Spending Fast

Spending fast. Spending diet. A period of time where you don't spend ANY money except the essentials. My poor spouse still thinks Taco Bell and Arby's are "essentials". I have done a lot of reading about people doing spending fasts and most do it for a month up to a year. We are starting with baby steps.

The first week, we had gone grocery shopping that weekend so we had plenty of food at home. We (meaning I) chose to go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday without spending. He agreed because he knows we need to cut back. On Monday I came home from work and he asked me for about 30 minutes straight if we could go to Arby's. I stuck to my ground because I always bend and said "no". He said he had a bad day, I said I'm sorry but we're sticking to this spending fast. We ended up making breakfast for dinner and it turned out really well.

Tuesday, we had to go visit a friend and normally we go out to eat. Once again, we disagreed and then he finally realized I wasn't budging. We packed some sandwiches, chips, and got free fountain drinks at the gas station because I had coupons. On the way back, we almost ran out of gas. I had factored in enough gas for the three days but didn't plan for this unexpected trip. We got gas and he said, "well since you spent money, I get to spend money". We were next McDonald's and he had $1. I told him that we would not be stopping for a $1 burger and gas is a necessity, McDonald's is not.

Wednesday wasn't so bad but I couldn't wait for Thursday so I could buy lunch out! It's all about baby steps. The second week, we only picked two days for our spending fast. It went slightly better, but he still asked to go out to eat both days. He also found a game online that he couldn't buy. We were a little better the second week because 1. It was only two days and 2. We found some coupons for free French fries at McDonald's so that was our treat. We were going to do a third no spend day on Friday but my shift ran over by 4.5 hours so we both were really wanting to go out.

Maybe I'm mean. I'm trying to curb our spending on random stuff that we don't need. We go out to eat almost daily and it's affecting our wallets and waistlines. While he was growing up, he never needed to want for anything (most of the time). I'm the complete opposite, sometimes our food came from food banks or it was just ramen noodles for dinner. We are privileged now to have good jobs with decent income so we'll never have to worry about food. But we're trying to get out of debt and those $1 menu items add up.

Do you struggle with money burning a hole in your pocket? Are you a saver?

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