7 Ways to Spend NOTHING this month | NO SPEND NOVEMBER

Christmas is coming up and presents have to be bought and travel has to be paid for.  How is your budget looking?   If you’re going to need some extra money for Christmas then let’s have NO SPEND NOVEMBER to save up for it!   Yes, lets spend ZERO MONEY this month!

Ok, ok, I realize that’s not possible.  Bills have to be paid and groceries have to be bought.  But you know what we CAN do?  Cut out the EXCESS spending.  Lunch and dinner out, coffee from the drive thru, movie rentals, snacks when you stop at the gas station – anything that is NOT necessary doesn’t get bought this month!  Keep reading for 7 ways to not spend money this month!

Who’s with me?

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little creative this month!  Here are some ways to do MORE while spending ZERO:

• Want a movie night?  Wait for a FREE Redbox Rental Code to come out and treat yourself to a free one!
• Cook from your stockpile this month!  Just exactly how many meals can you make from what’s already in your fridge/freezer/pantry?  You might be surprised!  Do some creative meal planning and challenge yourself to cut your grocery budget this month!  Spend $100 less than normal?  AWESOME!  Put it in your “No Spend Emergency Fund”!
• Do you have gift cards?  Don’t forget to use them!  Round up all those gift cards stuck in drawers and collecting dust in the dresser.  Put them in your wallet so they can be used!
• Absolutely have to have a fancy coffee from your favorite shop?  Check out fiverr.com to see what you can do to make $5!  And you can do the same thing with Swagbucks.  If you can earn enough Swagbucks to cash out via Paypal this month it’s free money!  Since it’s not part of your budgeted income, it technically doesn’t count in No Spend November.  Buy a Starbucks, get a pedicure, or add it to your “No Spend November Emergency Fund”.

• Sell something.  Got something sitting around the house that’s of value?  Sell it on Ebay or list it in a local buy/sell/trade group on Facebook.  That is essentially found money and you can spend it as you please (or add it to your emergency fund)
• Cut cable.   Did you know that cutting cable can save you $900 or more a year?  At the very least it can save you $75-$100 THIS MONTH.  You know what I’m going to say, right?  Put it in the No Spend Emergency Fund!  Here’s how to get started with (and survive!) no cable service!  Can’t cut cable completely yet?  Try to trim down your package and see if it can save you a few bucks.  Or, call your cable company and ACT like you want to cancel service.  We did this just before we cancelled and they gave us $10 off our bill for a few months.  THEN we cancelled.  $10 is not $75…but it is $10.
• Ditch the landline phone.  Really.  We did this 8 years ago!  (Years before we cut cable).  That’s another $50 or so you can save a month!

Now, lets talk a little more about this “No Spend Emergency Fund”.  If you keep sticking back all this “found money” and only spending money when absolutely necessary, you might just find yourself with a nice little chunk of change at the end of the month.  Now let’s say you’re in the middle of No Spend November and you’ve been caught out late on some errands and the kids are starving and it’s at least another hour before you can get home and get dinner on the table.  Please, by all means, feed your children from the nearest drive thru – but these are the kind of things the “No Spend Emergency Fund” is for.

At the end of the month, you have a few options to do with the rest of your fund money:

• Put it in savings.
• Pay it on outstanding debt (credit card, car payment)
• Spend it on Christmas
• Keep it in a “No Spend Emergency Fund”  (now referred to as NSEF because I’m tired of typing it out) and use it in December.

**That’s right!  No Spend November doesn’t have to end in November!  Follow the 7 steps above AGAIN and see how much money you can not spend in December!  If you decided to ditch cable, then take the same amount of savings out of your regular budget in December too and add it to your NSEF.  And in January, do the same thing!  Just keep rolling your “extra money” over into the next month for emergencies that might arise.  

Be sure to come back and let me know how No Spend November goes!

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