impulse purchase

10 No Spend Challenges Everyone Should Try

January 17, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 99 Comments

If you’re looking for a way to get a new perspective on how you spend money, one of the best ways to do this is to do some type of “no spend” challenge. While there are a number of things that a no spend challenge can help improve, probably the main benefit is that it’ll force you to break spending habits that you may not have even known you had. By finding these spending habits, being aware of them, and then coming up with solutions to change them, you put yourself in a position to use your money more effectively and on the things that are really important to you. In this way, no spend challenges are a wonderful way to help you get some insight into your current personal finances to see the changes that need to be made. Here are a few types of no spend challenges that can be extremely beneficial to your finances:

No Spend Day Challenge

The no spend day challenge is the classic of the no spend challenges. A no spend day challenge is basically a day where you are not allowed to spend any money. While they may not appear to be too difficult in theory, they tend to be more difficult than most people imagine because they often bring to light spending leaks that most people didn’t realize they had. Of course, you are not limited to only a single day. As you get better with your finances, you can try a no spend weekend, and no spend week, or even a no spend month. Any of these are bound to challenge the way that you currently spend money and force you to be creative in finding solutions to do and buy the things that you want without actually spending money.

No Impulse Purchase Challenge

This challenge can be an excellent way to greatly reduce the amount you spend shopping while at the same time making you more organized and think through all of your purchases. In this no spend challenge, you are only allowed to buy things that you have written down on a list before you went to the store to by them. No “oh, I need this too” purchases. If it’s not on the list, then it can’t be purchased. By sticking strictly to buying those things that you went to the store to purchase and buying nothing else, you will place yourself in a position to see how much you were spending on impulse purchases in the past.

No Credit Card Use Challenge

For those who have a volatile relationship with their credit card, a no spending with a credit card challenge can be an excellent way to help break the habit of using your credit card. You simply pick a period of time such as a month period where you’re not allowed to use your credit card for any purchases. This is a great way to see all those small expenses that you put on a credit card without even thinking about it in the past and should help you become much more aware of how often you used to use a credit card without even thinking about it.

No Buying Food Challenge

Not only is a no buying food challenge a great way to save money, it should also help you find new recipes and meals to broaden your cooking repertoire. Again, this challenge can be for any period of time, but it’s usually done for a week or a month depending on how much you have in your pantry. During this time, you’re not allowed to go and buy food from the store. Instead, you need to use the food that you have on hand. Since most families throw away a large amount of food each year, this is a great way to be creative using food without wasting. It can also help clean out your pantry of food that’s been there for a long period, and help you get creative in making meals from the food that you have on hand. The hope is that by doing all this, it will help you shop more efficiently and make better food purchases in the future.

No Eating Out Challenge

For those who have a tendency to let trips out to restaurants ruin their budget, doing a no spending money eating out challenge can be a great way to help temper this habit. As the name would suggest, the goal is to not eat any of your meals at a restaurant or from a takeout joint during this specified period of the challenge. Knowing that you won’t be able to go out to eat should help you prepare a bit more for cooking meals at home, and hopefully get you into a habit where going out to eat becomes a planned event instead of the default option.

No Cost Entertainment Challenge

One place where many people find leaks in their budget has to do with money spent on entertainment. By doing a month-long no spend on entertainment challenge, you will have to find new and creative ways to entertain yourself that don’t cost any money. It should give you a good opportunity to see how much you have been spending on entertainment in the past, and help you find different forms of entertainment that can be done without spending any money. By finding ways that you can entertain yourself without spending money, you place yourself in a great position to really pick and chose when you want to spend money on entertainment in the future.

No Coffee Shop Challenge

If you happen to be one of those people who has the habit of stopping in at the local coffee shop on a daily basis, doing a no spend at the coffee shop challenge can be an excellent way to help you break the habit over the short-term, and greatly reduce it over the long-term. While the coffee shop example is used here, this can be used with any habit that you have where you know money is leaking out of your budget. If you’re able to go a month without visiting the coffee shop, you should be in the position to make those coffee shop trips to treat rather than a daily habit, saving you a lot of money.

