October is always a very expensive month for us; I can always bet the mortgage on it. This month I decided to go on a “no spend” month and try to get ahead of the game. You know what that means right? Murphy took up residence in our home. Why is that guy always making a nuisance of himself? Since the beginning of October we have had one “crisis” after another: The washing machine isn’t working, my 2 year old daughter pulled the laptop down and broke it, a huge medical bill that will pretty much wipe out our savings, and last night that same 2-year-old managed to lock the only set of keys to my vehicle, inside said vehicle. For the latter part, a good friend managed to tag us on her AAA and get the door unlocked but it made one item on our to-do list become top priority. Can you guess what that is? Yep, get a duplicate key made. This isn’t a few dollar thing, this will be over $100.
Probably the easiest thing to do at this point is just give up. Seriously, its like, “why make all this effort if its all going down the toilet?” Because, despite everything NOW is the time to pull up the bootstraps and make something good out of all this! So obviously, my number one tip for saving money is Stick With Your Goals. No, that is not a tangible way to save like “cut coupons” but it will be the hardest but most rewarding thing you can accomplish this month. My goal this month is “no spend” and that is what I am going for. That is what I want to accomplish. Can I just say that I am super thankful for Starbucks gift cards right now? After these past few weeks I would have totally broke every budget in the book over Starbucks coffee.
2. Have an accountability partner. This could be your spouse, your bestie, or even your mother (which it is in my case. Thanks mom!) When I want to give up and just spend money out of sure spite it is always my mom that gets up and says, “you can do this. You’ll figure it out” and you know what, those two sentences are just what I need to focus on what I have started. It might help that being a mom there is a little bit of un-knowing authority. So you know what, we got this! We can do it. Think of Rosie!
3. Make a game out of it. Maybe I am weird at challenging myself. I love to see what I can do to save money. I will clip coupons and write down all the savings in a note book. I will hang the laundry on the line and calculate the savings cost and write it in the notebook. I will cut my Starbucks consumption to only 2 or 3 times a month instead of, well, more than that 😉 and write the savings in my book. I will meal plan, meal prep, whatever it is and write the savings in my notebook. At the end of the month I like to add up all the savings and then take that amount and put it in savings, after I have treated myself of course. I love trying to build up my savings account–for months such as this.
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