The end of my no spend (three) weeks

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 5 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 2 comments

Three weeks ago, I decided to consciously not spend any money until the end of the year. I called it a “no spend week” for neatness but it actually was a fortnight and a bit – which, due to illness over the weekend, easily extended to three weeks, finishing on Monday.

I ended up spending considerably amount of money each week for the first two weeks. Since both the dog and boiler have been a’ok, I spent less this week:

• £1.40 at the laundrette drying a load of bedding. I would have waited until better outside drying weather to wash the bedding (since we don’t have the hanging space for duvet covers in the house) but it got damp when the water pipe burst in the kitchen the other week so had to be washed or it would get mouldy. I washed it at home but dried it at the laundrette.
• John & Strowger “bullied” me into getting fish & chips for lunch again the other day. They’re such a bad influence. John paid since he was the one with ready cash in his wallet.

From my exceptions list:

• £8.50 – cake & tea for two including a tip at a cafe. Part of the “birthday gift” exception I mentioned when I first started my no spend thing.
• Some more fresh food – just a few little bits, and some good steak for New Year’s Eve since we decided to celebrate the new year by both getting colds and couldn’t face going out for a meal as was the original plan.

My main temptation this week has been the same as last week: the endless emails about January sales and other offers. I’ve unsubscribed from as many as possible. Yes, it’s useful to hear about sales but sales are so ubiquitous these days that it seems less important to hear about each one; I’d rather seek out sales and offers when I’ve decided whether or not I need something.

(I did go online sales browsing for a new jumper one evening. I’ve been wanting a new warm woollie for a while and thought I’d check out the sales to see if I could find anything. I didn’t find anything even close to nice/suitable so I didn’t have to decide whether or not to break my no spend rule. I suspect having that rule though made me stricter with my criteria than it would have otherwise – for example, I also didn’t look at anything other than knitwear.)

So anyway, my “no spending until the end of the year” exercise is over. I found it surprisingly easy – it was nice to have a reason not to give into temptation when I was in shops for present-buying reasons – a “rule” to strengthen my will power. Consciously avoiding spending has also helped break my habit of including eBay in my “I’ve got a few minutes to kill online” list, to remove my credit card details from online shops to stop impulse buying and to unsubscribe from “buy our stuff” emails from shops I’ve used in the past. But the most useful thing for me has been recording all my spending in a weekly list so I can’t hide from my spending – and I’m going to continue doing this (probably offline) through 2011.

The boiler breaking and the dog getting sick were unavoidable “emergencies” and proved an earlier thought of mine right (that I mentioned yesterday about clothes): it’s hard to stick to total bans on spending or buying certain types of stuff because things have a habit of coming up just when you don’t want them to. That type of “emergency” spending isn’t the problem for me.

Broken boiler and sick dog aside, most of the money I spent was on food (at the supermarket or fish’n’chips thanks to the bad influence boys ;) ) or was related to socialising – a couple of drinks at a pub, a curry, a cake & tea outing — nothing excessive but stuff that’s a darnsight more frivolous than a broken boiler in the middle of winter. I could have been stricter with myself on these spends – I could have used the opportunity to suggest socialising activities that didn’t involve spending any money – but it wasn’t a lot of money so I’m not beating myself up about them too much.

I’d like to start doing no spend weeks/fortnights/months regularly over the next year – I’d like to see the difference of temptations at different times of year, when I’m not ill, when I’m leaving the house more etc. I’m also going to have some “eat from the pantry/garden” weeks over the spring and summer – that’s something that’s been missing from this no spend week since I had food on my exception list – we’ve not really cut back on food spending at all — it wasn’t the point of this no spend exercise for me but I think it should be for future iterations.

All in all, an interesting experience – if you’ve not tried it yourself, I’d heartily recommend giving it a go.

Spending during no spend week: week 1

Posted by louisa on Monday 20 December 2010 in frugal | 6 comments

A little background in case you’ve not seen my earlier post: I’m having a no spend “week” – well, a no spend fortnight+, until the end of the year. It was an impromptu idea – I often have no spend days, probably even weeks, without really noticing it but I wanted to have a conscious “no spend” period – and to come at it without any planning/organising has been interesting indeed!

Aside from my acknowledged exceptions (food-to-cook-at-home, food/vets for animals, essential bills, some bus fares and one birthday present), I have spent some money:

• £3.35 on posting a package to my mum. It wasn’t time sensitive – it didn’t have to be there by a certain point or anything – so it could have waited until after my no spend period. But it seems silly to be waiting just on the principle when I would be sending it either way (it’s not like I’d change my mind about sending it like I might about buying something). Equally, the item – a vintage music box I found in a charity shop, matching one my mum already has – could easily have been sent a couple of weeks earlier if I’d been more organised/planned my no spend week better. I could have easily not sent it but I think the important thing is that I took time to consider whether or not to send it rather than just acting without thinking.
• £292 on getting our central heating/hot water boiler fixed and serviced. Sigh. (Strictly speaking, John paid for this, not me, but I wanted to mention it anyway.) It stopped working on Sunday and was finally fixed on Saturday – six days without heat was beginning to make the house feel very cold and damp (our woodburners provide heat in the living room & office but aren’t big enough to heat the whole house). Given it’s the middle of winter, it was more a necessity than a frivolous want – and if we waited, it would have got harder and more expensive to fix over Xmas and New Year. (I’m going to write a post on this soon because it taught us an important, expensive lesson.)
• £3.24 on drinks at the pub on Saturday afternoon. A bit of a frivolous spend this one but it was a social occasion – meeting some people we’d been meaning to meet up with for *ages*. John was going to buy them but I was closer to the bar so I went.

