyone welcome to join! 

Soontobeoap

Thank you

I have failed already. Ordered some trousers online today. 😢 Off to sons for weekend and hopefully doing a car boot sale on Monday so should be OK until 5th now. 🤦

cathybird

@Mamma2004 no you haven't, it's not May yet! xx

Mamma2004

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81982893#Comment_81982893

I think this comment was for @soontobeoap 🥰