January No Buy: Let's Start the Year Right!

[bigmama67]

I'm in and will try for 5 No Buy days as it's my first time here...I would hope to be able to manage 2 a week! We'll see...;o)

Saturday we were heading back from visiting my Mom so that was out. Yesterday DH got some things at Home Depot and we went to Borders with coupons (but we got the Shrek box set for $9 out of pocket and the Nightmare Before Christmas Monopoly game for $10 out of pocket!) We also met friends for lunch so it was $$.

Today we were on track but now DH is going to the grocery store and tomorrow I have a doctor appointment - there will be a copay - and we both need gas...so hopefully Wednesday will be my first no-buy day. Yeesh!

 

[wlake]

1/1: groceries (but I forgot how much and don't want to get off the couch!)
1/2: $42 gas, $20 pharmacy, $28 JCPenney, ? Home Depot (again, don't want to get off the couch!). I also returned to Lands' End and Kohl's today, enough to cover what we spent! Edited to add: $65 on registration for open swim time. Hopefully we'll get there more often this session than last and I can get some exercise!
1/3: (although I feel a bit guilty about it -- the only reason it's a $0 is because I forgot to take the checkbook to pay for after school care.)

no buy days: 1/10
meals out: 0/5
longest streak: 3!

 

[lattemomof3]

Woo hoo, I love fresh starts, and a new year is a big one! Hello No Buy friends, and welcome to the new ones. Think I will shoot for another 10 no buy days, both dd4 and dh have January birthdays, and we leave for our trip the 1st week of Feb, so I may need to buy a few things for that. Good luck everyone!

Really great to see lots of new no-buyers- welcome everyone! Dh and I went on a movie and dinner (gift card!) date yesterday, I took our budget notebook, so we had our annual budget meeting on the way to town and listed our goals for 2011.

I use the envelope system (actually mine is an small accordian file folder). Using cash for everything (started last Aug) has been a great help (that and writing down everything I spend). I would really like to get our grocery and household goods spending down, I was lumping them together but I think I'll seperate them so I can see where the leaks are. I do meal plan and we eat out once a week, usually, but I think we could be spending less . I buy a lot of fresh veggies, fruit, lean meats, greek yogurt, cheese and almond milk, but I won't compromise on that- I think I'll try to menu plan from the adds more consistently and stock up when the things we use are on sale.

Jan 1 - Movie w/ dh, popcorn

Jan 2 - clearance t-shirts for trip, shelf for ds8's finished Lego masterpieces

Jan 3 - groceries

 

[snoopybabe]

Off to a good start have 2 no buy days so far

1/1 - $0
1/2- $43.56 groceries
1/3 - $0

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

Well, I am back in. Not sure what exactly my plans are. My goal 365 days ago today was to do this for a year. Never thought I'd make it, sure as heck didn't think I'd write down every penny I spent for a year, but I did and while I thought this would only be a one year thing to teach myself, it not only did that but I also like so many people here so much that I don't want to leave. So I am in, will give some thought to how I want the next year to go, but will for sure be back just cause I like you all so much!!!

OK, I gave it some thought. Not to say DH wasn't supportive of this last year, cause he is the most supportive man you could ask for, but something that really bothered him last year was when we'd go without something like milk cause I was trying to strech a no buy day to the next day or something, or let my tank get low cause I didn't want to blow a day on gas. To him groceries and gas are necessities and he said he'd like to see me alter it this year not not include those things. However, I want to continue to record them to keep track cause I think seeing it helped me, so I will continue to record everything but no buy days will now be no extra buy days. We'll see how this works.

January 1-$0 Actually, not totally but good for the budget, we were going to go out today while DH worked, but the kids were having fun playing at home so that was good, but we were going to go to Cosmic Bowling tonight when he got off work but he's stuck there, it will be an all nighter, so we decided to hang out here and go with him another time. It isn't as much fun doing those things without him. So, a little bummed we are in but we are going to back some cookies here in a bit and they are having fun playing with their new games. Right now they are building forts for the kittens.
January 2-$0 Today was a wonderful day AT HOME! My DH finally didn't have to go into work. He worked till 4am so we slept in. Then we got up and snuggled on the couch and watched football. This afternoon we sampled our candies that we brought back from each country in EPCOT, we took photos for our scrapbook and the kids recorded what they thought of each one and ranked their favorites and least favorites. That was fun. Then tonight I made a nice roast for dinner. Now DH is working (but from home!) I am Dising and the kids are playing Truth or Lies on the Wii. It is a nice way to end vacation, wish it wasn't already over, but looking forward to getting the house back in order.
January 3-$0 I do need to get a few groceries, but they wouldn't count anyway, but I worked really hard today and never got out for them and now I am tired. I will have to go tomorrow. We are out of milk but have pleanty of eggs so we are good for breakfast and pleanty of bread so we are good for lunches. (One of this years resolutions is to declutter a bit (not too much, I did a huge declutter a few years ago and missed my stuff, but halfway would be nice, I worked all day on the kitchen. It isn't done but I made amazing progress!)
Now, I do have to do some shopping, we will see if I do it tonight or tomorrow. DD16 and DD11 need jeans so badly, I didn't realize how bad and I am actually a little embarassed and DD8's b-day is next week and all she wants is for me to replace The Little Mermaid 2, ours broke so I am watching a couple on eBay. Guess it doesn't matter if I do it tonight or tomorrow, but as of now it is a $ day. ETA- I am totally craving a date with my hubby, maybe I can buy jeans, a movie and meet him for lunch tomorrow...hhhmmm...

