A No-Spend Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year are gone and done. Its January 6th. The newness of the new year is almost a week old already. It feels worn in like a good pair of jeans. Back to a rhythm, back to habits, back to the normal. Except one BIG FAT GIANT thing. We made the mother of all new years resolutions. We are attempting no, we will do it. I'm sure of it. It's just not going to be easy. We are entering into a year of minimal spending. By minimal, I mean nothing extra. Nothing.
How on earth? Well, here's the deal. I'm not good at balance. I'm not good at manageable. I dive head first into everything I'm involved in. Which means, if I decide to homeschool, (true story) I dive in, create a homeschool room loaded with as many hands on manipulatives, matching totes, coordinating colors. You get the idea. I go overboard. If I decide to buy a fixer-upper house and renovate it over time, we dive right in and have the entire first floor done in 12 days. We paint, put in new floors, re configure the kitchen, pick out, order and put in ourselves, countertops, tile, and grout until we can't hardly move. We go all in. (also true story) and If we decide to cut spending, manage our budget more carefully, know exactly where every dollar goes, we do it in one big production. NO SPENDING. zilch, nada, zippo, nothing.

So here we are on January 6th. Only 6 days in to the big decision. There have already been serious temptations.
 But that is another story for another day...

Lets talk logistics. How are we going to accomplish this massive goal??

Well we talked through what we know are going to be the really hard things, birthdays, holidays, vacation season. Here's what we've come up with.

Normal day to day living expenses such as deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo etc. are all allowed. This isn't an experiment in pioneer living, only an experiment in reducing our spending. Now, I may choose cheaper brands than I have in the past, but its not necessary.

Groceries is where we will try to cut a lot of money. Not buying what we want every single week. Not drinking lots of extra drinks and sticking to water. Not eating expensive things like pizza, processed foods etc. Sticking to the fruits that are on sale, the veggies on sale, and generally only items in the sale ad.

Birthdays for our own children, we will make special in their own way. The child will get a birthday cake and maybe one special gift. No parties this year, nothing extravagant. We will probably invite one special friend over to play.

Birthdays for other kids is where we're a bit torn on what to do. Probably for the kids' closest friends we will allow them to attend the birthday party and choose a minimal gift to give that includes an experience and doesn't feed into consumerism. As far as attending every party for every kid in their class and shelling out $20-25 per gift. We probably will not be doing that this year.

Holidays will be focused on giving not getting. We will not participate in gift exchanges and we will not expect any gifts to be given. We will however have those close to us over to our home to enjoy a meal and time with them.

In preparation for this experiment we have given up one of our vehicles. We did it as an experiment starting in August and took the insurance off of our second car and it has been parked in the driveway ever since. We have only really truly missed it a handful of times and so we have decided we will soon try to sell our second car and live off of the one for this year.

Vacation is also what we're not quite sure about. We may consider driving somewhere and camping as a minimal vacation. Or we may not go at all. This is still up for discussion.

Here's a list of what doesn't make the cut, what won't be allowed. Drive-through runs. Ouch. Quick Trip drink stops. AHHH! Eating out at restaurants. oh mercy. No leisurely shopping trips, no browsing the thrift store, no amazon clicking, no fab kids cuteness, no buying anything I don't absolutely and completely 100 % need. No spring break trip to Pioneer Woman Mercantile. seriously. I  might die this year. 

So here we go, crazy as ever. We decided since we've yet to stick to an exercise routine, diet or eating plan, budget ever before, or even finished a tv series lately, we might as well jump right in and tackle a completely new way of life and determine to do it for the entirety of 365 days.
Our hope is this, our family will be drawn closer together and experience things that truly matter. We will discover it's possible to be happy, to experience joy and to be content without wanting more or apprehending something we desire. We also have lofty dreams of all the money we will be able to save this year and have big goals of being debt free and starting to think and prepare seriously for our children's futures. So here it goes, here's to our big exciting, unbelievably difficult, ultra strange New years resolution: Here's to our No-Spend Year.