4 Week No-Spending Challenge
I’m doing it again! I’m embarking on my 4th 4 Week No-Spending Challenge. For us, this is in the grocery category only, although I will say, we don’t spend much money otherwise anyway. So it’s not like we are out madly buying clothes, shoes, and eating out all the time where we need to reign it in, because we naturally reign it in.
If curbing your spending is a challenge for you, I dare you to not only try a 4 Week No-Spending Challenge on groceries, but also along every bill category department. But maybe starting with groceries is a good start.
I’ve now been doing no-spending challenges about every 6 months. I love doing them because it paints us into a corner forces us to use what we have. Sometimes we find food we had no idea we had, or things that are buried in the depths of the deep freezer or way back in the corner of the pantry. It helps me clear up the freezer a bit, leaving more room. It gives way for the opportunity to make different recipes since my ingredients are more limited.
We also end up saving money, surprise, surprise. That’s what it’s all about, right? Plus, it just shows us what we actually gravitate toward in the store.
When it comes to my challenge parameters, I can actually still buy some foods. Let me explain. I only buy perishables. I want to make sure my family is still eating healthy, and I’m not about to take away their fresh produce for an entire month. In my other challenges, once I ran out of ingredients like oats, that was it. No more making granola bars, protein pancakes or granola. I don’t plan on buying any pantry food. Right now I’m low on flour and kicking myself for not getting more beforehand. I have plenty of oats though. I HATED running out during the first challenge.
I will be recording all my grocery expenses on a google doc. It’s fun to look back and see how we did.
If you think this seems like a good idea but 4 weeks seems to long, try a 2 week or even a one week challenge. Just do something! It’s eye opening and actually fun. Try it. You’ll see.
Anyone else in it with me?
You can read about my other No-Spending Challenges:
- For the No-Spending Challenge #1 parameters, go here. For the No-Spending Results #1, go here.
- For the 4 Week No Spending Challenge #2 parameters, go here, and for the No-Spending Challenge Results #2, go here.
- For the 4 Week No Spending Challenge #3 parameters, go here, and for the No-Spending Challenge Results #3, go here.
I had fun doing that last month. I did buy milk (though we did actually work to drink less so we didn’t have to buy as much), one bunch of bananas and a bunch of butter. I wouldn’t have had to buy a bunch of butter but it has been so expensive around here and I had been waiting for a sale to stock up again and when it came in January I went ahead and stocked up even though I was trying to not shop. I think challenges like these are great for creativity! I did a lot of sprouting to make sure we had some fresh things to eat and then we used a lot of frozen and canned veggies. I did have a bunch of excited children when I went shopping this month and came how with fresh fruit! They had been missing that.
Hi Abbi. You are hard core! I really like for the family to have fresh produce, so we do keep buying that, but this exercise really helps us to see where we are grocery-wise, and how much we are spending. Thanks for sharing!
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Amen! You are welcome.