Category: Budgeting

Last week, I wrote that I was doing a no-spend challenge in January. I’m really excited about how this went, and I saved enough money to pay off one of my student loan groups well in advance. It was an exciting accomplishment for January!

I thought it’d be helpful to record what I did spend money on for the month. I don’t include some of my basic expenses like rent, pet insurance fees, medical expenses, cell phone, and electricity. I also left off any expenses that would be reimbursed by my work. I don’t feel that bad about leaving things out since I don’t report my spending monthly on a regular basis ;). The table below reports my spending decisions as well as notes about each expense.

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Without further ado:

Purchase	Amount	Notes
FINRA exam registration	$175	The registration fee for my Series 65 exam, which I’ll take in February. First thing I bought in January, and definitely a worthwhile purchase!
Etsy shop fees	$13.33	Spent more money on Etsy fees than I made on sales last month…Hopefully this trend will reverse soon.
Charity donation	$5	An automatic monthly donation
Hulu and Internet	$42.98	About as low as I can get it…though next month, this will drop $2!
Airbnb	$118.55	A really great booking for my youngest sister’s graduation in May. And, they allow dogs, so I’ll save money on pet-sitting!
Transportation	$42.91	Gas, a couple of parking meters, and a Lyft when I couldn’t stand the idea of taking the Metro…
Credit Card annual fee	$95	I was going to cancel this one (my Delta SkyMiles card), but I don’t have status yet this year, and they offered me an incentive of 7,500 extra miles to keep the card.
Groceries	$80.20	Way less than my normal monthly expenses! While I did plenty of eating out of my pantry and freezer, I really didn’t want to deal with no fresh produce for a month. This covered the basics for the month.
Amazon.com (Airbnb gift card)	$29.99	At the beginning of the month, I found an awesome deal where if you paid for your Amazon order at least partially with American Express credit card points, then you got $30 off an order of $60+. The great part is you only need to pay with at least 1 point. So I used 1 point on my $60 Airbnb gift card and got $30 off! It’s a great deal that is still active, so if you want to see if you qualify, check it out here. Bonus, there’s a similar deal with Chase Rewards points, but it’s only $15 off $60+. See if you're eligible here!
Auto maintenance	$414.76	Some weird sounds in my engine, plus an oil change. Thankfully there was nothing serious going on, but they did recommend some preventative maintenance. I love my auto shop because they don’t try to upsell me, so when they do recommend maintenance, I trust them.
Student Loans	$235.51	This is my standard monthly payment. It’s above the minimum requirement, but not by all that much.
Retirement contributions	$200	I contribute this to my Roth IRA--$100 with every paycheck. Even though I don’t max out my 401(k) yet, this makes more sense than contributing to my Roth 401(k) because I can get lower fees by investing on my own in low-cost index funds through Vanguard, instead of being limited to the smaller selection of funds my employer provides.
Vet bills	$1165	Ouch…StarDog and SunCat both had annual exams this month, plus vaccines, and stocking up on flea/tick/heartworm preventatives. A small amount of this will be reimbursed by pet insurance because we did some lab work on SunCat to check on her health after her scare last fall. And, I’m just relieved that they’re both healthy now!
REI	$27	They had a great sale…I couldn’t resist. I got some good travel accessories, though I’m still keeping an eye out for a good travel backpack.
Chipotle	$8.25	My cheat meal eating out as a reward for studying. No regrets.
Student loan payment	$679.56	This month, I paid off one of my student loan groups that has been a thorn in my side. It has the highest interest rate (6.55%) and has been taking way too long to pay off for such a low amount. I decided to pause some of my other savings goals and just get this wiped out. I don’t regret it at all. Now, the payment I used to make on this monthly will go to another loan with the same interest rate (my other highest).
Series 65 study materials	$100	Bought a practice question set for my exam...can't wait till this is over.
Charity donation	$60	Annual membership cost in my women’s education group—the fee goes to fund scholarships for women in higher education.
Total, omitting student loan additional payment, auto maintenance, and vet bills	$1233.72	I'm omitting the student loan payment because it was an optional payment that was made possible by spending less on everything else. And the auto and vet bills were both one-off large expenses that I couldn't put off till the end of the month.

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Recap and Strategy

This kind of spending isn’t sustainable long-term, but it was great for a turbo-charged month of saving. And it felt really good to knock out one of my higher interest student loan groups.

Another big benefit of this no-spend month was having a goal to work toward. It felt good when I didn’t spend money, like I was winning at a game. And it made it much easier to focus on studying for my exam next month since I didn’t have money-spending activities to distract me…

A couple of things made this feasible–I had plenty of food in my freezer to work through; leftovers and broth and frozen vegetables. Working through those wasn’t fun but did help with my grocery budget. And freed up space in my freezer for future batch-cooking! I had dried beans in my pantry, which made for several meals. I did spend some of my grocery money on flour, so I was able to make bread several times during the month.

One of the most important pieces of this no-spend month was setting my own rules. I knew I’d be better able to stick with it if I built in one fast-casual cheat option (my Chipotle). I also knew that there would be things that just made sense to buy this month. Study materials, vet bills, and my Airbnb purchase. I wasn’t going to wait on these things just because it was January.

If you’re thinking about a no-spend month, think about the things you’ll need. Both in terms of prep and exceptions to the “rule.” I also highly recommend making sure you know why you’re doing it. On that front, I loved Cait Flanders’s book, The Year of Less. She’s a wonderful writer and human being.

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Well, it’s been a fun month. I enjoyed seeing how low I could get my spending, and the grocery bill was especially low this month–usually it’s 3x higher in a regular month (though that includes staples like paper products).

I’ll probably do another month like this later in the year because I enjoyed the challenge. Any advice on hacking my monthly spending more? I’d love to hear it!