From my exceptions list, I bought the birthday present, spent £4.30 on bus fare and we went to the supermarket for our monthly shop.

This is obviously quite a lot of spending during a no spend week! But it did work to strength my willpower while I was looking for the birthday present. I went into both clothes shops and bookshops while buying it – two key temptation areas for me – but I stayed focused and only looked at the category of things I was likely to buy for my friend, not stuff in general and certainly nothing for me. I also avoided charity shops and bargain shops to avoid the temptation. If I hadn’t been “no spend”ing, I could have easily have spent £50+ at those shops without really wanting or needing to – or even really noticing!

The “no spend” rule has also kept me away from online shopping – I’ve had several “I could just check eBay for that” moments regarding books, curtains and other random things, but I’ve resisted. I’ve also resisted temptation of sale offer emails from shops I like – and unsubscribed from those marketing lists.

We ate out on Thursday night – John’s company’s December meal (which they paid for) – but aside from that, haven’t eaten out or had any take-out. We had talked about having lunch at the pub on Saturday but instead had a bigger breakfast and didn’t need to eat again until we got back.

I’m going to keep going to the end of the year – so another ten days of no spending. From the exceptions list, I’d imagine I’ll need to spend a little on fresh food this week, buy a bag of dog food (which lasts 6 weeks), possibly some money on vet bills (Lily-dog is poorly at the moment – hope it’s just a bug) and a return bus fare to a rehearsal tomorrow night. Hopefully that’ll be it though!

No spend week – removing my credit card from Amazon & Paypal

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 14 December 2010 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 1 comment

The other day, I had one of those slap-forehead moments – I realised it’s far too easy for me to buy stuff on Amazon and Paypal. It’s one of the things that sparked off my impromptu no-spend week.

My credit card details are saved on both so I don’t even have to stand up and get my card, just click and done, money spent.

On other shops, where I can’t pay with Paypal, there is a lot longer consideration time. I’ll add stuff to basket then tell myself I’ll fetch my purse in a few minutes when I get up to wee or let the dog out, then the few minutes becomes a couple of hours and the excitement of buying the item has dissipated and instead of getting my card details, I close the browser window and the money is saved.

John often talks about delaying all purchases for a week after initial “ooh” – making a little program that stops you completing a transaction in one go and forces you to go away for a few days and think about it. I suspect we’d buy a whole lot less stuff if we did that – but in the meantime, removing my credit card details from Amazon & Paypal is a good start.

(While I was there doing that, I’ve also changed my “email notification” settings on Amazon so they’ll stop spamming me with “check out this awesome offer” adverts every few days. Since I hate adverts and freely unsubscribe from everything, I’m not sure why I didn’t do that sooner either!)

Impromptu no spend week

Posted by louisa on Monday 13 December 2010 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 12 comments

I’ve decided to have an impromptu no-spend week this week. Well, actually, not a no-spend week – a no-spend fortnight-plus, until the end of the year.

No spending days/weeks/months are an often promoted technique by frugal/anti-consumerism people but I’d never really done it before. Many of my days are no spend days, I probably have no spend weeks more often than I think too – it’s not something I’ve felt was an issue I needed to address. But recently, I’ve been buying a few too many (used) books online, or too many (second-hand) things off eBay and I realised I wanted a bit of a self-enforced time out.

Since I’m really wanting to cut down on my frivolous spending not essentials, I’m giving myself five exceptions:

• Food – I’d need to do a lot more planning to avoid spending any money on food for a fortnight (although, to be honest, John pays for most of our food anyway so it’s not something I spend a lot of money on these days). I will try very hard though not to buy any take-out though or pick up a chocolate bar while I’m out and about – only buy food to be prepared at home.
• Food/medical treatment for the animals if needed – definitely an essential not frivolous thing. Although no random ad-hoc treat buying for the cats or dog – they’ve got enough at home already.
• Bills – I think I’ve paid all the automatic direct-debits for the month already but if any are still due from my bank account, they’ll come out anyway.
• Bus fares – necessary for getting about – not that I leave the house much really. Will probably be only a few day riders (at £3.30 a pop) depending on how much I have to go to Bingley for rehearsals over the next few weeks. No taxis home though – I’ll wait for the next bus and/or make sure I get the last one.
• A birthday present for someone because, as usual, I haven’t been organised enough to buy it in advance and avoid having to face Leeds city centre on the run up to Christmas, ugh. I don’t tend to buy birthday presents for people – just give presents at any time when I see something I think people will like/need – but this person is an exception.

My main worry is that I’ll just rely on John to buy me things instead – take-out food or the Saturday newspaper – so I’ll try hard not to do that.

My main temptation will be going to the city centre to buy that birthday present. I’ve not been there for months and probably won’t be going again for a good long while, so the spendaholic devil on my shoulder will tell me to take the opportunity to look in the clothes shops for thick woollies I haven’t been able to find elsewhere or check out what bargain wool is on offer this week in the market. I could use another warm woollie jumper but I don’t need one, and I certainly don’t need any more actual wool. I’m a sucker for non-repeating bargains. Resist! Resist!

The key thing I want to get from it isn’t the desire to never buy anything every again, it’s to make me conscious about when I do spend money.

Have you had a no-spend week/fortnight/month/year before? If so, got any tips to avoid temptation?