January Spending Freeze Summary

[Deleted]

How did your spending freeze turn out?  Was it worth doing?  Any lessons learned?  Who is continuing on and what modifications are you making?

[crashgizmo]

On the positive side, we had the lowest overall spending month since June 2013! On the less than positive, we spent $500 over plan for our DR vacation.

We are definitely continuing the freeze since we're buying a house in the next month or two. Since entertainment and groceries are our two biggest flex categories, those are the areas of focus.

[Deleted]

Well - it didn't end up being a total freeze. But I do think I've done better this month than I have in most months previous, so I can't call it a failure either. I didn't buy any "stuff", except a pair of spanx. The only unnecessary spending I did was on takeout and doing things with friends, but I did less of that this month and was conscious of making choices on what to do with friends that was cheap.

So... as evidenced in my budget post earlier this week, I need a pretty permanent spending freeze. Obviously, I'm going to need some things at some point and I'm going to want to do things that cost money, but I'm going to continue to strive to spend less than I want to and live within my limited means.

[Deleted]

I think it went pretty well. I only had a couple of failures, take out twice, and ordered a book. I learned that both dieting and a spending freeze at the same time make me seriously cranky and I need to come up with some splurges that work with that so I don't feel deprived. It was worth doing, I put an additional $300 in savings this month and actually have some money left at the end of the month, I budget to zero. I plan to continue into Feb, but a little less strict. I'm going to go to a couple of cheap concert, but plan to sell some stuff on my local FB page to help offset that.

[lmdbww]

(FTR mine was specifically no clothing, shoes, or beauty unless using gift funds).

All was well until a few days ago when I went to CVS w/Extracare bucks in hand, figured i'd get some makeup items as a little treat to myself and they were to be free after Extracare bucks. I get to checkout and go to pay and realize that I LOST MY EXTRACAREBUCKS. Like $15 worth. I was so mad. So I ended up caving in embarrassment and just buying the stuff anyway even though I shouldn't have (but as it turns out one of the items I really love, so....) And wouldn't you know it, I found them at home when I searched through a pile of mail.

So I guess I failed via technicality? lol


I do plan on continuing my no buy, it has been really great to shop my stash and actually use up things and rediscover things that I've forgotten about.

[donthasslethehoff]

I think I did really well based on my previous spending habits. I kept to my promise, and didn't go to dunkin' donuts at all in January. We only went out to eat/have beers one Sunday (to watch football) which ended up being expensive, but it was worth it. Other than that, we went to Chipotle once (cheap), and ordered take out 1 other time (cheap).

I went to target a few times for necessities. As of today, we spent $475 on groceries for the month, and we're having people over for Super Bowl, so I suspect another $75-$100 for that. That's high for us, in general, but based on the fact that we didn't eat out, we're still much lower than we would be normally.

The one thing that did hurt was getting new tires for my car. It was something that needed to be done, and probably could have been done 4 months ago. I waited, but got an awesome deal.

I am sticking with a spending freeze in Feb as well. I think I can improve on this a bit.

[Deleted]

The last week of the month went WAY better than the rest. I finally buckled down during this last pay period and got the budget to comfortable levels. I also went back to a loose version of the envelope system and I know that is always the thing that keeps me on track the best. I have done all my major grocery shopping, a small Target trip, limited out eating out, and generally watched our spending and we should have plenty of money to get through to next Friday.
I also returned some stuff at Target this week and plan to keep the gift card and subtract that amount from what I will need next pay day for my envelopes. This will essentially give me $50 extra in the bank. I feel really positive moving in to February.

[gt7301b]

I'd give myself a B. I didn't buy a bunch of stuff from Athleta and WHBM that I wanted, but we still went over on groceries. We also managed to fix a stopped up toilet that appeared to be a lost cause without having to call a plumber.

I'm going to do try and do better this month at the grocery store!

