Our No Spend Month Challenge & How We Reduced Our Monthly Expenses
I’m not going to lie to you and say that I was super strict with our no spend month rules.
The first two weeks weren’t too difficult to stick to our no spend month plan. I mean, after putting all of our money into rent and daycare, funds were depleted until mid-month anyway. But despite a little bit of unnecessary spending, overall we did pretty well! I managed to keep from spending a couple hundred dollars that I would have otherwise.
To be fair, most of our excess spending is on fast food and carryout.
We don’t mind cooking at home, it’s just sometimes more convenient to grab something quick while we’re out. But I will say, we have managed to cut back a lot on that habit and have started to do a weekly meal plan to stay on track with spending! Woo!
Aside from the every day expenses, there were a few other changes I have made over the past year in order to reduce my monthly expenses and build up some savings.
Don’t worry – I’m not going to talk about debt snowballs (though I did put that into practice a couple years ago and have managed to pay off over $15,000 in student loans already). And I’m not going to bore you with meal planning and how to coupon.
What I want to share with you is five ways I have improved my finances in preparation for our no spend month challenge.
Change #1: I refinanced my auto loan.
Back in September 2016, I bought my first ever brand new car. I had $0 for a down payment, a shitty credit score (very low 600s), and no vehicle for trade. First off, I have no clue how I managed to get approved for a loan. I made the mistake of letting one dealership run my credit multiple times, resulting in a heavy blow to my score. But I am extremely thankful I finally got approved, despite it being a very high interest rate (over 8%). I ended up with a monthly payment of $300 for 72 months (#yikes).
I paid my minimum every month for about a year and a half while improving my credit score. Eventually I bumped my score up to just above 700. In April 2018, I was on the verge of being a single mom so I went to my bank and refinanced. I extended the life back out to 72 months, but my rate was cut in half and my monthly payment dropped to $170.
For a year, I paid ahead on my loan by doing weekly payments of $50 instead of monthly. In May of this year, I decided to switch my auto pay to once a month. This cut out the extra $30-$80 I was paying each month, allowing me to start saving for our wedding.
If you have an auto loan that you are considering refinancing, here’s what I’d suggest:
- Wait until you have been making your regular monthly payments for at least a year, preferably a year and a half. This will give you time to prove creditworthiness to a lender, and will help your credit score.
- Make sure your credit score has improved, as this will help you with repayment options. Check back in a few weeks for a post on how to improve your score!
- Consider whether extending the life of the loan is worth it in your situation. For me personally, the total interest paid on the loan was still less after extending the life since my interest rate dropped so drastically. This may not be the case for you.
Change #2: I switched plans with my cell phone provider and paid off my device.
Back in 2014, I switched carriers and unlimited data plans were non-existent. For a few years I was stuck with paying high prices for barely enough data; it was awful. In 2016, I was hired by my current employer and one of my job perks was a cell phone. So like any broke twenty-something would do, I shut off my personal phone and used my work phone for over a year.
I got to the point where I was sick of Apple (not very Google friendly, and I needed it for school and blogging). So in April 2018, I got a Samsung Galaxy S9+ and have been so happy with it. Unfortunately, unlimited data was still not a thing again, so I chose a plan that cost me around $110/month plus my monthly device payment of $30ish.
In total I was paying about $140/month on just one phone.
After about six months of paying such a high phone bill as a single mom, I decided to just pay off my device. I used my credit card so technically it’s not “paid off”, I just moved the debt. Regardless, my phone bill was reduced to just the monthly plan for a while.
When we started looking at ways to reduce expenses back in May prior to our no spend month, I thought it was a good time to check out phone plans. After all, I don’t need that much data since I’m usually on wifi anyway. Well it turns out my carrier has unlimited data plans again – and they cost less than the plan I was using!
Of course my happy ass jumped ship from my old plan and switched to a new one. My phone bill these days is right around $75/month (!!!) when it started out nearly twice as much.
Change #3: I shut off various subscription services.
This one was tough because I love subscriptions. They are so easy and convenient! Examples of subscriptions I use/was using: Netflix, Hulu, Bookroo, ConvertKit, Yoga Club, Disney Movie Club, Amazon Prime, blog communities, etc.
I discovered both Seb and I had Netflix accounts (we were paying twice as much as needed for one household *face palm*). So I shut off my Netflix during no spend month. I did keep Hulu because Brooklyn 99 is my favorite show and I’m not emotionally prepared to give that up.
Overall, we cut out just over $100/month in subscription services.
I canceled Bookroo because Elsie has tons of books already that she hasn’t read yet, and I couldn’t justify spending $25/month on it. ConvertKit was great, but I wasn’t sending out my regular emails and I didn’t need the power it offers anyway. I left a couple of blog community memberships that I wasn’t using, and I canceled my Yoga Club because honestly I have too many clothes as is.
Change #4: I do not spend coins, I save them.
Typically I try to take out cash as my weekly or monthly spending money to help monitor myself. For no spend month I actually reduced that amount. One habit I have grown into over the past couple of years is to always save my coins. If I get change from using cash, I keep my coins. Even if it’s just a few pennies over the dollar, I will break another bill and the remaining 97 cents will go into my ceramic elephant bank when I get home.
This has been really helpful for me personally, and is a great starter method for saving. Not only am I saving in small chunks every day, but I’m able to put the money away where I can’t see it. Out of sight, out of mind. Then once it’s full – or approximately every six months – I empty my elephant bank and deposit it into my savings account. Generally I’ll end up with around $100 in a six month period. It’s not a lot, but it helps and it’s so easy.
If you don’t use cash at all, there are apps out there that will do this. Basically if you spend $4.50, it will round your price up to $5.00. The extra 50 cents is then put into your savings.
Change #5: I automatically deduct money from my paycheck and put into savings.
My employer uses direct deposit, and since I am hourly I never know exactly how much my paycheck will be. A trick I learned from my mom is to set up a secondary direct deposit that pulls a flat amount from your paycheck each time you get paid. This way I never see the money, so I don’t really miss it.
Currently I do this for Elsie’s savings account. I get paid weekly, so each week $10 comes out of my paycheck and goes straight to her savings. Additionally, I pull a percentage out for myself. I have 5% pretax going into my 401k, and another 5% goes into savings. I used to pull 7% and 10% respectively, but I readjusted to fit my financial needs.
The 5% I pull for savings is actually my emergency fund.
At one point I had almost $1500 saved up, but an emergency came up and I had to drain it. Now it’s back up to around $200, and continues to grow again. Meanwhile, I keep a separate savings account in a different bank to save for big purchases. I’ve been putting $50 from each paycheck into it as wedding funds for next year. No spend month has helped me have the extra money to put into savings!
If building up your savings is a challenge for you like it used to be for me, I seriously recommend the coin method and direct deposit methods. Even if you’re only able to save $5 from each paycheck, do it! Every little bit will help in the long run. And don’t be discouraged if you meet an obstacle that drains your savings; what is torn down can always be rebuilt.
Do you have any tips on ways to reduce expenses? What has worked for you and your family? Tell us in the comments!
