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No Buy 2020: April Review

"I haven't blogged about April's spending yet," I thought, as I lounged on the couch after a long day at work. Wondering how things netted out, I opened my credit card app and navigated to the page that showed my monthly spending totals.

WHAT IN THE WORLD. I shot straight up, apparently thinking this would give me a better look at the total. I spent just 33% of my 2019 monthly average. 

I think a few things played a major role in my spending dropping so significantly.

  1. The Safer At Home order has been in effect since the end of March, meaning I was trying to limit my trips out as much as possible all month long. 
  2. To reduce the number of shopping trips, I was definitely more cognizant about using food items I already had on hand.  
  3. No dinners and drinks with friends. No coffee or happy hour dates. And since that was a major loophole in my No Buy (being able to spend money when I was being social), I'm sure this was a big factor. 
  4. With the end of the semester approaching, I was hunkering down and pretty preoccupied. Apparently too preoccupied to spend!
  5. No birthdays, baby showers, gifting holidays. Except my own birthday, ha. 
  6. Nowhere to go? No gas to put in the car! 
  7. The hospital where I work was very generously providing free meals for all front-line staff for most of the month.
I do genuinely think this was a fluke. I'm already well on my way to spending more this month -- had to restock the pantry and freezer, spent my birthday money (and then some, oops) on a end-of-my-first-year present for myself, I need to replace a very broken ceiling fan in my bedroom, and I'm working my regular hours again (and therefore putting gas in the car for the first time in awhile!).

And don't get me wrong. There's a small part of me that thinks, "oh you did such a good job. You deserve to spend a little somethin' on yourself!" but I'm really resisting the urge! Instead, I try to remind myself that this is more I can throw into savings to make clinical year a bit easier.

One other thing I've noticed is that my credit score has been going up! My credit card app shows me my FICO Score and updates on a monthly basis. Compared to May 2019, it's now 65 points higher! Not going to lie, I don't totally understand how those scores are calculated, but I must be doing something right.

With my No Buy year already one-third of the way done, I'm feeling pretty confident that I can finish the year strong. Have I been perfect? No. But I'm thinking about spending so much more critically and I've been able to work toward a really nice clinical year nest egg. And I'm really damn proud of that.

Thanks for reading,
Olivia

P.S. I posted on Instagram that I was so shocked at how my spending during social isolation had changed, and I wanted to know if my friends had seen something similar. Of those who voted, 72% said they also spent less, and a couple people messaged me to say that nothing really changed. Interesting!



Milo and I documenting our isolated life
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