3/15 No Spend Days This Month

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Joined No Buy as a New Years Resolution in 2010 and did pretty well-
January-14 Days
February-13 Days
March-17 Days
April-15 Days
May-15 Days
June-8 Days
July- 6 Days (only in town and only recorded half the month, probably had about 7-8 no buys while away)
August-15 Days
September-15 Days
October-13 Days
November-6 Days (only kept track till November 16th cause we were in Disney the rest of the month)
December-10
Longest Streak-4 Days in a Row
Back in 2011 cause I'd miss you all so much!

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

Virgderon, I am sooooo jealous (but in a good way!) Have fun with your DD before she is off.

Hulagirl87, I just wanted to say Hello Neighbor!

 

[#1hoosierfan]

1/1 - $6.00 -Group On
1/2 - $141.75 Meijer Coupon Savings - $4.75
1/3 - $0

I REALLY want to download the 2nd Sookie Stackhouse novel on my Kindle tonight, but I am resisting. This is something I would not have even thought twice about before this challenge, so I guess that is a step in the right direction. I should earn enough Swagbuck points in the next week to get an Amazon card, so I will wait until then.

 

[1hero2princesses]

Alright I am going to try this for the first time. We went 7 years without a vacation. Went to disney twice (once in 2008 and once in 2009) and then couldn't afford to go last year. We really really want to go to disney this year so I am going to try this. My kids do a lot of activities so that is one expense I can't cut out (I guess I should just sign up for everything on one day so it doesn't wreck my no-buy days!) but I can cut out some of the impulse spending. I live 5 blocks from a Starbucks - I really need to limit that! I have already not done very well -
Jan1 - no spending
Jan2 - no spending
Jan3 - paid for DS gymnastics and spent 16. 50 on Subway and 1.20 on stuff for kids from the vending machine (this will be easier when the older two go back to school wednesday I think!)
I still have to pay for gymnastics, dance and hockey tomorrow - Oh my!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

1/1: $0!
1/2: $0!
1/3: $11.10 Popeyes

$0 Buy Days: 2
Total Spent: $11.10/$500=2%
Month Over: 3/31=10%

I was going to post on my lunch how I was so proud that I brought my lunch today. Everybody else at work went out to eat but I didn't. (I'm a teacher and today was a day of meetings.)

However, I ended up going out to dinner. A friend who works with me had to stay for an evening meeting and she didn't want to drive home, so I stayed with her and we went out to eat. It was nice though because I haven't seen her much lately since we just had a break.

Now I am in a tough spot because I got asked today to go out to lunch for a friend's birthday later this month (and agreed to it), and just now I got asked to go out to lunch tomorrow with somebody. If I go tomorrow, it sounds like it would be covering my part of the bill plus about half one other person's. It sounds like someone wants to take someone out. I don't know what to do because I only budgeted $50 for eating out for the month....which should be plenty for 1x/week for my DH and I to eat a fast food meal.

My budget here says $500, but really I just added the categories in my budget and it's actually $400 broken down like this:
Groceries $200
Eating out $50
Miscellaneous $50
Gas $75
Dog $25

We are trying to pay off some credit cards as well as rebuild our savings after a crazy few months. It was much easier having $0 Days when I was on school vacation!

 

[Virgderon]

Virgderon, I am sooooo jealous (but in a good way!) Have fun with your DD before she is off.

Hulagirl87, I just wanted to say Hello Neighbor!

Thanks MickeyMom. Its going to be a sad day when DD no longer works at Disney. CMs obviously aren't allowed to sell the free tickets that they get (unless you would like to get fired ), so the cast members will help each others families and friends get in.

If one of DDs friends does something for me, I will usually try to buy them lunch or something as a way of saying thanks.. but most of the time they say no when I offer.

 

[DCbride]

Ok I really need to join this group. I have been lurking for months and just can not imagine doing this. But I am going to try. My big plan is to buy only gas and items at the grocery store for as long as possible. Throwing in a restaurant here and there if "needed" until we celebrate our anniversary on Jan 22.

