No Spend November

Does anyone else feel like living in this economy is similar to the feeling of being cinched tighter and tighter into a pair of pants that don’t fit? I don’t think I need to explain how hard it is for most of us middle class families to simply live within our means. And for us, 22% of our means is going straight to taxes because we are self-employed.

Speaking of taxes, we just finished shelling out thousands to the government for 2024 taxes (yes, I know we were very late - that’s a story for another time) and that PLUS an outstanding medical bill has put us into minor panic mode. So we decided it was due time for a no spend month, and that no spend month turned into two.

I guess we will reevaluate in January if we need to continue on our shoestring budget. I had a lot of interest on Instagram about what a no spend month entails, so I thought I’d share what we are doing.

What is a no spend month?

Typically, a no spend month is where you commit to not spending any money on nonessential items during that time. It can serve as a kind of reset if you are prone to impulse buying, and add to your savings. It’s not forever, but an period of intentionality.

You set your own rules, so anything goes, but the key is to be as conservative as possible.

A lot of people do a no spend November to save for Christmas gifts. For us, we are trying to pay off a medical bill and quarterly taxes. So much less fun.

So how are we doing it? Are we seriously not buying anything unnecessary…at all?

Here’s what we have decided to do.

Our no-spend month details

We decided to do a two-step method. First, we paired down our budget and cut down a lot of categories, as well as cutting out anything we could. We still left room for spending, though, because things come up. It is impossible to not spend any money. Second, we are pretending we don’t have any money. So for example, my allowance is $50 - but my plan is to not buy anything at all, instead of being like “Oh, I have $50 - let me get coffee, let me restock some sodas, let me grab some new hair clips” - I am pretending I have $0, so that I am more disciplined and I do actually have some if something comes up and I need something. Worst case scenario, I have more money when the challenge is over.

Here’s what we lowered in our budget (this is all monthly)

vacation savings (was $55, now $33)

mortgage payment (our minimum is $500, we were paying $700, but we are back to the minimum)

changed our health share plan (had been meaning to do this anyway. We were paying $700, but now it is $325)

groceries (was $450, now $375 - and $200 of this is reserved for meat savings)

house cleaning (was $320, now $200, but I do have some surplus in this account to help cover)

my allowance (was $100, now $50)

tithe is lower as our entire cost of living is lower

By lowering all these things, we managed to cut our budget by $1,100. It’s not an incredibly crazy amount, but when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, $1,100 is a decent amount to add to savings each month! On top of that, we are both hustling a little harder and cutting down business expenses to see if we can make more money than normal.

There are more things we could cut out. We spend a decent amount on house cleaning and childcare monthly. If we cut those out, we could be adding an additional $475 to savings. That’s nothing to sneeze at, and if things got really dire we could definitely do that, but right now it’s best for my sanity and productivity if I get a couple afternoons of uninterrupted work time and have someone help deep clean. A lot of people judge me for this, but they forget that I’m still chronically ill and running a full-time business.

We are hoping that by the beginning of the year, we will be able to pay off our bill and make a tax payment and be able to return to the standard of living that we were on previously. It’s hard to do this long term. We did last year for several months and once I finally started making an income online and we were able to raise our living expenses, we had to completely restock our pantry because we’d eaten almost everything. We also had other larger purchases that we simply couldn’t afford before.

So…tell me in the comments. Are you joining our no spend challenge? Do you have any tips? And if you’re interested in learning more on how to cut overspending, make sure you subscribe because that post is coming next!

Looking for more financial advice? Struggling to live on one income (or two, because let’s face it, times are hard right now)?

We’ve been there too. Andrew and I have lived on as little as $30,000 twice during our marriage and we’ve learned some tips and tricks to getting the most out of our money. I actually wrote a guide on living on one income from the experience we had, and it’s available with the template we use for our zero-based budgeting system. Grab it in my shop here!