No Spend February: All You Need is Love
Maybe it's because pink's always been my favorite color. Maybe it's because I'm a romantic under my sarcastic shell, but I love Valentine's day. It's actually my favorite holiday. Lame, right? Well, so was liking pink when I was young. All the cool girls liked navy and green, but as long as I can remember, the aisles of hearts held some wonder for me. My mom would take us down the row, explaining the chocolates in them were yucky (so right, Mom) and undaunted I'd pick out which ones I wanted to be given. I say "ones" because I was five and under the impression that very beautiful girls had several boyfriends, while less beautiful girls had one or two.
In first grade, I enjoyed the universal love of Valentine exchanges. No one was left out, although there was some strategy in choosing the Valentine I gave my crush. In high school, I encountered Valentine haters...friends feeling pressure to have a romantic interest on the day of love. I never had one either, but held that it could still be a day of warm fuzzies. And then all kinds of dreams came true when I finally had a boyfriend on Valentine's day and he proposed.
That same guy's been part of all my Valentine's days since, some more memorable than others, but this year will be like none we've experienced before. It falls smack dab in the middle of our second No Spend month. While people rant and rave that it's a gimmick to get us to spend money, we'll try to prove that the love holiday can be enjoyed on the cheap. I'll be digging deep into my bag of tricks and borrowing from other people's to make this month a time when special-ness and warm fuzzies abound.
We'll be doing our month much like last time except for gas. Not being summer and having options to bike or walk, we're leaving our gas budget out of it except to reduce it by $50. Because we won't need any of our daily money for gas, we're reducing that from $10 to $5. Yikes, right? Maybe that's unrealistic, but we won't know til we try. We did a major grocery shop to start ourselves off and I've set aside money for my hair appointment. This doesn't affect monthly expenses, including our YMCA membership. That's all in the bills category and we'll pay that like always. So off we go!
Total spent: 0.00
Fun money: 5.00
In first grade, I enjoyed the universal love of Valentine exchanges. No one was left out, although there was some strategy in choosing the Valentine I gave my crush. In high school, I encountered Valentine haters...friends feeling pressure to have a romantic interest on the day of love. I never had one either, but held that it could still be a day of warm fuzzies. And then all kinds of dreams came true when I finally had a boyfriend on Valentine's day and he proposed.
That same guy's been part of all my Valentine's days since, some more memorable than others, but this year will be like none we've experienced before. It falls smack dab in the middle of our second No Spend month. While people rant and rave that it's a gimmick to get us to spend money, we'll try to prove that the love holiday can be enjoyed on the cheap. I'll be digging deep into my bag of tricks and borrowing from other people's to make this month a time when special-ness and warm fuzzies abound.
We'll be doing our month much like last time except for gas. Not being summer and having options to bike or walk, we're leaving our gas budget out of it except to reduce it by $50. Because we won't need any of our daily money for gas, we're reducing that from $10 to $5. Yikes, right? Maybe that's unrealistic, but we won't know til we try. We did a major grocery shop to start ourselves off and I've set aside money for my hair appointment. This doesn't affect monthly expenses, including our YMCA membership. That's all in the bills category and we'll pay that like always. So off we go!
Total spent: 0.00
Fun money: 5.00
Wishing the best for you guys this month! Do you plan on doing this every so often? I'm curious if there was any significance with the dates of doing it last summer and now in February?
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't super strategic except that there were a few months in between and nothing major happens in Feb...Dec/Jan are tricky with holidays/trips and March has spring break, April you're starting to think of buying warmer clothes for the kids, etc. AND it's the shortest month!! ;)
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