No Buy Month

In March 2007 I participated in an interesting financial experiment, "No Buy Month." I undertook the challenge for two basic personal reasons, one to help me determine my "wants" from my "needs" and the other was to pinpoint just how much money I might be wasting each month. I put a large poster on the inside of my front door so I would be reminded of the challenge each time I left the house and had an opportunity to spend. The poster inadvertently generated a lot of questions and interest from friends. Several people wanted to try it and suggested we extend the challenge to anyone else that might be interested in participating together in May. I sent an email to a bunch of friends and we all set out to save a ton of money.

The general idea:

• Buy only necessities like groceries, gas, doctor co-pays, emergency car repair, etc, but no extra shopping at Home Depot for tools, the craft store for fabric, Wal-Mart do-dads or the mall for new clothes
• Pay your regular bills but don't sign up for new things
• Dining out is under debate, but I chose not to go out for our family

May 1 - May 31, 2007 was our group's No Buy Month and we had a bunch of people do it. Of the group were lots of reasons for joining, one couple made it a competition between them to see who caves first, one couple wanted to find out what rock bottom would be if they were to loose a job and had no income, one person just wanted to save some money to jump start a savings account.

We had a BBQ at the end of our group experiment and talked about what we had learned. Even though I messed up a time or two I learned a lot still. The very first time I did this, it was extremely difficult to go into a store and not get extra stuff. I found myself having to put things back on the shelf before I checked out and hating it. I wrote down everything I "needed" and couldn't buy so I could buy it on the first day of the next month. I totally lusted after the things on my list, knowing that I really, really needed them. Then sometime during the fourth week of the experiment, I lost the list. I searched and searched and searched. It made me sick inside to know I lost the list. After all, I NEEDED that stuff. I tried to remember all the stuff I had written down to recreate the list without much success. After a couple days, I had an epiphany that may be completely obvious to everyone else in the world...if I couldn't remember it all...maybe...just maybe...I didn't really need the stuff.

This month is my fourth time doing the "No Buy Month" experiment. I did it alone in March 2007, with a group in May 2007. I chose to do it in February in the future since it's the shortest month, so I did it in February 2008 and here we are in February doing it again in 2009 and plan to do it annually.

In the end, here is what I figure I gain out of doing this every year:

• save money during February
• learn/relearn to recognize impulse buys
• distinguish wants from needs
• gives me time to plan my purchases
• saves me money in March, April, May and beyond or until I lapse back into my old buying habits
• keeps me out of the stores so I am not tempted to spend money as often

We all spend too much money every year on junk. My annual experiment helps me get grounded again once a year, which is great because I have yet to find the money tree.