My Spending Hiatus...

The holiday months can often times send you into somewhat of a spending bender if you know what I mean… and what better antidote to your empty feeling pocket books than a No-Spend-Month (In my case I'm working on 3 consecutive months of this, within reason) Its not always easy being mindful and disciplined about the money I spend, so during this No-Spend-Month/s which is basically short for “No Spending Except For Basic Essentials” I will not be spending on anything non-essential. Non-essential meaning things like:

Clothes/accessories
Personal Training
Electronics
Lunches/Dinners out
Online Purchases (Guilt, Amazon)
iPhone apps, iTunes, lottery tickets and any other $1-$2 finds
Manis & Pedis
Starbucks & Pete's

 So for the next month while I’m shopping my very own closet to recreate “new” outfits and giving homemade gifts & cards or offering my services for those of you with upcoming birthdays I am hopeful that I may just find that keeping track of the amount of money I’m saving (toward a specific financial goal) is motivation enough to stick with this spending diet for more than just 30 days.

 I plan to give myself a budget of $100 per week and this money can only go towards essentials! By no means am I trying to deprive myself, but more so help myself reconnect with my $$ so I am able to learn to further value and appreciate every single dollar. I will only allow myself to dip into this $100 on designated spending days (which for now will be Wednesday, Saturday & Sunday) By creating designated spending days I will force myself to plan out my spending meaning I will have to know what I need to purchase and wait until a spending day to buy it. I am confident that this will eliminate cashing out for foolish items and actually having to wait for that chap stick/lip gloss I was trying to convince myself I needed on a Monday night, come Wednesday (a spending day) I most likely will have forgotten all about it. I plan is to allot my $100 budget towards the following: 

Groceries & eating out (occasion based)

Gas
Household items (paper towels, tp, light bulbs, toothpaste etc.)
Entertainment (like I said not trying to deprive myself)

There are a ton of 30 day no spend month challenges all over the blogsphere so looking to google and my fellow bloggers for tips and/or inspiration won’t be a prob and should you also get a wild hair I would like to suggest the following:

half dozen daily

growing slower
bankrate.com

And with food in my fridge, gas in my car and my bills and rent paid for the month thus far let the spending hiatus begin…