Spending Fast
For the month of July we did a spending fast. The basic idea
is you only spend money on what you have to; rent/mortgage, food, medical,
utilities, gasoline etc…And by food I mean at the grocery store, not eating out
or picking up a coffee and pastry at Starbucks (their coffee is burnt swill
anyways). Be sure and set some ground rules ahead of time, more on this down
below. And have the whole family on board or it will be a failure.
Why we did a Spending Fast? To better learn financial self-control.
To be better stewards of God’s money. To set an example for our children!!!!!
We don’t need any more financially irresponsible people in this country. And of course, to save money.
Was it difficult? Somewhat,
it did make the month go by slower, but that’s not a bad thing. It was also
liberating. Sure I missed seeing the UPS man and the wonderful boxes from
Amazon he would bring to me. But it was nice not feeling pressured to go along
with the “spendthrift crowd”. In general we are very good about saying no and
not spending money needlessly, but on occasion we might slip-up or give in to
the kids. And since most people don’t live the way we do, there is a lot of subtle
pressure from friends and society to spend, spend, spend. Not that it’s wrong
to blow some money every now and again, but it’s easy to fall into a bad habit
of doing it early and often. That just can’t be allowed to happen when you have
a large family that is living on one modest income in a high-expense area. So this just
gave us one more reason to resist spending money like all the lemmings out
there.
After a while it actually became fun and competitive. Trying to "beat the budget" had a little bit of a thrill factor to it.
Our results monetarily – we have roughly $850 leftover. This
surprised me. I didn’t think we could squeeze much more out of our budget.
About $250 of that savings is for items we delayed purchasing. Like driveway
sealer ($150). I need to blacktop our driveway this summer and will be doing it
this month. So subtracting out the delayed purchases, we are ahead $600. That’s
$600 worth of stuff we didn’t buy, over-priced food we didn’t eat, and activities
we didn’t do. That $600 has been placed in a retirement account.
We would have had more money leftover but two of the kids got hurt in
separate accidents at Youth Group, and you thought church was safe. That resulted
in over $500 out-of-pocket medical expenses that we had to cover. We normally spend next to nothing on medical
cause we are healthy and have decent insurance. We also went over our gasoline
budget by $162.15 for the month. Someone I’m related to by marriage figured that
driving the kids hours away, in a van that gets 12mpg, to do some free
activity, wasn’t a violation of the fast...3 different trips...
Will we do it again? I’m sure of that, besides saving money, it reinforces what we already believe. It’s like athletic training for the
finances. And like I said above, its a great example for the kids.
Who should do this? It probably wouldn’t hurt for anyone to give
it a try. But those who are having money problems really should give this a go.
My wife thinks people need to try just a week at first because
it’s too hard. Well too bad, it’s not supposed to be easy. It’s a fast. I think
people that have really screwed-up finances need to do at least 3 months, and
even up to a year in extreme cases (people with maxed-out credit cards, no
savings, late on bills etc…). If you are obese, and apparently a lot of Americans
are, who wouldn’t diet for a week and then go back to your lousy eating habits
and expect to look like Christie Brinkley. It’s the same with your finances. You
have to go hardcore, eye-of-the-tiger like Rocky training in Siberia. Not
buying a donut in the morning on the way to work for one week ain’t helping
you. Suck it up princess and do this the right way.
For the family this means: no going out to eat, anywhere,
anytime, for any reason. No vacation. No new clothes-make due with
hand-me-downs, no new house furnishings, no buying a car. Cancel/suspend all
memberships if possible: pool, country club, gym, gun club etc…
For dad it means: no beer, no golf (it’s not real exercise
anyway), no fast-food, no eating/buying food out…at all. You must pack your
lunch and coffee for work. You forget to bring your lunch, you don’t eat until
you get home. No new running shoes, I gotta tell you, this one hurts deep down.
For mom that means: same as above if you work. No getting
the nails done or the hair (you look better in long hair anyway), no wine
coolers, cancel that gym membership you use once a year on January the 2nd.
No treating the kids to a Happy Meal and McFattie’s cause they got a
participation ribbon at the swim meet.
For the kids that means: no activities (told you this was
hardcore stuff), no sports (junior isn’t getting a scholarship anyway), no
horseback riding, no camps, no gymnastics, etc...reasonable birthday gifts are
ok (I’m not a total tyrant). But for the love of Pete, make the cake yourself and have a low-key party at home. Obviously sports and other activities that have
already been paid for are allowed.
Basically you are paying the bills that you have to each
month, buying groceries (no prime rib), putting gas in the car and doing any
car or home maintenance that must be done.
Just be sure to set the rules ahead of time. And that you
and your spouse agree on them. No go worth and save.
Checkout my wife's blog for more details. She did a lot of posts during July on how the fast was going.
Not being financially responsible is a sin (Matthew 25:14-30)
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