Jan 1- McDonalds - we were traveling home from relatives and we spent less than $10

Jan 2- zero

Jan 3- grocery store $125 (but I have to admit I did purchase a Disney gift card for my cousins who watched our little on on NYE- so I am cheating already, bought it at the grocery store so it should not count against me.)

 

[ckh1018]

I am new to this, but really want to get my spending under control this year.

I would like to have 15 no buy days this month. I think that will b a challenge with all of the time I am traveling and away from home this month. Eating out is a HUGE problem for me.

1 - No buy
2 - No buy
3 - Panera for lunch, and Mickey D's for dinner

 

[living20057]

Today I went to the mall to pick up a gift and I resisted the temptation to buy anything extra. I really wanted a cinnamon bun but I knew I didn't need to waste the $5. So far three days in and I'm staying on target. Not spending is worst than dieting.

 

[3girlsfun]

1/1-$0
1/2-$0
1/3-$38 oil change, $11 lunch out, $4 oil for truck, $24 payment to QVC

These were all planned for expenses, but, it is going to be a long rough month for money, so I have to keep things in "check." One more lunch out tomorrow, then that should be the last one for the month. I have to grocery shop tomorrow or Wednesday. Hoping to do it tomorrow so I can have a no buy on Wednesday! We shall see, it is all about the time commitments I have tomorrow, and I don't want to miss out on too much time with my children tomorrow.

 

[rnorwo1]

This is the first time I've joined in. I'm developing a budget for this year, I'm determined to increase retirement savings and get those 529s going finally!

I just cleaned out my freezers, and I'm hoping my shame of all the stuff I threw out will last me a few months. I think I have enough meat to last an entire month, maybe more, so I'm going to reduce my food budget this month to $200 for our family of 5... that should give me enough for milk and fresh produce and still be able to take advantage of any meat that comes on sale. As for the other variable expenditures, I want to limit my shopping to one day a week and stay under budget on all categories! Then I'm going to commit to moving all of that savings to my emergency fund.

Ok... so you see my original pledge here, to only buy 1 day per week and stay under budget. As I read other posts I thought, wow, many of these people are not very committed, they're setting such low goals! Then as I read on and saw others' encouragement and warnings not to aim too high for us newbies, I thought, well, maybe I'm a bit delusional. So I thought I'd ask the veterans here about my progress so far.

I did wonderful the first two days of January. Sure, I didn't leave the house, but I did walk away from Amazon a couple of times. I was proud of myself. Well today I had to go back to work, but I wasn't worried because I had a plan and I was sticking to it... until I remembered that I had to bring my son to speech therapy and would have to pay for that. So the only way to still keep my goal was to move my one allotted buy-day to today. So before I left the house this morning, I had a detailed plan of everything that I would need for the week including groceries, diapers, postage stamps, gifts for birthday party and baby shower this weekend, etc. All of these things were in the budget, the only thing I was doing was moving the shopping day so I could still meet my goal.

So it started out all right until I had been driving for about 10 min and realized that, with all that planning, I had forgotten to eat breakfast. Normally I would find something at the office (I keep granola bars and stuff there), but I thought "hey, this is a buy-day, I'll stop and get a bagel or something!", so I did. Then later, I went to Babies R Us to get a gift for the baby shower, and then I remembered that I had some stuff I needed to return to Macy's. While there I thought, since it's a buy-day, it wouldn't hurt to just look around at the good deals, ended up getting a few really good ones. Now it was close to lunch time and I thought that, since it's a buy-day, it may be a good time to finally meet up with a friend for lunch since we've been trying to get together for awhile. After lunch I actually worked for a few hours , then picked up my middle-son for therapy. While he was there I thought I could go across the street and look at Tuesaday Morning to see if they had some wall art that I've been needing because... it's a buy-day. After therapy, I decided DS deserved a treat for his hard work which was ok since, it's a buy-day, so ice cream was no problem. Then on to Walmart for those few things I needed. But, since it was my one and only buy-day, I picked up extra diapers and snacks and stuff that we may be out of before the next buy- day. Now by this time, it was pretty late and I figured by the time I got home (45 min drive) it would be impossible to cook dinner. So, since it's a buy day, I stopped and picked up dinner. Once home, talked to DH about his day and realized, maybe I should have let him know about this no-buying thing too?? His purchases were really ok though, because today was a buy-day.

Am I getting the hang of this or what
Seriously... was I just delusional or am I completely hopeless?!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

rnorwo1 - Your "buy day binging" is what caused me to adjust my goal for this month. I have a tendency to do the same thing. One month I had 17 $0 No Buy Days but still spent over $1300!

That is very much NOT in the spirit of this challenge!

