Joyful July's No-Spend Days Challenge!

cathybird

Welcome to Joyful July'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. 

July emojis:

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

Everyone welcome to join! 😊😊

cathybird

July 2026 NSD targets 
beanielou 19
cathybird 15
crazybeautiful 15
Deb 4 15
Dizzycap 10
Doris17 10
FrugalAspirations 7
Honeysucklelou2 10
InDebtEnby 13
KajiKita 20
laurenh1 18
LittleMissDetermined 20
loopylupin 12
Mamma2004 16
OptimisticSaver 8
Peony40 15
Pinkpieuni 10
QueenJess 15
Rupacomp 10
Sallyp2 18
Soontobeoap 15
Tenar15 10
ThriftyPrincess40 22
VickyA 2 15
Wanna Bee Free 10

🌞 🌞  Everyone welcome to join! 🌞 🌞

beanielou

Thanks @cathybird for our shiny new thread 🎉

Wanna_Bee_Free

Thank you Cathybird! "And if all else fails, there's always next month  "

Looking forward to July. And I won't be on holiday so hoping to exceed my target next month.

beanielou

Not today.

Sallyp2

looking forward to July - start second half year

loopylupin

thank you @cathybird

ThriftyPrincess40

thank you @cathybird for the new thread! It keeps me sane 💕

cathybird

July 2026 NSD totals

NSD-ers	Totals	Off to a start	5 days	10 days	15 days	20 days	25 days	Target reached	Target beaten
beanielou	1/19
cathybird	15
crazybeautiful	15
Deb4	15
Dizzycap	10
Doris17	10
FrugalAspirations	7
Honeysucklelou2	10
InDebtEnby	13
KajiKita	20
laurenh1	18
LittleMissDetermined	1/20
loopylupin	12
Mamma2004	16
OptimisticSaver	8
Peony40	15
Pinkpieuni	10
QueenJess	15
Rupacomp	10
Sallyp2	18
Soontobeoap	15
ThriftyPrincess40	22
VickyA 2	15
WannaBeeFree	10

Everyone welcome to join! 

LittleMissDetermined

Kicking off July with a NSD please

LMD x

beanielou

First of the month today.