Anyone doing a no spend February?

[Vintagewannabe]

We went through the months finances. They were shocking! We are Ment to be saving but spend lots of money on pointless stuff.

Anyone doing a no spend February? Only essential bills and food. I’ve never done a no spend month before so may need support

That's huge savings Diamond... that'll help clear tgat debt for sure.
Get something strong Basic ! Good thinking getting OH to pick it up...lol

Thanks. So I got myself £25 on sat for any spends I wanted to make. I haven't spent a pound yet 😂😂

I find the cutting dead on spending, rather than trying to ‚reduce‘ really works. I simply end up thinking “no, that’s not allowed this month”.

My ultimate aim is to get to end June without spending anything!

Yes that is the same as me SalyrcLuxx. I was thinking I don't actually NEED anything. I'm always buying clothes, lunches and socialising, eating out cos I want to. I reckon I can save hundreds. I just want to pay my credit cards off and get out of my overdraft. I have been wasting so much money.

Basic, hope you get that tooth sorted today.
I'm meeting a friend that I haven't met in ages for a coffee this morning.
DD needs new runners so must shop around for a pair for her .
Other than that , I'll try not to spend anymore today.
Not sure if I could stop spending completely but I'm definitely going in the right direction.

Great savings Diamond!

I bought dog food using a code from pets at home and saved £40!

Today I spent £10 on sewing bits from Dunelm, but in the plus side it's to adjust a ballet outfit which will save me money on buying a new one.

Bumble bee outfit £3 secondhand for world book Day (the bee who made tea!)

£10 on new baby cards & wrap for friends. I had kinda forgotten "gifts" when I agreed to no/low spend month. Hmph.

€15 on dd runners... well pleased with that....God bless Sports Direct !
However, I did pick up a tshirt and shorts for dd for summer hols.....massively reduced.... €9.50 for the 2.
Coffee and scones with friend.... €18.... treated her cos it's her birthday ( so can be forgiven) .
Need petrol ....again .... another €30.
Not great really !

Thanks Designer - turns out it was a tiny cavity underneath an existing filling. He’s dug it all out and put in a temporary one & I’m to go back for a permanent one in 4-6 months once this has settled.

Hoping that will be the end of it then rather than having to go down the root canal route!

£21 spent at the dentist (can claim it back though) and £4.50 for lunch. That should be it for today.

Great you got sorted Basic. .... can't believe it was only £21 for that work.... here ( Ireland) it would be €75-€80...
Dentists are fierce expensive here. Fingers crossed you won't need a root canal.

I did a no spend January & managed to spend £217.20 for food & essentials

I’m on holiday in February, but plan a no spend for 3 weeks of the month and into March

@ivykate44, that's great savings. Hope I can do the same !

I took all but one plastic card out of my purse and left them at home - that helped

I kept all my receipts so I was accountable at the end of the month- as soon as February arrived I’ve not kept a receipt!!! Though it only been petrol, haircut, coffee with my dd and I’m now spending euros from last summer. I will be keeping receipts again on my return on Saturday

I treat it a bit like a competition, wanting to do well.

I want to save money this year for an extra trip in November, so figure if I save the pennies it’ll pay for my trip. Last year I had a no spend January and purchased a chair for £100 with the money I hadn’t spent. It looks great in my sitting room.

I'm on a no spend too. Haven't started properly but I get paid in the middle of the month though. Im taking my cash out for the month, dividing it into weekly envelopes and keeping it in a cash tin. Will fill up my car and leave my cards at home.
No Council Tax to pay this month or next, so am using that to pay my cards off that I used at Christmas. No spending till my cards are clear! They arent huge, just annoying.

Just checking in....
Hope you sort the tooth YahBasic
Diamondangel8 - that's great savings and exactly the mindset I am trying to get into - I'll look up the podcasts.
Great savings IvyKate!

I had a no spend day on Monday - except i did a "planned" small top up shop for fruit and veg.
I had a no spend day yesterday
and I'm planning one today and tomorrow.
All 3 days I've bought packed lunch and coffee into work.

I get paid on Friday and will be making a payment towards my debt. I am then planning on pitting all lunch money towards it too. Plus everytime I don't but a bottle of wine I'll put £5 towards it. I plan to be accountable on here...

As much as getting my debt down I want to change my mind set and save some money.

I'm here
We overspent at Xmas and had plans for no spend January.
The only spend was going to be a spare freezer for stocking up so we can only food shop every fortnight rather than weekly as we overspend.
We also have set our weekly spend at £90 but know we can lower that with meal planning so that's what we've been doing.

The upside was a friend was getting rid of her freezer so we didn't pay a penny for it

The downside of January was a new iron after mine got melted by ds,a new hoover as ours blew up ,an mot and tyres and a slow puncture emergency repair
Plus dd broke her school boots and didn't fit in her rain coat,oh and she needed new shirts and tights for school as well as a bowling trip.

Ended up spending more than we had ever anticipated so scraped back with a plan for feb.
Did a big good shop last week and spent £150 which should do two weeks although may have to do a small salad/veg top up.

The water went up by £35 a month but the council tax will be due to go down by about £20 so give and take and we should even out and just not go anywhere to spend!

