WHAT?!! NO-BUY MONTH?

This is definitely a good thing!

Introduced to the Saturday Savers Club members and of course extended to all on Hive.....

When I first heard this my thoughts were 'No-Buy' for a whole month, you must be kidding. let's look at what No-But Month is & how it works then I will display my plan for No-Buy Month.

What Is 'No-Buy' Month & How It Works

All this info & examples are taking directly from a post from @eddie-earner & the Saturday Savers Post here.

This is a great way to review your expenses and give a boost to your savings. What No-Buy means is that you take more notice of what you are spending and look at how you can reduce it.

You can make it as big or as small as you want. Maybe you want to pick a small goal, like taking packed lunches to work everyday if you normally eat out, and then putting aside the money you save. You could try it for a day, a week or the rest of February.

How to do a No-Buy Month

Set a budget for the No-Buy period with rules about what you can and can't buy. This will be individual to each person - you might have birthdays or celebrations or events coming up that you need to build into your allowed expenses budget.

You might have some habits that you want to change - I like walking to my local shop, but you know, I may only need a loaf of bread but I will always come out with about £30 of shopping! When I started No-Buy months, I decided to tackle that habit!

Here's an example of a budget for February:

ALLOWED EXPENSES - what you can buy

Food - but aiming to finish up packets, tins and jars in the pantry, food in the freezer and from the garden.
Essential toiletries and housekeeping replacements.
Essential repairs or replacements.
Valentine's Day treat.
1 coffee/meal with friends each week.
Postage and/or carriage.
Travel or fuel.
NO-NO-BUY - definitely do not buy these!

No shop-bought non-essential treats.
No books, stationary, yarn, fabric or notions.
No "new" (ie not replacements) clothes.
No "new" (ie not replacements) furniture, household items, telecoms.
No seeds or plants or houseplants or cut flowers.
You can set yourself a goal of how much you'd like to save during the month - maybe 10% of household expenses.

Now My Outlook & Plan for 'No-Buy'

While saving is a great factor & part of my daily life, I'm going to try to do more. Most of what I buy on a normal basis is already on a needs only basis, but of course there are a few things that are not a necessity but a want. This is going to be a bit tough for me on the heels of a religious event I do every January called 'Fasting', Which just ended on the 28th.

In addition to that, it's what is called tax season here in the US & I am expecting my tax refunds in the next week or so, which is when I would spend more money. So in light of that, my plan for this time will be more of an additional savings plan to the one I have.

Here's My Plan

So simple, I know I'll be making purchases this month that I wouldn't usually make which includes things like clothes & furniture. I actually had already made plans to make these purchases. Some of them are needed & could only be purchased when I have a little extra fiat. So what I'm going to do is save 10% of every purchase I make this month that is not a normal household purchase. On March 1st that savings will be used as follows.
50% of the savings will go to my Saturday Savers account
50% will go toward my SPI in the upcoming SPI event from Saturday Savers Club.

Example:
Purchase furniture totaling $100
Save 10%/$10
$5 will go in Saturday Savers account
$5 will buy me some SPI in March

If you would like to know more about Saturday Savers Club or these events that they have going on & coming up, just click on the bright yellow banner below or visit this post.