No Buy October

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Welcome to No Buy October.

For the regulars, welcome back and to the new posters and lurkers - please feel free to join in at any point.

(I borrowed this from Debbie from last month)

The purpose of this thread is to try to control your unnecessary spending - some call it the $100 habit where you go for a carton of milk and come out of the store with a shopping cartload of stuff you didn't really need.

How you do this is up to you and your circumstances. Post your budget (personal or household) and any exceptions. Then your goal is to try to stick to it! Remember that you have to come here and confess. You can post daily if you need to or just as often as you'd like - some find posting daily keeps them on track.

If you are starting out with a budget, most would agree the first step is to write down everything you buy - then critically look at what you are literally throwing away your money on.

Some of us try to have as many days as possible where we are spending $0-teaching us to plan our spending and saving our wallets (and hips) from those daily stops at fast food restaurants.

Feel free to jump in at any point and ask questions, we share what we are learning along the way with getting our finances in order, and we don't judge.

 

[paulasillars]

Its good to be back for October.

I did pretty well with spending on my trip to Australia on only put $5 onto my credit card - not bad for a 4 week trip!

I got back and splurged on a new bike and in typical fashion have only ridden it twice - due to weather and my DH was knocked off his and broke his wrist and banged up his other shoulder so I'm doing the driving to/from work until he can drive again.

This week I've picked up a bit of extra $ from work for being oncall for the week and also volunteered to work the helpdesk this weekend.

Aiming to minimise costs this month as we have a few bills. Dog has to go to the vet today to have her teeth done - estimated $500 but that will come out of our household bills account. Also my brother and his wife are expecting baby #3 - due 10 days ago so I'll probably buy a gift when its finally arrives.

I'm going to put a budget of $200 on myself this month and hope its a lot less.

 

[HLDisney]

Okay, I completely ignored my no-buy resolve in September (although I did spend less than past months) so I'm going to try again.

I expect the following non-essential, non-food expenses:

$150 deposit for my DD's birthday party in December
$100 for my portion of various doctor/dentist appointments for my DD and myself
$30 Build A Bear birthday gift promised to one of my DD's best friends
$100 wedding gift

I'm going to allocate $200 for my DD and I for unexpected expenses/fun stuff.

I do need to also cut down on our eating out and grocery expenses but for this month, I'm going to try to focus reducing the really non-essential stuff first.

Helen

 

[Tinkerbellie16]

I'm in for October. I'm hoping it ends up better than September - but that's one of the goals, right??

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

I'm still getting my budget completely together, but what I've come up with so far for this month is:

Gutter repair (no idea how much-say, less than $500?)

Halloween $200 (includes party, costumes, deco)

Landscaping $200-said gutter has trashed one side of the house-the walkway needs to be repaired.

4 books for DD's (~$40)

$150 donation for neighborhood girl with cancer for her fundraiser-we're donating one night of our dvc, figured we'd bid $150 on it-if no one bids more it's $150 oop for us, if we are outbid, it's around 20 points given, either way, it helps her and her family.

I think that's it, overall budget for the month is (as always for me) to keep it all under $2,000 discretionary for a family of four, and to have as many days as possible with $0.

 

[reginaastralis]

I am in. I am hoping to curb some spending ... big time.

The ones I know I need the most help in are the misc. and gas portions of my budget.

Let's see how this goes!

 

[kindra657]

OMG I love this thread!!

We've been on a very tight budget since the beginning of September and we've already saved $2000!!!

Here's what's going on: I got laid off from work and DH lost his OT. He's now still working the same number of hours but making salary only. Basically our income has been slashed in half!!

We are not going hungry because I'm collecting unemployment, but these benefits won't last forever and I'm not sure when I'll be back to work. I graduate from college in May with my B.A. and DH graduates at the same time with his Master's....but our household income doesn't look like it will be increasing soon. Our bills will be increasing from student loans and our household income could possibly be decreased because of expiration of unemployment benefits and "subpay" benefits from my employer.

Here's how we do it:

DH gets paid once a month. His check usually pays our minimum bills (without paying our student loans cause they are on deferrement). This leaves me no room to pay down the balance of credit cards or anything else.

I get unemployment benefits once a week and subpay benefits every 2 weeks. I put all of my subpay checks into savings and 2/3 of my unemployment benefits into savings. This leaves me about $150 a week for gas, food, and any other cost that comes at us.
This is a $600 for the month budget!