Since I know this about myself, I have adjusted my goal to reflect that knowledge. I do not worry about the number of days I have $0 Buy. Those are just bonuses in my mind. My main goal is to stay under budget. I am trying something new (for me) this month to see if it helps. I took $100 cash and put that in my wallet. When it's gone, it's gone. I will tuck any extra away at the end of the week and replace it with a new $100. That is for all purchases except gas. I pay at the pump with a credit card that I pay off in full monthly, and I don't have problems with overspending on gas. (Well, I spend more than I would like, but it's not because I keep throwing extra things in a buggy!)

It generally seems to take about 3 months to calibrate a new budget. The first month is usually the eye-popping tracking experience. The second month is trying to adjust that number down, and the third month gets more comfortable. Also, by the third month you've usually nailed down budget categories that got overlooked in the first draft.

If I had to give one piece of advice to the newbies, it would be to set goals that you will be able to achieve. This does not mean it is your "dream budget", but success breeds success and you do not want to burn out by the end of the first week of the year.

I am doing my New Year's Resolutions on what I am calling the "Angry Birds Method". In the game Angry Birds, you can only unlock the next level when you have beat the prior level. However, you can go back to previous levels to try to improve your star count. With my goals for this year, I am setting SMALL and measurable goals and working on ONE little thing at a time. As I achieve success in that one small thing, I will add another (unlocking another level), but still work on improving the first small thing. Basically, it's building habits. So far, only 3 days in , it's working well for me because I am laser focused on building only one habit. I have the end in mind, but I'm only taking one step at a time to get there.

 

[Virgderon]

rnorwo1, you just cracked me up! Look at it this way- is it more important to have no-buy day, or to stay under budget?

You could have 0 no buy days and still be successful, as long as you are saving money and staying under budget..

You are not hopeless. After this month of writing everything down, you will see where you can cut back. And that is valuable information that can help you save the rest of the year.

Also, sometimes we spend money to save money. I spent a lot today, because I needed a bunch of stuff and there were so many buy one get one free items at Walgreens. Spending a lot today might help me stay under the budget later this month.

Try not to let a "buy" day become a "buy whatever you want because today is a buy day" and you will be fine.

And please stay funny and keep writing entertaining posts. No buyers don't judge each other. If they did, I would have been kicked out when I blew a no buy day because I had to have ice cream, or when I bought cowboy boots just because I never had any before, and cowboy boots are super cool. We don't even want to talk about my cracker jack obsession which probably killed several no buy days last year.

Don't quit on us!

 

[QVCshopper]

rnorwo1, you're not hopeless, but you are funny! I wrote earlier today to pace yourself. IMHO, spending 1 day per week is going to do just what it did to you today: drive you nuts. I find it nearly impossible to do all of my shopping in one day, and if I do, I just fling money around and drive like crazy. I try for 2-3 no-buys/week, which gets to be about 10-12 days total. My best month was 14, I think. The no-buy is relaxing to me, because I pace myself throughout the month, and I stay out of stores. For example, today instead of shopping when DS is in preschool, I went to the gym and walked/ran for 8 miles.

For me, this isn't really about my budget. I just like to keep track of my extra cash and spend as little as possible on stuff that really doesn't matter in my life. I used to cave at every little thing on sale (I still do at Target's after holiday sales) but I've gotten better. I don't have debt, but I do get that's why many people do the no-buy. I have been mostly doing a no-buy my whole adult life, as I grew up poor, put myself through college, had to graduate early b/c I ran out of $, etc. Saving money is just part of who I am, I guess. I actually don't really have a budget, per see, other than to save, save, save. We have some big goals this year, so I'm trying to help those along. My DH is completely on-board; he has been transformed years ago.

Track your habits. What days work best for you to do no-buys? For me, it's the days DS is in preschool b/c I can hit the gym. Without the no-buy, I find myself at Target, Goodwill, etc. too much. BTW, my DH and I do this together, but I do not track gas and regular bills. Gas got to be too problematic, as others have said. But, I do try to lump my errands on my buy-days.

BTW-I wouldn't count the speech therapy in the no-buy, to me it's a set bill. My DD goes to speech, and my DS will now have to go b/c he is mimicking her. But, at least it's free through our early intervention program.

 

[thebigkahuna]

January goal is no 10 $pend days

01-01-11 Spent money what the heck? LOL
01-02-11 no $pend day #1. Yes, its early, but I'm not feeling well and won't be going anywhere or doing anything this evening.
01-03-11 no $pend day #2.
01-04-11


2 of 10 days

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

rnorwo1- My thoughts are this will change over time if you write it all down. No buy or not, when you see these little insignifcant things start to add up you will stop. At least I did. Yes, I still, a year later, try to combine things, but most of those little things go away. And like I said before, that is saving too cause it's less gas and less temptation.

I think you are being too hard on yourself, it's a learning process. Really more then the $0 days I think the writing down every penny is the key.