An Update On My ‘No Spend Feb’..And The Plan For Round Two!

Back in February I decided to have a no spend month to help get me back on track with my spending. Overall, I found it easier than I expected however three months on, I haven’t really stuck with it and have quickly fallen back into bad habits.

Spend Summary

I feel I managed pretty well for the month and my total spend included:

• £81 petrol
• £96 food
• £30 eating out (covered by my tips)
• £16.50 vinted (I caved and bought some clothes for work)
• £500 constant monthly outgoings (rent, bills, phone, National trust membership)

Total: Approx £700

I’d set my budget at £100/month for food and £60/month for petrol so I don’t think I did too bad. I did have a weekend away which used quite a lot of petrol and did a few adventures a bit further afield, which can quickly add up.

On average, my tips work out about £30/week, which is a nice little boost. I try to split these between three pots: spend, save and emergency. My spend pot I use for things like eating out or clothes shopping, for me this feels like a guilt free way of treating myself. The save pot goes straight into my savings once it hits a certain amount and my emergency pot I use for things like my car (tax, insurance, MOT), or any unexpected costs. I try to put a higher proportion into my ’emergency’ pot so I know there’s enough in there to cover things without my having to dip into my monthly pay.

What did I learn?

My biggest apprehension about the challenge was missing out on social situations. I often go for coffee with friends, out for dinner and pub trips are a regular occurance. The group I go swimming with usually go for a coffee straight after our swims, this can get pretty costly and I often try avoid it, even though I love the social side. I do sometimes go and just not get a coffee, but often my friends offer to buy me them too. In a way, I feel like this is cheating, though they won’t listen to my protests. This challenge for me isn’t because I can’t afford to do things, but more because I don’t feel I can justify spending as much as I do on particular things, or because I’m trying to break certain habits. I also did go for one meal out, which had been planned pre-challenge. I decided to use my tips to pay for this, as for some reason this doesn’t really feel like spending.

One of the things I really wanted to address during this challenge was how much I’d been spending on food. I used to have a really good routine of meal planning and shopping, however after moving house and having much less fridge/freezer space I quickly fell off track and was buying things for one meal at a time, or eating out a lot. This became expensive and also was usually pretty unhealthy. Giving myself a strict budget really made me focus on what I was eating and made me plan for it. I am still struggling with the lack of space, but I’m slowly getting used to it and finding work arounds.

I am definitely doing better as not buying ‘stuff’. I don’t think I could ever be minimalist, but I’ve managed to put a stop to being things spur of the movement and I’m slowly doing better at getting rid of things. I’m a sucker for ‘this might be useful one day’ and often have piles of cardboard boxes and packaging that I convince myself I’ll be able to reuse in some way. All of my recent books have been charity shop purchases and get returned to the charity shop once I’ve read them, so this definitely helps.

My petrol costs have stayed pretty low, but this is mainly because I walk to work and haven’t had a huge amount of time to get out and about further afield. I also often try travel with friends so we split the costs and share lifts which really helps.

Take Two

I had planned to do another no spend month in June, however as I’m now due to go in for knee surgery in the next week or so it’s kind of put it on hold. I’m going to be out of action and unable to work for several weeks, so will only have minimum sick pay coming in. However, I also won’t really have the opportunity to go out and spend anything. I have set up Hello Fresh up for the next few weeks to take the pressure off having to try shop or ask friends to and it makes it easier for me to not have to think about what I’m going to be cooking.

Once recovered, I will be planning a no spend month to try and help me get back on track with boosting my savings over the rest of the summer. I’m not sure yet what my plans are come autumn, but having some extra cash put aside will mean there is less pressure and give me a bit more freedom with my choices.

My rules for next time are going to be pretty similar to Feb, however I’m going to try not to cave on buying clothes. I have managed to stick to only buying second hand (either from vinted or charity shops) but I really don’t need any more clothes, if anything I need to try get rid of some. I’m also very lucky in that I do get sent products via instagram which mitigates the need to buy certain things and saves me quite a bit of money. I’m hoping I’ll be able to spend a bit of my recovery time sorting out some of my clutter and fingers crossed I’ll be able to try sell some to make a bit of extra cash.

How to Spend My Time

When I’m fit and well, a lot of the activities I fill my time with are free: hiking, swimming, camping etc. (You can check out my blog on adventuring on the cheap here). However, this time I want to try and see what other free activities are happening in the area, this is going to be pretty important for my sanity too, as I will go crazy if I’m stuck at home throughout my whole recovery period. There are often many free events that you can find via social media or apps such as eventbrite, so I will be trying to find as many to attend as I can. I definitely don’t want to let this challenge get in the way of me socialising and spending time with friends.

So here’s to the next few weeks of uncertainty and then some serious no spending to help put me in a good position for some serious adventuring once I’m fit and well again!