[shamrockshake]

I did well.I stuck to the freeze 95% of the time. We had one dinner out planned, and paid for with a GC from Christmas, so we did that. and I had told myself that if I beat the 2 dietbets I was in I could by a new mat for pilates so I didn't have to keep using the gym ones so I bought that when I beat my first one yesterday, and I bought a HR monitor, both were covered by the dietbet money I'll get back though,and an amazon GC I had leftover so I say it still counts.

biggest win- my cc statement for my target card came yesterday- $0. ZERO dollars spent at Target last month. If I could just avoid Target altogether I would be rich

[partiallysunny]

I did well enough. Still spent more than I was hoping, including a car repair bill. After the money suck of December, I'm pretty happy, though.

I'm going to continue next month. Not a complete freeze, but no unplanned "just for fun" or "because it's on sale" spending.

[dexteroni]

Great! Aside from the running shoes I bought with Christmas money, the only non-necessities I bought were two $5 camis and two $5 pillows from Costco. So $20 overall is way better than I would have otherwise done.

I am nearly out of two Sephora items, which I'll be buying basically as soon as February hits, but I should make it until then. I was getting a bit nervous, though, lol.

I think we did pretty well with grocery and restaurant spending, too. I still have a few purchases to enter but I think we'll be right on target. We had been nearly doubling our grocery spending, so even if we go over a little bit, it will still be a success.

[Pom]

We had the best month we'd had since June 2011. (Yes I am a weirdo who has our old EXCEL sheets for spending). Our food budget was 1/2...we utilized the crap out of our freezer, garden, ate at home quite a bit or just went to less expensive places.

I got the rebate today in the mail from GM for fixing the steering on our car $717. :::HAPPY FOUND MONEY DANCE::: Hell we spent the $$ to fix that 2 years ago.

We still shopped, but just WAY more conservatively. The threat of the oilfield crisis looming has kicked us in the ass, to crank down our spending. That said, we leave for Vegas Thursday, so we are out for February and in March we will be doing a big family trip to Florida. So we'll be back at it hard in April.

I am giving the Poms an A+ for January 2015.

[blondemoment123]

I did good. My H on the other hand pisses me off and refuses to see the big picture.

[ohyouknow]

I'm joining starting today. Any tips from anyone?

[changedname]

I did the spending freeze more or less but I bought a car on 26 Dec so haven't really felt exactly flush with cash.

I am going to continue doing a modified spending freeze for the rest of the year.

[konapoppy]

We did really well! Like shamrockshake, avoiding Target is key. We decreased our non-housing expenses from January by 42%!

We need to stick with it, too. I think H is finally on board. Woo hoo!

[Pom]

Jan 30, 2015 10:53:02 GMT -5 lmdbww said:

(FTR mine was specifically no clothing, shoes, or beauty unless using gift funds).

All was well until a few days ago when I went to CVS w/Extracare bucks in hand, figured i'd get some makeup items as a little treat to myself and they were to be free after Extracare bucks. I get to checkout and go to pay and realize that I LOST MY EXTRACAREBUCKS. Like $15 worth. I was so mad. So I ended up caving in embarrassment and just buying the stuff anyway even though I shouldn't have (but as it turns out one of the items I really love, so....) And wouldn't you know it, I found them at home when I searched through a pile of mail.

So I guess I failed via technicality? lol


I do plan on continuing my no buy, it has been really great to shop my stash and actually use up things and rediscover things that I've forgotten about.

Oh no, that truly sucks about the ECB's.  I watch those bad boys like a hawk.  We went to CVS with a $4 off $20 coupon, $5 ECB, and Walgreens $10 RR yesterday plus coupons and sales and spent $19.68 out of pocket for $68 worth of stuff.  3 deodorants, 3 Purex detergents, kitty litter, 3 jars of Ragu, 3 sympathy cards, Bic pens, 2 containers of Almonds, 2L of Diet Coke, tissues, chocolate for Valentine's Day visitors.  These kind of trips help me stay on the strait and narrow because it is stuff we use and I watch the blogs with match-up deals.  

Your comment about shopping the existing stash of stuff is a really good tip too.

[Pom]

Jan 31, 2015 8:00:28 GMT -5 toriwc said:

And we woke up this morning to a 52 degree house and a dead furnace. ..

Oh no, I hope it's something easily fixed.  

[hippygirl]

Jan 31, 2015 9:47:17 GMT -5 Pom said:

Jan 30, 2015 10:53:02 GMT -5 lmdbww said:

(FTR mine was specifically no clothing, shoes, or beauty unless using gift funds).