Every Tuesday I go grocery shopping. One week I'll spend about $90 and the meat from this will last two weeks. The next week I spend about $50 getting everything else: bread, milk, cheese, lunch meat, cereal, etc.
I now shop at sav-a-lot, aldis, and any other discount food store I can find for certain things like cereal, bread, snacks. I buy my meat at a regular grocery store....which ever one has the sales going!!

I am spending roughly $280 in food a month now. Considering we used to go out to eat 3 days a week and grap something convenient every other day, we are saving A LOT of money here!!

I have 2 suvs and our fuel costs are higher than usual. Now that I'm not working, I do not drive nearly as often! I walk my daughter to school, drive to the gym (less than a mile) and to the grocery store. I've been stretching $25 to last 2 full weeks in an 8 cylinder SUV!! My husband drives about 14 miles a day going to and from work. He spends about $30 a week in fuel. This is $170 a month for fuel.

280+170=$450

This leaves us roughly $150 for everything else. I just had to pay someone $75 to fix my computer (have to have it for online school!) and I had to pay $39 for school pics and $15 for soccer pics.

This comes to $130!!! This only leaves us $20 for anything else!

This month, DH's check was $200 more than his salary because they DID pay him for working on the holiday (labor day) so we are getting the oil changed in each car ($30 a piece), we enjoyed all-you-can-eat shrimp at red lobster ($50), and we are going to see toy story 1 and 2 in 3D ($30 with concessions).

IF DH's check was his normal salary, we would NOT be going to the movies, the oil changes would wait till next month, and we would not have went out to eat. This lifestyle, for us, is VERY difficult to stick to but we are doing it and we are rather successful (so far)!!!

Everytime I see something I want to buy, I ask myself:
"Is this something I want or something I need?"
This works every single time because we really do have everything we need.

Here's the plan:

From now until the end of Dec, I plan to have at least $7500 in savings. All of my benefits will be exhausted in Dec and we need to have money to live off of until something positive happens: 1) DH gets his OT back, 2) I get my job back, or 3) I find a new job...it may take months for us to "bounceback" and we need every dollar to make sure our bills are paid, and food is on the table!

We were going to cancel our trip in Jan but I felt so bad for my MiL! We are taking them with us and our 3 night cruise was free (promotion thru DVC). We already paid for my father-in-law to go in March (upgrade on cabin and an additional cost for him). We also paid for our transfers in March. I was calculating how much $ we would need to still go in Jan.

For my family of 3:
roughly $550 for flights (out of Detroit)
parking: $70
1 checked luggage roundtrip: $30
Misc cash for the whole trip: $100
Food: $450 for the DDP + $15 per evening for tip= $525 for food

My mother-in-law (MIL) and father-in-law will fund their own plane ticket, food, and park tickets.

trip cost for us 3: $1275

We have APs, we would NOT be doing any shore excursions, our room is with points thru DVC, and we do not need to buy ANY souvineers. Also, I'm going considering something I said I wouldn't ever do ...bringing back our resort refillable mugs so save every dollar

With christmas in Dec and then the trip in jan, I just couldn't justify even spending an additional $1300 unless we agreed that the trip would be our christmas gift to ourselves and we wouldn't buy one another anything for xmas day. The entire family agreed. So the trip is on!!! We will probably still get our DD some things for xmas, but we won't be spending the $1000's we usually do for xmas! Also, I think I may try to get creative and make stuff for us for our trip ....like matching tees, an autograph book, etc to serve as gifts under the tree AND to help us save money while on our trip!

Well, this is our crazy household budget, savings plans, and ways to do disney on a dime!! I just hope all goes as planned and nothing traumatic happens to set us back!!

 

[kindra657]

$150 donation for neighborhood girl with cancer for her fundraiser-we're donating one night of our dvc, figured we'd bid $150 on it-if no one bids more it's $150 oop for us, if we are outbid, it's around 20 points given, either way, it helps her and her family.

what an awesome idea!! That is very generous of you!

 

[PixiePlanner]

I am in. I am hoping for a repeat of September for me.

