For those of you who do not know what I’m talking about when I say “Zero Spend Challenge” or a Zero Spend Day, please check out the article below from ZeroDayFinance.com first. I’ll wait.
Ok welcome back! Hopefully now you know what I’m talking about, and maybe are inspired to try it yourself.
Basically, this challenge turns not spending money into a game.
Everyone loves games! The goal is to rack up as many “Zero Days” as possible, meaning days when you spend zero dollars. This should naturally lower your discretionary spending (things you buy which are wants and not needs) and free up more money to save & invest.
I decided to join in the Zero Day Challenge to see how a typical month’s spending works out. I have a set budget of $75/week on food, other than that most expenses are automated. Mortgage, utility bills, phone payments, etc. all come out of my checking automatically every month, so that I’m never late on a payment.
Hubs and I naturally live a pretty frugal life without much shopping or extraneous expenses. Therefore, I expected that I would have tons of zero spend days! I set a goal of a little over half the month for zero days, and a spending limit of $1200 for myself. This is a little high, but I wanted a good cushion to find my baseline.
Not included in the spending is about $2000 or so towards automated payments and investments, as well as any spending hubs did behind my back. Just kidding, we are both allowed to spend freely as long as we discuss anything over $25 first. 🙂 You could also argue that $218 and change that went towards car insurance shouldn’t be included, but since it was a cashed check and not a credit card autopay I added it in.
As it turned out, I didn’t hit my goal for zero days, but I did come pretty close. I learned that there will always be some spending that pops up that I didn’t plan for.
This month, I had my sister’s birthday sneak up on me, and rather than look like a terrible big sis who didn’t plan ahead (reality) I sent her a Target gift card via text message (because it’s her favorite store of all time and we’re both damn Millennials who are all into text messaging and non-real-money) and looked like a rock-star.
We also had a planned date night (NC Wine Fest for our 1 year anniversary!) this month, and 2 unplanned date nights (a new Ethiopian restaurant opened in downtown, and the NC State Fair). This tells me that maybe I need to start putting a ‘dates’ line item in my monthly budget.
Probably the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that I did not ever go a full week without buying something. For someone who claims to never really shop, that was eye-opening.
Going forward, I think I will keep using the spreadsheet tool (it’s free on ZDF’s website if you subscribe! Go get it for yourself). Seeing how my spending changes month to month and what it averages out to over the course of a year will be really helpful. It is also neat to see how your spending is tracking in line with your goals, and I got sad when the zero day number changed from green to red. I found myself trying to not stop at the store just one more day…
But on the flip side, if I already spent money on something, I felt that if there was anything else ‘needed’ I better hurry up and buy it on the same day. So in that way it could be a slippery slope to spending more. Overall, something that makes you pause before clicking the ‘buy’ button or swiping your card is a good thing in my book.