My personal plan is
1 coffee out either on a Sunday or Monday (days off)but not both

No make up or clothes purchases for me or the dc (nobody needs anything)

No buying pastries or nice breads from the reduced section (worked out I spent £10 in one week and most of it got wasted )

No online purchases. I no longer have eBay or amazon app on my phone.

No more pootling to nearest supermarket for a look around and coming out £30 lighter with a bag of crap
Fingers crossed

Using cash for treats is a great way of getting a bargain

Draw out your £90 and put £10 in a separate section of your purse for coffee out

Any money left over at the end of the week goes into next weeks budget - therefore if you have £30 left over it means you only need to draw out £60 and again put £10 into your treat section.

As you go through the month you’ll get an idea of how much you really need each week - possibly more the first week of the month and less each other. Then the following month you can actually limit yourself to what you really need

Can I join too?

Overspent massively in December so cut down (out of necessity) in January, but I actually kind of enjoyed it. I fritter money away on lunches, unnecessary crap from the supermarket and online shopping and then have the guilts so being on top of my spending definitely made me feel more in control.

For this month I'm allowing groceries (but meal planning), fuel, school expenses and bills. Am already in a better habit of bringing lunch to work and avoiding going to shops which inevitably leads to impulse buying. I saw a great tip on here also which was to move the pennies from my current account over to my savings account every day - I'm planning to do this for the rest of the year and see how much I've saved by the end.

Haven't managed a no spend day this week yet but am hopeful for next week

Can I join in.... I've just become a stay at home mum and we have a tight few months ahead of us to get used to living on one income! Our main problem is eating out at the weekend, we always end up going out for lunch or breakfast each day. So today I have made some roasted vegetable soup and bought some fancy crusty bread... A lot cheaper than a meal out!

This came across the Active threads and reminded me of a technique I used to employ when I was in heavy debt paydown mode years ago. (Need to do that again actually. Sigh.)

My method of doing no spend was to deliberately make my self broke by moving all excess money into my savings account each payday. So if I figured my bare minimum/allotted expenses were let’s say $600 for the two weeks, I’d move the rest of the money to savings. That meant that if I wanted to overspend... there literally wasn’t enough money in the account for me to do so. The $600 may cover expenses like electricity, groceries, transport, credit card bills, allotted eating out, and a small treat like a magazine, but that was it. The rest was buffer and moved to savings.

If I wanted to make an extra credit card overpayment, I’d move the amount from savings and then immediately log into my credit card website and make the payment. That way the money would be removed immediately and I wouldn’t have time to fritter it away. I’m a total fritterer so this method works for me. If I don’t see the money, I can’t spend it. :)

@Diamondangel8 in your case of estimating your new food out and transport expenses to be £56 instead of £180, I would immediately move £120 to my savings account now so they the money isn’t there to fritter. That still leaves you £60, with a £4 buffer that you can choose to treat yourself during the month. :)

Good luck everyone!

Thank you. I haven't spent on my debit card last 2 weeks and listed 40 things on eBay, Facebook, sphock etc. I have made money on there. I'm about to get paid and will clear £800 off my 2 credit cards this month bringing 3 of my credit cards down to zero balance and that's the Xmas shopping aid for . Normally at this point I would start spending on my cards again but after listening to Dave Ramsey I have no intention of spending on them now. I have one credit card to clear and an overdraft after this. I'm just going to use credit cards for emergency now and start saving properly.

Not been too bad however had £75 in hobby fees for dd on Sunday and another £30 for another trip for other dd
We've decided just a card for valentines this year

Gutted I haven't managed to save this month but have caught up a couple of small things to repay and both dds got new furniture for their rooms as they've recently been decorated.

Have a bill to pay when I get paid next end of this week which is a one off and over £100 but I'd rather clear it than stuck the cash into saves.

Also plan to clear a c card within the next two months pay so will bring monthly outgoings down.

Onwards and upwards.
Only owe three more months in my car which I can't wait to finish so getting there

Has an urge to impulse buy this week to make my life easier!

Happily I remembered that I could (1) probably borrow some marbles from our childminder (turned out correct) and (2) already had duct tape.

The urge to just “fix” it by amazoning it was fairly intense though.

Wow you guys sound like you are doing really well. Quick update. I’ve done ok, just stuck to essentials, no takeaways and taken homemade lunches and coffees to work. Then Dd2 swing on her wardrobe door and the whole thing spilt in 2!! (Cheap wardrobe bought years ago) so we replaced it with some sturdy drawers. Saw this as emergency as nowhere safe to store clothes. We’ve started following Dave Ramsey’s baby steps and already paid a debt off . We are now concentrating on savings. Hopefully the rest of Feb will be as good. Keep going! :)

I've completely fallen off the wagon. I'm going to try again in march. I was so good in February that I think I had a bit of a meltdown!!

Nearly there! I’ve not spent anything on snacks, coffees etc yet. I’ve been tempted, but have them gone the extra step and though of a free alternative

We’ve also redone the budget at home, so now our finances are in pretty good shape. Excitingly, our long term savings are maturing now, and we’ve worked out we can wipe out the remainder of our mortgage with them. That was a lovely surprise.