No Spenduary

I love making up words like that!  Anywhooooooooooooo.....

From about mid-October until late December, my stress level is inappropriate.  My friend Wendy would say, "wildly inappropriate."  We can go on and on about why and what I did to make it better, worse etc. but that's not the point, really, of this post.  That's just context.

One of the main contributors...you all know the drill; the holiday blitz starts earlier and earlier every year, and we're inundated (what's a stronger word than that?  Attacked?  Bombarded?  Repeatedly hit with no way out?) with commercial after commercial and email after email announcing sales and discounts and free shipping and urgent requests to "Shop Now!"  "Sale's Ending at Noon!"  I can almost hear them yelling at me.  And rather than calmly review all options so I can make an educated, informed decision and purchase, I shut down and totally retreat.  Super.
But see, you can't really retreat and "cancel" Christmas when you have two young kiddos who see only the magic and mystery of the season.  So, every now and again I'd peek at an email or watch the entire commercial for some store.  I'd just about get sucked in and follow their barked out commands, but I'd stop short.  It came down to making a list (praise be to the holy list!) and a budget and a plan....and sticking to it all.  Which we did.  More or less.  Mostly more than less.

Again, not the point.  More context.  Dear Lord I'm taking you to Florida by way of Utah here.  Hang in there with me.  I'm getting there.

When December wrapped up (pun intended because why not!?) I decided to put myself on a self-imposed (yeah, Amy...we got that when you said you put yourSELF on it!) spending freeze for the month of January.  Even though we stuck to our plan, I still felt like I was in non-stop spend mode.  Gifts for this one, tips for this one, extra goodies to this one, office obligations.  Even if it didn't add up to a ton, it sure felt like it did.  

So that was it.  No purchases other than normal bills, gas and groceries....and by groceries, I mean what's on our menu/meal plan and nothing outside of that.  Heaven knows I'm "that girl" at the store who winds up with $25 or more worth of "what's this, is it new?  Looks good, let's try it" stuff in her cart.  You know her, don't you?  You may be her, too, right? 

Told Mark.  He was in.  Told my Mom.  She was in.  She told my Sister.  And yes, she was in, too.  This did not, I repeat, did NOT come from a place of "we're broke and we need to reign it in, big time."  We didn't go totally overboard at Christmas and even went away for Thanksgiving which meant that we didn't host; right there was a decent savings.

This was more an exercise/challenge born out of a stubbornness to see if I really could do it (shocking, right?  Me, stubborn?) and a way to keep random spending at bay.  The $25 at the grocery store, the "sure I'll have a couple drinks after work with you" money.  The "wonder what's new in TJMaxx that I don't NEED but somehow must HAVE" money.  The $150 at Kohl's that "just sort of happened, but it was all on sale and would have really been more like $350, plus I earned Kohl's cash!" money.  That stuff. 

It adds up, ya know?  It may not seem like a lot in the moment, and you may think you really need that picture frame/throw/insulated cup with a straw (hellllllo, I think I have 23. I need to stop!) or whatever "it" is, but do you?

I don't think of myself as a frivolous spender.  Give me a gift card and I'll likely sit on it for months because I can't figure out what to do with it; I talk myself out of lots of purchases because even though the gift card is like "free" money, if I think I can get the item less expensively elsewhere, I can't see using the gift card on it.  Don't try to get the logic; I confuse myself sometimes.  For real.

What I learned was that while I'm not frivolous, I do shop unnecessarily at times.  I buy things that we use, so I justify it.  But really, using things and needing things are not the same.  And we all survived for a month without new anythings*.  Imagine that!  We all got by with the clothes we have.  We ate out of the pantry more/better rather than loading up on more food at the store.  We were a little more thoughtful about driving around so we could conserve gas.  Mark and I made sure we both packed lunches for work.  We made it work, and it really wasn't all that bad.

We didn't eat out or get take out.  We didn't have any fancy date nights (we used a free Redbox rental to have a family movie night where all 4 of us snuggled in the Big Bed with popcorn and drinks!) and we didn't stroll mindlessly through Target (sorry, but it's true!) to fill a Saturday morning.  We helped Abby learn how important saving is and that we don't always need to spend money to have fun.  Ironically, spending less seemed to help us have more fun.  I'm 26 days in and I sure plan on making it all 31.  Kinda nice when a stubborn streak works to my advantage, huh?

 

*The new garage door springs not included; that was a necessary, emergency repair....but you know what, I'm kind of glad we hadn't spent any money all month, because that surprise bill wasn't such a big deal!