No Clothes Buying Challenge

Many people seem to get their therapy treatments by buying clothes (or other things). If you find that you’re spending money on clothes every month, doing a no spending on clothes challenge for a month can be an excellent way for you to reevaluate your wardrobe and buying habits. By the end of the challenge, you should know if there are any clothes that you really do need versus the clothes you merely want.

No Cable TV Package Challenge

Many people who try this challenge for a month are pretty surprised when they realize how much TV was a habit rather than something that they really wanted to see. Spending a month without cable TV can put you in a much better position to determine whether it is something that is worth the price, or something that is getting in your way to do other things. It will give a new perspective on how you have been spending time and how you really want to spend that time.

No Spend Hobby Challenge

Hobbies can be expensive and it’s often a good idea to spend a month of more on a challenge not to spend any money on that hobby. While this can be difficult, it will really get your creative juices flowing since it’s something that you enjoy doing. Often times, it will help reaffirm the reason that you originally became interested in the hobby and make you appreciate it that much more. it can also help you focus on where to best spend the money that you do have on your hobby once the challenge is over.

What all these challenges should do is give a different perspective on your spending in these areas, and help you think about new ways to achieve what you want in those areas without spending additional money. Taking on a no spending challenge can be difficult, but the information that you learn from them can be invaluable to helping you get better control of your finances and spending more wisely.

Have you ever done a no spend challenge? What are some of the things that you learned which surprised you if you have? Are you planning any no spend challenges for this year?

Stash and Think: Strange Ways to Save Money

October 27, 2011 By Jennifer Derrick 5 Comments

Sometimes, when you’re out and about, you see something that you think you just have to have. Maybe it’s a great skirt, or a DVD you can’t wait to get from the rental place. Whatever it is that you see, you buy it, bring it home and, often, experience regret later. You think, “Why did I buy that? I don’t need it.” Sometimes you realize that you
could have gotten the item for free or at least cheaper if you’d waited a week or so. Whatever the source of regret, it’s too late to do anything about it once you’ve removed the tags, worn the item, opened the box, or removed the shrink wrap. At that point you’re stuck with whatever it is you thought you had to have.

One way to avoid this regret is to practice a rule I call, “Stash and think.” Here’s how it works.

When you buy something (even something you order online) that isn’t an immediate need, bring whatever it is home and stash it. You can stash it in a closet, under the bed, or even in the trunk of your car.
Don’t remove the tags, don’t open the box, and don’t remove the shrink wrap. Keep the item in perfect return condition and keep the receipt.
Take some time (I use two weeks but you can go for longer or shorter) to think about your purchase. Do you need whatever you bought? Do you have another one like it? (How many pairs of khaki pants do you really need?) Do you really want it, or were you just shopping for the heck of it? Did you find (or remember) something else that you’d much rather have spent that money on?
While you’re thinking, look around to see if you can get the item cheaper. Does it go on clearance? Does it go on sale somewhere else? Can you get the book for free from the library? Can you rent that movie? Chances are that a little research can net your impulse item for a lower cost, if you decide that you still have to have it.

If, at the end of your stash and think period, you’ve decided that you don’t really want the item or you were able to find it for less, return the original item. Since you didn’t remove the tags or open the box, you should be able to return the item for a full refund. As long as you have your receipt you can even return items that have gone on clearance.

The trick to this is to not forget your stashed items to the point that you miss your return window. To help with this, keep the receipts in a place that’s clearly visible. Maybe you can pin them to the family cork board, or put them in an envelope that you keep by your computer. You can also set up reminders on your computer or cell phone to go off when you’re getting close to having to make a decision. However you do it, find a way to keep track so you don’t decide you no longer want something only to discover that it’s too late to return it.

The stash and think period gives you time to evaluate your purchase without incurring buyer’s remorse. If you regret your purchase, all you have to do is dig the item out of hiding, grab the receipt and head back to the store for a refund.

