July is The No Spend Month

Have you seen anything about the The No Spend Month Challenge??  The idea came from Rachel at The Small Notebook as she has done this annually for the last 3 years.  The idea is that you will pay your bills and then just PINCH PENNIES so that you can see how much money you are really wasting each month.  Its just a break from spending.  Sounds interesting, huh?  Can our family do this??  We are surely going to try.

Our nation has become one of consumerism and it sickens me.  The belief that you can only be happy if you buy everything you want right when you want it has seemed to take over, even in our own home to a certain extent.  I find that my kids ask to go to Walmart more and more,  my free time is spent looking for something to buy, I stop for fast food way more than I should, and I just really don't keep an eye on where our money goes as well as I should.

Rachel lays things out so well in her post that I highly recommend you visiting her for all of the details, but for us, here is what we will be doing...

The plan:
The plan is that we really don't have one.  Im not the kind of person that can set a budget and "stick to it".  Not that I can't stick to a budget but it almost is like I am in bondage to the budget.  Clear as mud?  Well, let me just say it like this.  To say that I can only spend so much will make me constantly check the online banking, spend an entire day making some kind of whacked out spread sheet about how much we can spend each day on what and do some percentages and statistics and charts and graphs only to over spend on day one (on something out of my control) and blow the entire month and so I will quit.  Or, even better, I will go without milk for the next 26 days because I am trying to cut spending and we will eat hot dogs on bread and drink Kool Aid without sugar just because I am trying not to spend money.  Bottom line is that I am just not good with strict budgets and tend to do much better with the Big Daddy's budget which is, 

"Just try to spend as little as possible and what it is, is what it is.  

If you spend as little as possible, you will know that you couldn't have done any better."

Aaaah, much easier if you ask me.  And, I will spend less money that way and save myself from spreadsheet land and misery.  So while setting an amount for a goal may be what works for you, we will just be trying to cut spending everywhere we can.  We will see how that goes.

Not Included:
Not included in the fun will be our bills...ya know, we would like to live here at the end of July.  We will still pay all of our bills and I will still spend about $400 on groceries for the month, but I will be trying to cut spending in grocery land, as well as on our bills by figuring out if we can change plans or if the water company is interested in reducing our rates because we are such loyal customers....LOL!!!  Everything else though will be slim pickings!!!

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I will update you each Friday to tell you how we have done and to keep myself accountable and so that you can cheer me on.  If you plan to join The No Spend Month Challenge, leave it in a comment, I would love to check your progress as well.  


It should be fun, and since it is only July 5th, I will be including those first few days in July with my post on Friday...but for a teaser, we have spent less than $10.00 so far :)))


Wish me luck, I could very well be in an institution by July 31st!!!