Maya's Daydreams

Four Months Into My No-Buy Year

I still have not figured out why images aren't working in my blog posts, once I do, I will go back and include images from my trackers because I feel like they're mildly interesting! I am not a web developer, and I'm learning as I'm going on this website...

I like having goals. I have been doing a no-buy / low-buy all year, and if I was going by my stated goal at the beginning of the year to "buy nothing for myself for an entire year," and then to "buy a reasonable amount with these rules" when I realized that that wasn't possible. To failing at both for a time, to maybe having one bad day a week, to then having one bad weekend a month. I would say that I failed.

January

In January I started tracking my no spend with a very simple "No Spend" check box for every day of the month. For the first few days, it was easy to not spend money because I was home and tired of getting things from the holidays. It was so easy that I decided to not track at all. Until I got a $2.50 coffee at the courthouse while I was a jury duty... and then it just opened the flood gates. I didn't want to go back and fill in those days in my tracker because I felt so ashamed.

I figured that maybe having one box to check was too much pressure. My perfectionist tendencies were getting in my way. At the end of January, I started tracking my spending by category rather than just having one big No Spend box that I could fill in every day. Historically, my areas have been clothes, craft supplies, books, and eating out, so I went with those. Making this change was super helpful for me, and I felt like I had a little bit more information to help me strategise a little bit better.

February

This new system made February feel so much easier. I bought one clothing item, got craft supplies once (after finishing a project). I let myself get lunch/food out by myself once per week and stuck to it. I said I could go to a coffee shop twice in the month, but I HAD to sit down and be in the coffee shop and make it an experience. That all went great! But there were still purchases I was making that didn't fit into these categories, so I added a "questionable" category. Those little questionable dots started to increase in frequency as the month went on... A lot of them were wordpress related if I remember correctly, so I'm glad to have finally moved on!

March

I feel very dumb for not backing up my old blog posts from the wordpress days, because I chronicled my struggles through all of this past March. March was the month that I felt like completely giving up, I felt like I was back to my old spending habits, and that I should just accept that this is the way I am. The big killer in March was books and I felt so bad that I didn't even both tracking them. I was also making lots of questionable purchases, and I was back to binge eating again. :(

Looking back through my spending history though, I was still miles away from my spending behaviors in November and December of last year, and breaking bad habits takes time. I also noticed that my craft supplies purchases were zero!!! So I don't see March as a total loss!

April

I decided to keep trying, I started April with slightly different rules, things like I can buy a book, but I have to finish one first. The first week of April was full of questionable puchases, two books, and I ate out a lot! But that number started to dwindle quite a bit, to my surprise, gradually and kind of naturally. It helped that I figured out some ways to get books for free and started decluttering more. I also got a little bit deeper into my EMDR therapy, where we have been working through my relationship with money and stuff. More on that later...

Looking ahead to May!

My tracker is very different this month. I took clothes off my list because I realized that they weren't a problem at all... and I added alcohol as a new habit that I want to kick. It's just been starting to make me feel sicker than I used to. I also took off craft supplies. Decluttering and downsizing has me realizing that I really need to finish the projects in my basket before starting anything new. I have also started this new YNAB system, so at the moment, I don't really have money allocated to buying things or eating out, because I have some more concrete goals that I'm working towards. I am VERY curious to see how this month goes after April went so well!

All of May 2024, I will be participating in weblog posting month created by Apple Annie

For a list of other participants, go here

For a list of my topic ideas and some rules I wrote for myself, go here

Post 4/31