Have you ever heard of a No Spend Week or No Spend Month?  These are challenges often followed by those in the frugal community.  We challenge  ourselves to not spend any unneccessary money for a set length of time.  Only required bills, and any emergencies are allowed.  No food, no entertainment, no drive-thru, no shopping of any kind. 

This gets HARD!  But it is a really valuable  tool.  First, you save a lot of money during the time you're doing it.  Second, you begin to see where a lot of your bad habits are.  Ever wonder where all the money goes every month?  Then this is probably an exercise that would benefit you!

Because this is a totally new idea to so many of our readers, I'm going to start small: Let's do No-Spend Thursdays every Thursday in February! One day a week when you aren't allowed to spend any money.  Not on pizza, not on clothes, not on Starbucks, not on milk--nothing.  For some of you, this sounds scary, like something you can't do.  For others it seems really easy.  If it is scary, just try it.  One day.  Don't spend ANY money.  I'll remind you the day before to plan ahead and get what you need for the next day.  But for that Thursday, don't spend anything.  If this is easy for you, then I challenge you to expand it somehow: make it no-spend days for the whole family; make it a no-spend week; or challenge yourself to find things that not only are no-spend, but help others at the same time!

We'll start tomorrow.  Don't spend any money tomorrow.  You think it will be easy? It often is a lot harder than you think! Make sure to leave (or put away) any money or credit cards you would normally have with you.  You'll be surprised how often the temptation to spend "just $5" comes up!

We've prepared a planning worksheet to help you through No-Spend Thursdays.  There's questions to help you think through what you'd normally buy--gas, milk, lunch.  There's a space for you to plan where you'll put the money you save.  After all, what good is savings if you don't have a plan of where to use it? 

Most importantly, there's a place for you to write down the things you were tempted to buy throughout the day. I suggest you print this sheet out and carry it with you.  The temptations are often ingrained, so much so that we don't even realize we're having them. The bad spending habits are second nature to us! So carry this with you, and every time you are tempted to spend money, write down where it was, and how much you would have spent.  Then at the end of the day total up how much all of those temptations would have cost you.  In my experience people often find surprises in there.

So, who's in?  Will you join me in No-Spend Thursdays this month?  If you are, join us in our message board--tell us how it is going, how much you think you'll save, and what was the hardest part?