1 Month Spending Fast – How to reset spending and save

I’m currently doing a no-spend June. Back in 2018 and part of 2019 I did a no-shopping fast half of the year. I basically didn’t shop for anything that wasn’t perishable, I didn’t run out of it or wasn’t completely broken for over six months.

Past Spending Fast Success

This helped me get in touch with my spending habits and understand and work through everything that drove me to compulsively spend and become a shopaholic. Every once in a while, I look back on that and think about how much I learned and how easy it is to slip back into old habits when you live in a consumeristic society. The pressure to “buy buy buy” is on all the time, especially with how easy things are now to shop. You can get things delivered in two hours, pick them up at the store without ever going in, or you can get things to your house the same or the next day from all over the world. You can buy stuff straight from China for exceptionally cheap prices and you don’t feel guilty about even spending the money because of how cheap it is.

Saving $8,000 by Not Shopping

As the years have passed since I’ve done the spend fast, I realize I learned some valuable lessons about myself and the triggers that caused me to spend. It helped me reflect and work through issues I had that I was using shopping to mask. It also helped me save $8,000 in that six months. And now, as I’m on a decluttering journey, I really feel that this will help me reset my spending habits to better align my shopping goals with my goals for how I want my home to function.

By more carefully thinking about every purchase, I won’t be overwhelming myself by bringing in tons of impulse purchases into my home. And I won’t be just rebuying all the stuff I just decluttered when I’m feeling emotional and “spendy.”

Spend Fast Rules

June is the month when I will not buy anything that is not necessary. And by needs, I mean:

-Food and bills

-Broken things (that I don’t have something to replace it with)

-Something I’ve completely run out of (so if I have five chapsticks at home and run out of one, I have to use the other four before getting a new one.)

-Gifts (for other people, I won’t be buying myself gifts lol)

Using my backup items at home takes so many things off the table for me to shop for because I own almost everything I need: beauty products, clothes, shoes, home decor, kitchen gadgets, books, toys, and furniture (etc).

Decluttering While Not Shopping

Instead, I will focus on finishing the decluttering project I started when we moved back into our home a month ago. While our house was being renovated, we spent four months in a long-term Air B and B, and each of us went there with little more than one suitcase worth of stuff per person. The house was stocked with the bare minimum of items, with it being a rental. It made me realize that we functioned better without tons of options daily. We had fewer decisions to make, even with simple things like cups to drink from and kitchen gadgets to use while making dinner. It was freeing. And we didn’t miss the stuff we didn’t bring. In fact, I could barely remember what we had left behind in our cupboards.

When we moved back home, I opened boxes that were packed while they were putting in the new cabinets. I couldn’t remember what we had until I saw the items. And with the help of friends and family over a few days, we donated 2 SUV loads of amazing kitchen supplies to local thrift stores. I now have a kitchen will about 50% of what we had before I started decluttering. And I’m hoping this spend fast will help stop the influx of items from mindless shopping that filled out cupboards to capacity in the first place.

Spend Fast Goals

Decluttering

I hope to get a few things out of this spending fast. The first is to be able to declutter without cluttering the space again – that’s the biggest thing for me right now. When I get rid of five shirts, I feel like I should buy one new shirt to replace all those five shirts. Because they weren’t perfect. I didn’t wear them and wanted to buy one I would wear. That’s not a good idea when you’re on a decluttering journey. I think that’s something for later once all the decluttering is done, and I can see what I need as a whole.

Address Emotional Spending Patterns

The second thing is to address the emotional things that are causing me to spend and deal with them in other positive ways. I might get stressed out at work and then go on a little shopping spree even if I’m only spending $10 or $20. Those little things add up. So instead of doing that, I could work on a crochet project, project around the house, read or build something with my kids, garden, enjoy the library or do anything else that doesn’t involve spending money. My goal is to find better outlets for my stress or boredom.

Get Time Back

The third thing is, I hope it will give me back a lot of time I spend just window shopping. Browsing online, browsing Amazon, browsing catalogs, browsing emails, and instead, I can use that time to do the other things I want to do.

Save Money

I should add the fourth is I hope to save money. I don’t want to be just spending needlessly, even if it’s a few dollars here and there. It really adds up over the year. And a lot of times I can’t even remember what I bought. Saving money wasn’t the main focus, but I hope that is a by-product. I did save an incredible amount of money the year that I did the spend fast, so I’m hoping to be able to do that again. The bigger goals are to reset my spending habits, address the things that are driving my spending habits and get the time back from shopping to enjoy the things I love the most.

Have you ever done a spend fast? If so share below! What did you learn or gain from doing that?