Debt Reduction: No Spend Days

While there are many ways to come up with money each month to be used for debt reduction, one that comes to mind is to decrease discretionary spending.

No Spend Days Table of Contents

What is Discretionary Spending? 

What is discretionary spending? This is the money that is not really in the budget, such as that candy bar or the bag of chips from the vending machine, or a $10 pair of shoes bought because it was on sale, or a bottle of water from the vending machine bought because you got up too late and you were in too much of a hurry to fill up a bottle from home. 

These and similar items belong to discretionary spending. 

How to Reduce Spending: No Spend Days

One way to counter this issue is to schedule debt reduction zero spending days. 

What is a "no spending day"? This is when you go through an entire day without taking anything out of your wallet. No money, no debit cards, and certainly no credit cards; you are after all trying to get out of debt right?

Debt reduction no spend days go beyond stopping yourself from making frivolous purchases. In order to truly have a debt reduction zero spending day, you must go without even spending any change. This means no quarters for a parking meter or a gumball machine, no ordering anything that you will pay for later and no signing up for anything that is not free as well.

What About Future or Delayed Purchases?

Examples also include ordering beauty products from Avon or Mary Kay, girl scout cookies, flowers, magazines and such for school fund raising events, signing up for a dance that will have a cover charge or agreeing to participate in the office order out lunch tomorrow. 

While the money won’t leave your wallet today, it will leave in the future and thus defeats the purpose of the debt reduction no spend day.

Is This Impossible?

Not possible, some people might say. 

You need gas, electric, insurance, water, toothpaste -- the list is endless. 

All these things cost money.

The idea with No Spend Days is not that you don't consume on these days, but you make no new purchases. Of course, you can't suspend your mortgage for one day or a skip a car payment. 

Just spend $0 for one day. Raid your fridge instead of eating out. No Ebay, no Etsy, no Amazon. For just a day.

Heck, you may even fail! 

What if You Fail No Spending Day?

Don't worry about it. Definitely commit to no spending day, but if you fail, don't sweat it. 

Why? Because even if you fail, you have severely cut down on spending for that day AND you're starting to build good habits. Good habits translate into virtue, spending virtuously. 

You are starting to think about spending in a new, different way, and that's progress. That's the goal.  

Plan for No Spend Day

Reddit user CanCompetitive967 gave the following solid advice: 

I struggled with this to so I started to doing side gigs like Amazon flex and having it go to separate account . I try and keep my whole pay check for bills, groceries and savings and any time I want to eat out or buy something frivolous at all I only do it if I have money for it in my other account. It’s been working great for me and helping me realize how much easier it is to save a few extra bucks then it is to earn it 😥

Maybe this isn't technically a No Spend Day, but it works for him. Maybe it could work for you, too. 

Planning for No Spend Day is fine, so long as you don't binge-spend in the days before or after No Spend Day. Right? Don't want to defeat the purpose. 

 

What to Do on No Spending Days?

Sometimes spending habits can be hard to overcome. What can you do on No Spending Days, so you're not just thinking about not spending all day?

You know what they say about “Idle hands"! Here are some ideas on what you can do from reddit user u/bACEdx39:

Clean the house top to bottom. Do yard work. Build something. Be otherwise productive. Next thing you know your place is immaculate, you didn’t spend on anything unnecessary, you didn’t look at any ads anywhere, you are tired and sleep like a baby.

Try Just a Few No Spend Days a Month

It’s not as easy as it sounds to truly escape an entire 24 hour period without spending any money or agreeing to future spending. If you are able to achieve perhaps just one such day per week or maybe aim for five or six a month, you will free up a bit more money to be added to your payment on your highest interest debt, or whichever debt you are striving to clear first. 

If you are a compulsive shopper, you will find the savings to be even greater as you reduce debt in lieu buying more clothes, shoes, accessories, CDs, or whatever your bane happens to be.

Adding a few zero spend days each month could be just the catalyst that you need to get better control of your budget and start paying off the accumulated debt. 

It’s important that you not simply spend more the rest of the month to make up for your zero spend days. 

No Spend Day Goal

Once you can master this, you will have the discipline required to focus the maximum amount of your resources toward, and increase the effectiveness of, your debt reduction. 

Without the discipline to maintain the lowest monthly budget that you comfortably can, you’re not truly committed to reducing your debt at the quickest rate and increasing the total savings possible in the amount of interest that you will pay.

Zero Spend Weekend

Try adding a debt reduction zero spend day at least once a week, or even better have a zero spend weekend. This can be made even more effective if you curb the car and truly spend nothing – not even a gallon of gas during the weekend. 

Adding the debt reduction zero spend days to a few other budget reducing efforts (like eating more cost effectively, turning off lights and electronics that are not in use, etc.) can really overhaul you monthly spending. 

This new lower budget will be beneficial even after you are debt-free as this will enable your to spend a little more with high interest rates out of the way and begin saving for your future as well.

Original Article by Wixx