The End of No Spend

It's finally here; the end of my no spend month.

Confession: My husband and I bought something expensive this week. Normally I would feel sad that I failed, but  because of the circumstances I don't even care. If you knew what I went through this week, you wouldn't blame me. Can you guess what happened in my home based on what we bought here?

My biggest goal was to not to shop for frivolous things on myself: basically, Target runs, ASOS orders, Pick you Plum purchases etc. In that respect- I passed with flying colors. I didn't spend any money on clothes or makeup (I had a giftcard for the Sephora VIB sale though. More on that from week 3)

Eating out was definitely more touch and go. I think we did Arby's twice, Wendys twice, and Applebees once. I'll give myself a free pass from that weekend of volleyball (my body always hurts so bad!) but other than that- FAIL.

Now that it's over, here are some things I have my eye on for May:
These cute shoes
Summer top
More jeans from my new favorite brand

What I learned:

-Saying "no" to yourself gets a lot easier. I think spending is a habit, but so is saving!

-I definitely do buy things I don't need. There were a couple things on my "to-buy after" list (more on that from my preparation post) that I'm wondering why I even wanted.

-Doing both a no spend on items and eating out together was kind of hard. Last April we successfully managed to not eat out at all (See that post HERE) but with everything together, it was kind of difficult. Add in no soda for Lent and it was a pretty deprived month! ha

-Give yourself grace when you spend something. Remember you're not breaking the law! ha! But you are breaking a promise you made to yourself. Look at each case individually and decide if it was a necessary purchase and then stand by it, if need be.

-Sometimes you just have to TRY! Don't be afraid- you're bound to fail occasionally, but overall it will be a success.

Recaps here:
Preparing
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3

No Spend Month Week 1

If you read this post last week, you know that I'm trying a no spend month in April. I thought some of you might be interested in how it's going. So without further ado- week 1 recap.

How I did:
Good! I didn't buy anything, but I ate fast food at Arby's one day. I spent about 4 dollars- so overall, I wasn't too worried about the expense. It was more or less the lame as if I had eaten a meal at home.

Shopping temptation:
 I would have to say I didn't really have much temptation to shop at all. But for the sake of honesty, I need to explain why. For one, many of my March purchases came in the mail- so I was certainly still "getting" new things. (Including those cute socks up there from Happy Socks!) Secondly, I had a couple blogger collaborations where I was able to pick out a thing or two, so I was able to shop for free- which I know is not realistic for most people. Hopefully next week will be more normal, with more normal struggles.

Food/Entertainment temptation:
Like I said- I did eat out the one time. But when I plan ahead properly the temptation to eat out is extremely lessened. I'm planning on writing a blog post on my meal prep routine here soon!
As for entertainment- I'm using what I already have at home: Netflix and movies. A film comes out in a couple weeks that I want to see, but I'm just planning to go the first of May ;)


Strategies that are working:
-meal planning and meal prep
-unsubscribing from emails and deleting the ones that come through
-writing a list of any desired purchases (I explained why in my first post)