No-Spend Challenge

Part of my job as a stay-at-home homeschooling mom is to take care of our household.  That includes spending.  Because of oil prices, Dad's overtime hours have been cut back.  Those overtime hours are what gives us the extra that allows me to stay home.  I have a part-time job, or prn in the medical field, but they sometimes don't call very often for me to come in.  My income is sporadic.  It's also my job to teach our girls to be savvy spenders.  When this 31 day challenge popped up in my Pinterest feed, I knew we had to give it a try.

Ruth Soukup at Living Well Spending Less makes it easy (and fun!) to complete 31 days of no spending.

*Ruth Soukup @ Living Well Spending Less*

 



I started the challenge today by looking ahead at the month of October.  What are our non-negotiables?  We have Halloween, of course.  A birthday.  The State Fair.  Dental appointments.  Eye appointments.  All of these are unplanned expenses and non-negotiable for us.  These are built in to our budget next month.  We'll still look for ways to get these things in while spending less.  I have a few opportunities to earn some extra income in October and that money will help us with these non-negotiables.  And we'll definitely be cutting out trips to Sonic, shopping at Amazon and our local thrift shop, non-educational field trips like bowling, and those Reese's pumpkins at Target. 

I received my information for the LWSZ challenge by email after a short sign-up process.  The challenge begins October 1!  I'm not going to bore everyone with daily or even weekly updates.  I'll post our results at the end of the challenge.  If you'd like to follow along with everyone's progress, use the hashtag #31DaysLWSZ on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.