All was well until a few days ago when I went to CVS w/Extracare bucks in hand, figured i'd get some makeup items as a little treat to myself and they were to be free after Extracare bucks. I get to checkout and go to pay and realize that I LOST MY EXTRACAREBUCKS. Like $15 worth. I was so mad. So I ended up caving in embarrassment and just buying the stuff anyway even though I shouldn't have (but as it turns out one of the items I really love, so....) And wouldn't you know it, I found them at home when I searched through a pile of mail.

So I guess I failed via technicality? lol


I do plan on continuing my no buy, it has been really great to shop my stash and actually use up things and rediscover things that I've forgotten about.

Oh no, that truly sucks about the ECB's.  I watch those bad boys like a hawk.  We went to CVS with a $4 off $20 coupon, $5 ECB, and Walgreens $10 RR yesterday plus coupons and sales and spent $19.68 out of pocket for $68 worth of stuff.  3 deodorants, 3 Purex detergents, kitty litter, 3 jars of Ragu, 3 sympathy cards, Bic pens, 2 containers of Almonds, 2L of Diet Coke, tissues, chocolate for Valentine's Day visitors.  These kind of trips help me stay on the strait and narrow because it is stuff we use and I watch the blogs with match-up deals.  

Your comment about shopping the existing stash of stuff is a really good tip too.

I love shopping trips like that! So much for the freeze. Shopping, remodeling, and other things busted our freeze.

[IrishBelle]

We did pretty well the fist 3 weeks. No unplanned spending, packed my lunch most days and only ate out once. I'm amazed by how little we spent.

Last week was another story - we booked an unexpected trip to Florida. The opportunity came up to visit with family and we decided to go for it.

[ellipses84]

It was our second lowest spending month since last May, and that included the super expensive sporting tickets we spontaneously bought and minor car trouble. We didn't do as well as I had hoped, and I was probably unrealistically strict about the rules, but I think we will continue it through February. We both worked a ton of overtime and I also have thousands of dollars of FSA money to get reimbursed for from last year, so we should be in better shape by the end of February.

[hurricanedrunk]

Did pretty well in the frivolous spending category. Caught myself a couple of times and H kept it in check too. Three major things held us back for a great month overall. 1) Impulse vacation purchase (which happened before we knew about #2) 2) Snowballing car repairs 3) my birthday was this month and we hosted a party. Hoping to continue somewhat of a freeze into Feb.

[lmdbww]

Jan 31, 2015 9:47:17 GMT -5 Pom said:

Jan 30, 2015 10:53:02 GMT -5 lmdbww said:

(FTR mine was specifically no clothing, shoes, or beauty unless using gift funds).

All was well until a few days ago when I went to CVS w/Extracare bucks in hand, figured i'd get some makeup items as a little treat to myself and they were to be free after Extracare bucks. I get to checkout and go to pay and realize that I LOST MY EXTRACAREBUCKS. Like $15 worth. I was so mad. So I ended up caving in embarrassment and just buying the stuff anyway even though I shouldn't have (but as it turns out one of the items I really love, so....) And wouldn't you know it, I found them at home when I searched through a pile of mail.

So I guess I failed via technicality? lol


I do plan on continuing my no buy, it has been really great to shop my stash and actually use up things and rediscover things that I've forgotten about.

Oh no, that truly sucks about the ECB's.  I watch those bad boys like a hawk.  We went to CVS with a $4 off $20 coupon, $5 ECB, and Walgreens $10 RR yesterday plus coupons and sales and spent $19.68 out of pocket for $68 worth of stuff.  3 deodorants, 3 Purex detergents, kitty litter, 3 jars of Ragu, 3 sympathy cards, Bic pens, 2 containers of Almonds, 2L of Diet Coke, tissues, chocolate for Valentine's Day visitors.  These kind of trips help me stay on the strait and narrow because it is stuff we use and I watch the blogs with match-up deals.  

Your comment about shopping the existing stash of stuff is a really good tip too.

WELL.  Guess who went back to CVS on Friday to spend the $15 in ecb, only to realize they have disappeared yet again??  I dumped my entire purse out in the aisle and they are gone. Seriously.  No idea where they got to.