In February, I determined that I needed to work on my spending habits. I had let them slip and I wanted to start implementing more intentional spending habits. At the beginning of the year, I had heard all about people starting their No Buy and Low Buy Challenges. I decided to take these challenges and make one for myself for the month. I will walk through what these challenges are, how I started, and how it is going.
But first, why even do a “Challenge”
I hope to write more on this in the future, but challenges are a great way to provide an avenue to motivate yourself outside of the daily routines. I love that they start with an idea, take some planning, then include ways to track your success. I do not consider myself competitive when it comes to others, but I find a lot of joy in proving to myself that I can do something.
No Buy Challenge versus a Low Buy Challenge
A No Buy Challenge is when you challenge yourself (and possibly others if you wish) to not buy anything outside of the necessities. There are a lot of people who are trying to aggressively pay down their debt that will use No Buy Challenges to help them meet their goals. They may set them for a week, month, or even a year.
A Low Buy is similar to the No Buy, but it gives you more flexibility on what you will and will not purchase. You can choose specific categories of items you will not buy or perhaps set a daily or weekly spending limit when it comes to non essentials. Just like a No Buy Challenge, people will do these for a week, month, or a year.
I decided to go with a Low Buy for a few different reasons. First, it is very similar to creating a budget. However, my brain hears “budget” and tries to run the other way. I am basically tricking my brain into a budget by looking through a different lens. The second reason I chose this is because a No Buy brings with it an all or nothing mentality. If I break my rule one day when I am out with family or friends, I don’t want to feel like a failure and consider the challenge “lost”. A lost challenge would mean it is the end and I don’t need to continue trying. Lastly, the structure of the low buy I created was easy to follow and easy to track. One thing of note is that I knew choosing a Low Buy instead of a No Buy was going to mean I would not save as much money as I would if I did a No Buy, but I knew my success rate would be higher with the Low Buy.
How did I start my Low Buy Challenge?
After deciding on choosing the Low Buy, I went into my favorite part, planning. I broke it down into 3 parts; goals, the guardrails, and how to track.
My goal of the low buy was to reduce my spending for 1 month to apply that money to a debt. The goal was important to me because this debt was a roadblock to be able to focus on a debt I wanted to pay off more, which is my car loan. This particular debt was smaller and had a shorter deadline. If this smaller debt was not paid off, it was going to accrue interest by the deadline and I did not want that.
Side Note: I do not have financial training outside of the public school system, a few small lectures I have attended, and a few books. I will never encourage someone to look at their money the way I do. Finances are very particular to the person and their circumstances. I am trying to walk through the way my brain works. For me, debt is something that I really want to get paid off.
With my goal in mind, I needed to create those guardrails of the challenge. For me, I decided there were some categories I was going to try to avoid. Those categories included hobbies, clothing, decor, and unimportant self care products. I knew I could be successful in this because those particular categories I could be successful in utilizing the idea of Shopping your own Stash, which I covered in my previous post here.
Another few guardrails I put up were related to food. I did not want to be eating out more than once per week. It is amazing how expensive eating out is. I am not a very good cook by any stretch of the imagination and I often find myself using that crutch to not make meals. Another food related guardrail comes to my coffee. I determined I could not get Starbucks more than once per week. Over the last year, I have been going to Starbucks about 3 times a week. I am not even going to do the math on that one. Not to mention the plastic waste that haunted my consciousness with each trip.
How did I track my Progress for the Low Buy Challenge?
With my goal and guardrails in place, it was time to begin. However, with the idea of making it a challenge, I wanted to see my wins. I struggled with this because how did I track something when the goal was to do nothing? I didn’t know how to track the savings. In the end, I decided on the simpler the better. I made a very simple spreadsheet in Google Sheets that I had access to on my phone. It was built to track only 2 things, the date and if I went outside of my guardrails. Here is a screenshot of that spreadsheet. You will notice I did add one column to check off the days I bought nothing. Something about checking that box, it felt really good.
One additional tracking I personally did was in regards to my small debt. I was tracking my savings closely until we were able to pay off that particular debt. This was done separately from my Low Buy Challenge, but played a large part in the overall goal for me because it was the “why” behind the entire challenge.
How did the Low Buy Challenge go?
The challenge kicked off and like most challenges, I did really well the first few weeks. I was checking off each day and really doing more of a No Buy Challenge. After the first few weeks, I did start making a few small purchases occasionally. What was really great was that I was not deterred in the slightest. I felt I was finding a good balance. It was building a very good muscle of intentionally spending. It had me bringing back in practices of minimalism or intentional living. It left me with a feeling of accomplishment, living within my means, and within my values.
We hit our goal and were able to pay off that small debt even faster than I expected. This was exciting for many reasons. It reduced stress of having that debt. I felt proud of what I had accomplished. It also lead to me revamping and continuing the challenge.
Originally, I expected this to last about a month, then I would go back to my spending habits. However for me, I knew it had not been too difficult and it lead me to set a new goal and revamp the guardrails. I am continuing on this challenge for at least another month, we will see where it leads. Currently I am working on a section of the car loan being paid off within the next few months. These smaller goals are helping me reach my larger goal of the complete car payoff. Not to mention all the good habits I am gaining along the way when it comes to my spending.
You have now seen my journey up to this point. Do you have some abstract goals currently that you could use No Buy or Low Buy Challenges to help you accomplish those goals? A student loan, car loan, credit card debt, or a future trip you would like to attend? I hope I was able to provide an additional idea for you and that you found value from checking out the article.
