Challenge: Buy Nothing Month!

I’ve been want­i­ng to do one of these chal­lenges for awhile and nor­mal­ly only remem­ber halfway through the month. Well, it’s only halfway through the first week so it’s close enough!

A Buy Noth­ing Month is exact­ly what it says: a month where you buy nothing.

Now, I’m a real­ist. I know there will nev­er be a month where I don’t spend any­thing. I have rent, util­i­ties and oth­er reg­u­lar­ly occur­ring expens­es that I need to pay. The point of this post is to make me more aware of spend­ing mon­ey on things that aren’t essen­tial to life. Things like lunch from the work cafe­te­ria on Mon­day. (I know, the shame is almost more than I can bear. Almost).

For instance, I’ve already made more of an effort to bring my lunch to work. Today will be the sec­ond day in a row, and I’m aim­ing to make that at least 7 work days in a row. I’ve also said “not yet” to the Mar­vel Phase 2 box set. At $250 for a bunch of Blu-Rays and cool movie props it’s a bit much for my bud­get right now. It’s cur­rent­ly on pre-order for 10% off, so we’ll see how far that drops before I get it.

There will be sev­er­al excep­tions to my spend-as-lit­tle-mon­ey-as-I-can chal­lenge. I’ve been want­i­ng to fin­ish my tat­too for awhile now, so that’s on the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ties. I’ll also be attend­ing sev­er­al events in dif­fer­ent parts of the state, so that will be extra dri­ving and prob­a­bly some meals on the road.

The last few months, my spend­ing has been rough­ly $3K. I’m aim­ing to drop that down to $2500 this month. I’ll check back in halfway through and then do a sum­ma­ry at the end detail­ing how I did. Wish me luck!

Join the chal­lenge! Would­n’t it be nice to have some extra mon­ey at the end of the month?