No Spend Days

So I’ve been reading on other peoples PF blogs about these things called a “No Spend Day” (NSD). Pretty straight forward, you just plan days which you won’t spend any money.

I’ve been making a half-assed attempt at these, and have realised how easy they are to muck up. Like I'll buy a $1.40 can of diet coke with the lunch I packed… whoops spent money. I'll get to the gym and have forgotten (AGAIN) a water bottle… whoops spent money. I'll plan a NSD and realise I’ve planned to go grocery shopping and know if I don’t do it that night, I'll end up buying lunches… so I go and there goes my NSD.

So I’m going to start doing them properly by laying out the ground rules and putting some planning into place.

1) Grocery shopping and petrol purchases ARE included as purchases.
2) Direct debits are NOT included as purchases (for obvious reasons)
3) Bill paying IS included as spending, so must organise to pay bills in advance if due date falls on a planned No Spend Day
4) There is no reason why I can’t have 3 NSDs a week.

That last one is my logic talking but I’m not sure if it will work.

Generally, I have lunch with BF once a week. We have a budget of $20 for both of us, and it’s normally spent on Fridays. We are typically so busy during the week that this is important to us, and as of yet, I haven’t seen any reason to stop doing this since we’ve basically given up all take away and eating out during the week. (We used to eat take out for lunch or dinner several times a week!) So that rules out Friday as a NSD – which suits us because we often catch up with friends on Fridays, or have to buy additional groceries for the weekend once we’ve planned what we’re going to do, so that would rule our a NSD too.

So my commitment is to bring lunch the other 4 days a week. And I will stop buying diet coke from the vending machine. If I think I NEED a diet coke at work I will fit cans from the supermarket into our grocery budget and BRING THEM with me. Simple… in theory hehe

I will commit to doing grocery shopping and petrol purchases on the same day. I’m thinking this is going to be on Tuesday, while petrol is still cheap, and is also my rest day from the gym so I have the time. The only problem with this is I have to make sure I buy enough stuff on Tuesday (or on Friday!) so that we have lunches on Monday and Tuesday. If I can do this, then technically I can still manage 3 NSDs during the week. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

How about the weekends? I really need to be realistic, and for now, I will rule out weekends as NSDs. I'll see how we go, and might intro Sunday as a NSD. It’ll be tough, but I can’t see it being impossible!

So, it’s agreed. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday will be NSDs.

Although, I’m breaking this already, as today is Thursday and I’m having dinner with a friend tonight. Dammit. Maybe I should organise lunch with BF for today and make tomorrow (Friday) a NSD instead. We’re not planning on seeing anyone tomorrow night, so it’s do-able!!! DONE!