Low-Spend August Week 1 & Super Savings Saturday »
Low-Spend August Rules
- Posted by JvW on August 4th, 2009 filed in No Spend
I was chatting with my sister about doing a No-Spend August and she asked, “How are you going to spendnothing?” Er… I’m not. So we changed the name to Low-Spend August for accuracy. And because it rhymes.
Anywho, since it’s already August 4th, I figured I should lay out my ground rules for this challenge. Again, many thanks to Sharon for starting this up! Here is the new budget I’ll be following in August:
- Groceries: $200 (normally $300)
- Fuel: $550 (normally $600 budget - my husband works 90 min away from home)
- Auto Repair: $280-ish (the work has been done, but we have to pick the car up)
- Auto Inspections: $58 (2 cars need inspection stickers this month)
- Fun Money: $200 (normally $150 each, to be used for lunches and/or personal wants)
- Day trip to Martha’s Vineyard:$100 (planned with my in-laws)
- Waterfire in Providence: $100 (planned dinner with friends)
So the grand total is $1488. This isn’t counting our mortgage, student loans, car payments, insurance, utilities or other bills. For reference, in July we spent about $2500 between food, gas, eating out and entertainment. Wow, so much for being frugal. Already this experiment is an eye-opener!
The plan of attack is to minimize lunches out and pretty much eliminate going out for dinners together. We have gotten into the habit of going out to eat once a week and it really adds up. We also stopped using cash for our fun money and things have gotten out of hand. Back to cash it is! I’m excited to get things back on track and save up some money for vacation!
August 5th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Wow, $200 for groceries would be awesome!
August 6th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
You can do this! Good luck and keep us posted.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Ya, I figured that one out, too. You heard about my family’s $1200 eating habit? Too Crazy! Saving like mass money right now. Of course its only been 2 weeks for me.
You’ll see. You’ll have more money in your pockets to apply to your debts or savings.