Sunday, January 29, 2012

Frugal February

Every once in a while, Lilly and I like to participate in mini challenges.

We've done the 21 Day No Complaining challenge where you start at day 1 with a string or rubber band tied around your wrist and try to go for 21 days without complaining. If you complain, you have to transfer the string to your other wrist and start over at day 1. It took us a long time to complete that challenge.

Other challenges we've done have been shorter, like our No Spend Week challenges. We stock up on groceries and gas for our cars, and don't buy a single thing all week. Those challenges are fun, but they definitely involve meal planning - not my strong suit.

The most recent challenge that we did was a Get Outside of Your Comfort Zone Week challenge. Each day had a new comfort zone challenge - such as wear something you wouldn't normally wear. I bought a frilly blouse, put on heels, makeup, and did my hair with one of those pompadours on my head. It got great reactions from my co-workers, but I was highly embarrassed with the attention and was happy to get back to my plain work clothes and comfy shoes the next day.

This February we are going to be doing a month long challenge that we've named Frugal February. Basically, we are challenging ourselves not to buy any non-consumables for the entire month. That means only food and hygiene products, though we both agreed that we probably have enough hygiene products in our stockpiles that we won't need to buy any. Purchasing experiences like going out to dinner or going to the zoo is allowed, just as long as we don't buy any souvenirs to take home with us.

The goals of this challenge are to make us aware of our spending urges, help us save some money, and hopefully in the long run, help us stop buying so much stuff to bring home and add to our clutter. During the month we will be posting about the spending urges that come up and keeping a tally of the amount of money we're saving ourselves by not purchasing those items.

Wish us luck and feel free to join our challenge!