No Buy 2020: January Review

If I'm being totally honest, I went into this No Buy thing with a healthy amount of skepticism. You see these folks post on Instagram about saving a bazillion dollars and to me it just seemed... unreal? Like, I kept telling myself that I generally only buy the things I need and therefore doing a No Buy probably isn't going to make that much of a difference.

Like I mentioned in my first No Buy post, I got a lot of messages from people about how good it made them feel to be smarter about their spending. And since I've been stressin' about my finances, I decided I'd take any good vibes I could get ... even if I didn't see huge results in the end.

You guys, my mind has been blown. A little more than halfway through the month, I logged into my credit card app and decided to check in on how my spending was going. "You've spent 28% of your monthly average."

28%?! You've got to be kidding me. 

And now that the month is complete, I can proudly report that I only spent 60% of my monthly average. It's mind boggling, honestly.

To be clear, I'm only looking at my credit card spending, which is basically everything except my fixed/recurring expenses (mortgage, internet, car payment, car insurance, energy bill). So my credit card spending is essentially any shopping, groceries, gas, etc.

I'll say a lot of things went well this month:

• I've focused a lot on using what I already have (ie., I found hairspray in my stash of extra toiletries instead of buying new). 
• Used a giftcard to buy some groceries from Whole Foods (where I will never be shopping again because one brown bag of groceries cost me $45 and that's insanity). 
• I also had the ability to work more hours at the beginning of the month, which meant more income (okay, so not really related to my No Buy but good news for my overall financial picture).

But I also worked hard to curb my spending:

• Definitely wanted to grab takeout a bunch of times, but resisted the urge 
• Didn't buy a new long iPhone charger and stopped myself from buying a bunch of new books and clothing
• I wrecked a pair of jeans and instead of going out and buying a replacement pair, I found a stash of old jeans to try on and *hopefully* will find a pair that fits to add to the rotation
• Trips to the store were much more purposeful, and I even used coupons!

And I definitely still had fun and prioritized my spending for time with friends:

• Grabbed snacks, treats and pizza for a cozy movie night in, and my friend rented the movie
• Bought myself coffee when I studied with friends 
• Got lunch on a snowy Saturday afternoon with a pal (quality time + pizza = <3)

Oh... about the coffee thing. Remember when I made the rules and said no coffee shop snacks and no fancy drinks? I plan to stick with the "no snack" thing (cuz I seriously do not need a $4 cookie) but coffee is a simple pleasure for me. A treat for studying hard. And as a friend put it "but coffee is one of your favorite things in the whole world!" It's true. Of the 23 transactions I had this month, 6 of those were coffee. And I'm not upset about that.

I did, however, have some unexpected spending:

• I must have ended up downwind of a baby gender announcement party, because I found my car covered in pink dust after studying with a friend. So, I got a cheap carwash ($4). 
• I've been having some odd cardiac symptoms recently (tachycardia, palpitations, feeling faint), so I purchased a $35 BP monitor (because taking your own blood pressure manually is surprisingly difficult!) and a $150 pocket EKG monitor. I'll definitely be going into this more in a future post, but these were some unfortunate unexpected expenses.

I'll also say the beginning of the month was the hardest because I felt like I was saying "no" to myself all the dang time. But honestly, once I got used to the idea of just not buying anything I didn't really need, that deprivation feeling got smaller and smaller.

I also realized a fair amount of my desire to spend is emotionally driven. For example, I had a rough day at work the other day. I was crabby and tired and really wanted to get pad thai on my way home. "But it's only $11" and "but I had a bad day" and "I deserve a nice dinner!" I was cranky and I wanted comfort food. But I resisted the urge because I knew if I justified this then, there wouldn't be much stopping me from justifying it again the future. It looked like a slippery slope, and I avoided it. 

Overall, I am stunned and impressed by how big of an impact starting a No Buy has already had on my spending habits. And I'm super jazzed knowing I took a big chunk out of my spending even with those unexpected expenses. And while I know not every month may be this successful, I think this was an amazing way to start my No Buy year.

Goals for February:

• Keep using my notebook to track my spending
• Try to use up food and pantry items I already have
• Give Aldi another try for groceries (even though what I spent was only ~77% of what I usually spend, I still feel like I can do better)

Thanks for reading,
Olivia