 

[sylvenmaid]

I'm in this month. My dh's income has been cut and no more O/T for him right now. I'm not sure how long this will last, but at least he has a job with his regular 40 hours. So it could be much worse. I can't work due to a family emergency so I'm more determined to spend less and really stretch our dollars. He does make enough to cover all the bills but we'll just have less savings and extras. I really want to do the cash envelopes again. I find it helps me spend less than using our debit card. Luckily he gets 5 paychecks this month so that extra check is going towards our house ins which is due in November.

Food- $300
Misc Spending- $75
Car & Life Ins- $162
Gas- $150
Spending- $80 ($50 for dh and $30 for me)
Utilities- $150
Prescriptions- $20
Therapy- $90
Halloween Costume for ds- $25
Jacket for dh- $20
Car Pmt- $261
Cable/Phone Bundle- $93
Cell Phone Minutes- $30
Eating Out- $50

Total- $1506

So we'll see how well we can stick to it this month. I increased some items in the budget since there are 5 weeks this month. I'm trying to anticipate this in my estimates. We have a Net 10 phone and his minutes are around 70 which probably won't last for the month. So 300 minutes will be more than enough. He usually uses around 50 a month but I would rather be safe than sorry. This way he won't need minutes for several months. He has over a year built up for his exp date.

 

[kindra657]

I'm in this month. My dh's income has been cut and no more O/T for him right now. I'm not sure how long this will last, but at least he has a job with his regular 40 hours. So it could be much worse. I can't work due to a family emergency so I'm more determined to spend less and really stretch our dollars. He does make enough to cover all the bills but we'll just have less savings and extras. I really want to do the cash envelopes again. I find it helps me spend less than using our debit card. Luckily he gets 5 paychecks this month so that extra check is going towards our house ins which is due in November.

Food- $300
Misc Spending- $75
Car & Life Ins- $162
Gas- $150
Spending- $80 ($50 for dh and $30 for me)
Utilities- $150
Prescriptions- $20
Therapy- $90
Halloween Costume for ds- $25
Jacket for dh- $20
Car Pmt- $261
Cable/Phone Bundle- $93
Cell Phone Minutes- $30
Eating Out- $50

Total- $1506

So we'll see how well we can stick to it this month. I increased some items in the budget since there are 5 weeks this month. I'm trying to anticipate this in my estimates. We have a Net 10 phone and his minutes are around 70 which probably won't last for the month. So 300 minutes will be more than enough. He usually uses around 50 a month but I would rather be safe than sorry. This way he won't need minutes for several months. He has over a year built up for his exp date.

Good luck with sticking to your budget!! It IS very hard to do! The problem with us is that we have MANY bills!! We have a large mortgage, 2 HUGE car payments (1 is almost paid off and the other is a lease), a small car payment (for my sister), and a high cell bill (no home phone). I suppose we could trim down the cell bill and also the cable bill but I HAVE to have internet for school. Other than that, we r stuck with many bills and not many paychecks!

 

[crazelion]

Lets just say that October is be hard but good.

If I can hang to my job until I find a new one that would be good. I got be tough it out until I find another job.

I plan on no eat period. I can do that since baseball season is over with. I can eat at home. I have learned to take my own water bottle with me. That have save tons of money when I am shopping.

I have a lot bills this month so I going own a budget diet. I am not spending unless it is need.

I am cheap. My goal is used my savings to buy a Samsung Impression phone and Fund US and Sea World trip next summer.

 

[neatokimmo]

I am so in!

I am going to tweak the budget this month. I went grocery shopping tonight for Oct so I'll count it tomorrow. I am also looking at a used stroller I like but I'm not 100% sold on. I'd like to get it with my regular budget money and trim back something else.

I'll post later with my numbers

 

[rmonty02]

I like this. I'm not going to post our whole household budget, because its too much info. But the one thing I'd like to stick to for October budget wise is:

1) Not fast food stops.
2) No eating out at restaurants either.

This should keep at least an extra $250 in the budget. This would be a great start. Our Disney trip is in Nov. & every little bit helps!

 

[Sleepingbooty]

I'm in this time!

Definitely need to tighten our belts the next couple months. We just found out that my husband's company is switching in January from paychecks on the 15th and 30th to every other week. Plus, they won't get paid in January until the 22nd! So, I decided we should save up a full months' pay ahead of time so that it won't be a hardship when January gets here.