The Mandatory Waiting Period

January 13, 2010 By Jennifer Derrick 3 Comments

One of the best ways to control your spending is to force yourself to use a mandatory waiting period before making any unnecessary purchases. Tell yourself that you will buy nothing until that waiting period is up. A waiting period gives you time to cool off, get away from the temptation, review your finances, and decide if you really, really want and can afford this thing that has you so captivated in the store. A waiting period can save you a lot of money (or time on the return lane when you decide to return the thing because you really didn’t want it anyway).

The first thing to do is to decide how long your waiting period will be. I like to use two weeks because I find that two weeks is usually enough time for me to make a rational decision. Use your waiting period to review your finances, compare prices, think about how you’ll use or store the item, inventory your existing possessions and look for duplicates or very similar items, look for used, free, or rental alternatives, and look up product reviews and specifications to make certain this is something you’ll like and use. Some people only need a week, others need a waiting period of a month. You know how you think, so set a waiting period that will give you enough time to decide whether this item is something you want to own.

At the end of your waiting period, one of four things will happen:

1. You’ll decide you want the item, you can afford it, are willing to pay the price, and you’ll go get it.

2. You’ll decide you want the item but you’re willing (or need) to wait for a sale or until you have a gift card to reduce the price.

3. You’ll decide you don’t want the item at all.

4. You’ll forget about the thing entirely.

In my experience it’s usually one of the last two that happens. At the end of my two week waiting period I’ve usually forgotten about the item. Once I get out of the store, life moves on, I get busy, and I don’t even remember what it was I wanted so badly. This tells me that it’s a good thing I didn’t buy it because if it didn’t make a lasting impression, it would have ended up collecting dust in the house. Even if I do remember the item, most of the time I decide I don’t want it. It’s either too much hassle to store (more junk in the house), I’d rather use the money for something else, or I just don’t have the time right now to deal with it (this happens a lot with books and DVD’s since I always have some unread and unwatched items on my shelves that I force myself to deal with first). On the rare occasion when I do decide I have to have something I can buy with confidence because I know this is something I want.

I do make one exception to the waiting period rule, however. If the item is currently on sale and I’m really captivated, I will sometimes go ahead and buy it because by the time the waiting period is over the item is either off sale or out of stock. I do this with two conditions in place. The first is that the store must have a return policy that will allow me to return the item for the price I paid (not the going clearance price) if I go through the waiting period and decide I don’t want it. The second is that I do not open or use the item until the waiting period is up. I take it home, put it away, and go through the waiting period. (I will tack the receipt to the door so I remember to return it if that’s what I decide. I don’t want to forget about the item so much that I forget to take it back.) If, after the waiting period is over, I still want it, I open it and use it. Otherwise it goes back. Even once I’ve gotten stuff home I still find that the waiting period diminishes my desire for it.

A mandatory waiting period gives you control over your spending. When you buy things after going through a waiting period it’s because you know you really want the items, not because you lost control in the store and gave in to the shiny boxes and bright lights. You end up with less clutter and more savings. No more buyers remorse. No more looking at stuff in your house and asking yourself, “What was I thinking?” No more yard sales to get rid of the junk that somehow wandered home with you. You’ll probably even find that you feel better about yourself because you know that you acted responsibly rather than impulsively. That’s well worth a couple of weeks of waiting, if you ask me.

How Stores Trick You Into Spending More

December 18, 2009 By Jeffrey Strain 6 Comments

What a lot of people don’t realize is that there is a lot of research and planning to get you to spend more when you walk into a store. Lee Eisenberg,the author of “Shoptimism” says that the retail outlets are experts at playing on your emotions, your perceptions and your lack of critical reasoning.

What may surprise you is that it is often little things that you would never think would influence you that actually do. For example, studies have shown that simply adding the word “only” or “just” before the price of an item rather than the price only will get people to buy more. Or that “10 items for $10” will get people to buy a lot more of the item rather than listing the price as $1 each even though they are exactly the same.

Stores also like to play the game of “good, better, best” with the merchandise in there store knowing that consumers that see similar items for a high price and a low price will most often go for the middle priced good. They also use the “halo effect” where the place a high priced item with a lot of lower cost related items around it to sell those lower priced items.

The best way to avoid falling for these tricks is to know that they exist and to be able to realize when the store is trying to manipulate you into purchasing something that you don’t really need.