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No Buy 2020: Is it time to give up?

Did you know that the average anticipated debt load from PA school is $112,500?! So if you're wondering why a lot of my posts this year have been related to budget, this is why!

I recently posted about the No Buy turning into a Low Buy, after a friend and I admitted to both feeling a bit burned out by the limits on our spending. But I'm not sure anymore that this plan is going to work for me.

The No Buy started after I evaluated my 2019 spending habits and was left wondering, "where the heck is all my money going?!" I know a couple of things about myself -- I am not a fan of spreadsheets, and I can make excuses to buy just about anything. So I needed a simple strategy to limit my spending, and thanks to some YouTube inspiration, my own version of a No Buy was born.

And so far, it's been pretty successful. I am spending 71% of my monthly average from 2019. I was able to save enough to pay off my car loan early, while still having a decent amount of savings to fall back on. I even snuck a little bit of travel in there, too (including the cost of flights that were cancelled due to COVID, and are now in the form of credits waiting to be used in the future, sigh).



While making the decision about my car loan, I was taking some long, hard looks at my finances and the road ahead. In short, it's not the prettiest road you've ever seen. I have ten months left of making money, to be followed by probably 14 months of, well, nothing, since I will no longer be able to work during my clinical year. I've known this was the reality, but it still ties my stomach in knots. I think part of the burn out, too, is just feeling tired of being a poor college student at this stage in my life.

But, alas, here we are. So now what?

After reviewing my spending habits this year, and projecting what the next 24 scary months will look like, I have determined that I still need to do better. I need to spend even less. Like, cut down what I'm currently spending by a third. Hot dang. That feels really discouraging because I already feel like I've cut out a lot. But maybe I really haven't?

This means that for the month of August, I'm going to trial run a new budgeting method.

I have set a fixed amount I can spend in four categories: groceries, eating out, gas, and other spending. These are loosely based on my spending habits so far this year. And if my trial run for August seems to be working, I'll make this my budgeting strategy from here on out.

Here are the rules I've laid out so far: I can "steal" funds from another category as needed, but I can't exceed the total amount allotted for all the categories combined. If I have excess, I can roll it over into the upcoming month (which would be ideal, to save for things like hair appointments, grooming for Milo, etc). If I overspend (which I hope not to do but this is real life), I have to make up for it in the upcoming month. I can use the allotted money however I want, which will hopefully curb this feeling of being deprived by the No Buy. But again, there's a limit. That means I still need to proceed with caution (a skill I have hopefully developed after seven months of a No Buy!).

One of my biggest concerns is that this bucket-style budgeting method hasn't been the most successful strategy for me in the past. I forget to track my spending and then I don't really know where I'm at and suddenly we're at the end of the month and I've busted my budget.

But, I think this day-by-day monitoring is what I need right now. So, we're going to give it a go.

I'm hopeful about this strategy because, again, it eliminates the deprivation of a No Buy. Plus, I've only made four categories to make it relatively simple. I have a little notebook I can take with me everywhere for documenting. Fingers crossed this is what I need to be even more successful with my budgeting!

If you have any tips or recommendations, please don't hesitate to share!

Thanks for reading,
Olivia
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