In January I decided to do a no spend challenge for the month. There were a few reasons for this
- I needed a new challenge to try
- My goal for this year is a financial one
- January is the quietest month in terms of birthdays and events
- I needed something to kickstart a frugal mindset that I hope will carry me through the rest of the year.
I set myself some rules for the month:
- Money can (and should!) be spent on rent, bills and essentials like groceries, toiletries and petrol.
- Money can be spent on parking should an activity be free. The reason why I am including this is that we have several press reviews at the theatre coming up over January, and while the tickets are complimentary we pay a few pounds for parking.
- Should I need to go somewhere, I am allowed to spend money on bus fare, but not on a taxi unless it is an emergency (Note: I never learned to drive, hence why I am including this).
- I am not allowed to spend money on non-essential items, including new clothes, books, takeaways, snacks, meals out, taxis, drinks at the pub etc.
Week 1 was surprising. I figured that after the excess of Christmas the best way to cut back on spending was to start with food, and that’s exactly what I did. I spent £9.91 on groceries – mainly fresh fruit and veg – and combined that with the food left over in the cupboards, fridge and freezer. We had no takeaways, didn’t eat out anywhere and had no snacks at all. We also spent £10.50 on parking when we went to the theatre (we’re on the press team so the tickets were free), taking it to a grand total of £20.41. When looking at everything we would normally spend in a week, we saved about £111.
Week 2
We continued into week 2 with the same criteria and mindset. I did a food shop again from Aldi, this time spending £8.25. We still had staples left over – potatoes, pasta, rice, frozen fish – and random boxes of frozen party food etc, so I followed the same pattern I had from the week before. I made three meals a day, utilised leftovers and got a little bit creative with some meals – who knew that vegetable samosas would go so well with homemade soup??


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