Spending Challenges, Budget Challenges or No-spend Challenges. You see them all over the internet and on finance, budget, or frugal living content. I’m not into them. I 1000% beleive in having a busget and sticking to it, but the restrictive challenges are a no-go for me. I can see them having a place if you are new to personal finance, are in a budget pinch, or need to break a bad habit. But as a long-term or recurring way to save money? I don’t buy them. The two primary reasons are that they don’t align with my ideal of having a prepared pantry, and the famine only feeds the feast.
A prepared pantry means having anywhere from three to six months of storage for your everyday items. Everyday items include food, toiletries, consumables, paper goods, medications, etc. If I were to enter into a no-spend period, that would mean that I would be depleting my storage. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t touch your storage. No! Please cycle through your items to ensure everything stays fresh, but you should always be replenishing. It wouldn’t be great to have a natural disaster hit at the end of your no-spend pantry challenge when you’re coming down to odds and ends and “getting creative.” a No-spend challenge also restricts you from stocking up on a good deal. What’s the point of doing the challenge if you make tons of exceptions?
Budgeting and being prepared come hand in hand. It needs to be a lifestyle, not a fad diet. It’s proactive to always be on the lookout for discounts on your everyday product and be working on and restocking your stockpile. Don’t misinterpret that to spend over and buy more than you can afford or consume before it expires, and certainly don’t just buy something because it is a good price. Once you get to a month’s worth of supplies, it’s wise to slow down and make purchases only when you find affordable prices.
Part of what allows this mindset of only shopping sales is the ability to store your items, especially food, properly. Six things that have made it possible for us are (in order of lowest cost to investments) mylar bags, a vacuum sealer, a pressure canner, a dehydrator, a deep freezer, and a freeze dryer. All of these items give you more control over food preservation and extend the shelf-life of foods. A good example is flour. If you were to buy a large 25 lb bag of flour (and you’re not a baker), the chances of you using that whole bag in six months or before some other pest found its way into the original packaging is slim to none. But suppose you were to package that up into mylar bags, you are extending the shelf life up to 20 years, eliminating the concern of expiration dates and allowing you to make larger, budget-driven purchases without worry.
The scarcity mindset is the other worry you eliminate by not subscribing to no-spend challenges. If you feel restricted, chances are you start your energy on what you can’t have. If you have ever been on a diet, you know that donuts taunt you, and everything sounds better than the salad in front of you. Many people spend their no-spend challenge creating lists of everything they want to buy when the challenge is over. What is the point if you are on an overly restrictive grocery budget this month, only to blow your average budget next month? If you deplete your stockpile this month only to feel uneasy and anxiously restock (regardless of prices) next month, you’re doing more harm to your budget and mindset than any no-spend challenge can help.
No-spend challenges have very limited uses in a budget. They should be seen as habit breakers/makers vs. savings strategies because unless you improve a habit on the other side of the challenge, you probably create worse habits in the long run on top of the stress a no-spend challenge inherently has.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Are there any no-spend challenges that helped you, or are you leaving them behind? What are your favorite budgeting tricks?
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2 Comments
Great advice
Thank you!