So, I'm going to try to stick to this:
Groceries: $500
Car gas: $260
Miscellaneous: $160
Birthday Party: $200

The rest is all regular bill that I can't change, so I won't bother to list them, but if I can keep those above categories under control, I ought to be able to put aside $800 in October. Here's hopin!

 

[Malisa]

Well since I upgraded to a mod resort for my December trip I have to save as much money as possible.
I just spent a ton of money on a new renter's insurance policy which lasts for a year but I should be getting a refund from my previous company that I already paid for. Car insurance for the next 6mon which I switched companies and saved $200. I pay for it all at once since I live off student loans and it's easy to pay it all up front.
We also bought a lot of groceries Monday and we are determined to go 2 weeks without going to the store again. We have a lot of food in the freezer and the cabinets that we need to eat. We tend to buy a lot of things and then not use them and buy new food products. After going 2 weeks without buying new stuff we would like to start having a strict list and going grocery shopping only once per week and only getting what is on the list.
I also cancelled some extra channels we were getting with Direct TV and the text messaging from our phones which saves $25 a month.

So this month
$200 on food since we are already pritty stocked and won't have to go again till mid october.
NO Eating out! Going to avoid studying at the coffee shop
Electric should be a bit lower since it's cooled down and we can turn off the A/C
Other utilities that don't change and don't really need to be listed
Not planning on any other purchases this month: no clothes, no random items like music, magazines, etc

Since it will be part of this month Oct 31st we are going to Chicago for a surgery conference. A significant portion of my trip is covered by the surgery club that I'm president of but we will still have to pay for food while there and we have to pay for my dogs to be boarded $120.

Sorry this was so long but geez it does help writing things out. And by we it's my husband and myself.

 

[Siouxstone]

I'm in. I won't post my October goals until tomorrow, when I finally get a real day off! October always has so much going on that I really need to fine tooth comb it before I commit.

Ok, and honestly, I just don't wanna crunch numbers. (Read as: Halfway through Diana Gabaldon's new book.)

Here's to a great new month!

 

[maggieusa]

I did my shopping yesterday for food and gas for the week. Last month we had a few unexpected items come up had two inspection on the house total of $150 my dog was neutered and shots$153 but us way over budget.

10/1 $0

 

[pixie921]

I've watched these monthly threads for a while, and have been wanting to give this a try. When we came back from our trip a little over a week ago, my dh returned to work to find out the funding for his department had been taken to cover a large amount of outstanding debt an internal audit had revealed the organization to have. We're hoping he'll either be called back in a few weeks if they can get new funding in place (it's a non-profit) or find something even better in the meantime.

That said, I've got all our bills covered for the next couple of months, but where I need to cut back is grocery/utilities/discretionary spending. So for October, this is my plan:

$250 - groceries/household supplies (Family of 3 plus 2 cats/2 dogs)

$100 - gas & electric

$250 - gasoline (Already have 5 $50 gas cards for this so I don't have to buy them, but if I can spend less, I can carry the cards into the next month)

$40 - my annual check-up co-pay

$24 - 3 tickets to Toy Story in 3D matinee (This is our one splurge this month. We've really been looking forward to seeing this, and dh and I haven't been to a movie in over a year!)

I can't think of anything else that isn't already paid for, and hopefully nothing comes up *crosses fingers*. I'm also going to go for as many $0 spent days as possible.

 

[AB6876]

I just discovered this string a few days ago (well the No Buy September) and thought I would join in for October. I told my DH about it and he LOVED the idea. We are trying to curb our spending anyway!!!!

Our goal for October is to have 20 (yes aggressive) $0 dollar days. The reason for this is that we always "need" something during the week that we waste money on. This pretty much limits our spending to the weekends. I also found that if I cannot spend money during the week, I do not go out to lunch, stop for a fast food dinner, go and grab a $5 coffee etc. The weekends we work around the house so not too much of a problem.

We also want to limit what we spend that is not necessary to about $200 dollars.

We have no major events planned other than Halloween. I may be borrowing a costume from one of my friends for my son, so that would be sweet...

Some other ideas my DH had were..
Yes turn off the home phone..We don’t ever use it.
Go to cable from satellite for the cheaper rate.
We have a yard sale planned next weekend so hopefully that goes well.
Stop Dry Cleaning work clothes that is almost 60 per week.


oh well today and yesterday I might add we are at $0.......only 19 more to go..