How I’m trying Rachel’s No Spend Challenge and saving for travel this month and maybe this whole year too

My friend Rachel is doing a no spend Challenge for February and I caught up with her at an event recently put on by Visit Phoenix at Eden Hill Provisions in Queen Anne, Seattle (The gnocchi at this restaurant is to die for!!!!) and I asked her all about it because I didn’t think there was any way I could actually go along with something like this. February is typically a month where I spend a lot and I hate failing at things from the start. But Rachel reassured me that I could actually do this No Spend Challenge and that I should. I could set my own rules. I could make the challenge as big or as a small as I wanted to. And maybe I’d end up more cognizant of all things I spend money on without even realizing that all that spending is adding up. At the very least maybe by doing the challenge I’d have some extra money to put toward my travel dreams.

Identifying my Monthly Subscriptions

We already said goodbye to cable ages ago because we don’t watch a ton of tv and I can watch many of my favorite shows on my phone with Amazon Prime, Netflix and Youtubetv. If I could only pick one of these subscriptions it would be Amazon Prime because this one includes shipping for so many things I buy online too so it’s like my entertainment AND a necessity rolled into one purchase.

But my Book of the Month club and Audible addictions are spends that even though I love, I probably don’t need every month and I could cut them out if I wanted to save some money. Rachel explained to me about an app called Libby that I could use to borrow audio books from my library. This is the type of thing that could save me $15 a month and ultimately 180 dollars a year. Thankfully I can also put my Book of the Month club on hold sometimes and then I can catch up on the mountains of books that I already have to read. I just started reading one by Katherine Center “Things you Save in a Fire” that I’ll probably finish before I finish this blog post and I first met this author at Mom 2.0 (I’m heading back to Mom 2.0 in a few months-if you’re going let me know!!). I also just finished Dear Edward and really liked this book even though it’s about a terrifying and horrible plane crash.

For exercise, I have a Core Power On Demand subscription that is about 20 dollars a month which I justify at long as I use it twice month because it is the same price as going to one in person class. But if I really wanted to save money I could quit it and do some free classes on Fitness Blender and then I’d have 240 more dollars in my pocket by the end of the year.

Thanks to Rachel and her no spend challenge, I’m realizing how I’m spending my money and where I have areas that I could change habits to save money. Even if I cut out or pause just a couple of my subscriptions I could save money that I can use for other things. Even though they don’t seem like a whole lot each month, the Audible and Yoga classes alone could be a plane ticket by the end of the year and when you have to buy tickets for a family of four, these types of things totally add up.

How many Gift Cards and Loyalty Points do you have sitting around?

I’m a big fan of gift cards but I often forget to spend them. Back in the days when Groupons first came out I bought a lot because of the deals (Do you still do Groupon?) but then I’d forget about them and lose any value that I got from the deal in the first place. I now limit my Groupons but when Trophy Cupcakes in Seattle goes on Groupon, I lose all self-control.

In the No Spend challenge, Rachel talks about using the things you already have so the other night we went to a lovely restaurant called Cuoco using a Tom Douglas Gift Card we were given as a gift. Our whole family thoroughly enjoyed our dinner and even though it was a really nice dinner, it was money we didn’t have to spend.

I also remembered that I had a bunch of points on my credit card (we use credit cards but do not ever carry a balance so that the rewards are worth it) and I used some of them to book one of our hotels for an upcoming trip. By using points to get a free hotel stay, I didn’t have to spend anything and this helped reduce the cost of the trip. I could also use the idea of having a free stay to justify a splurge on a different hotel in the future.

One good no spend thing I’m already doing to save money for travel

I love coffee shops but it is an unnecessary habit to go to the coffee shop every single day. It is really easy to do this and sometimes I still stop if we’re on the way to piano in the early morning and I don’t want to make breakfast. But if I don’t stop, and if I save some money by making my own coffee, I calculate approximately how much I saved and I get to put this money in my Robinhood account. I have been doing Robinhood for about two years and it’s a way to buy and sell stocks without traditional fees. By putting coffee money that would ultimately be totally lost forever into stocks that I’m interested in, I’ve been able to make some decent investments without the fear of losing a ton of money. This is money that would have been used on coffee anyways and it’s been fun learning about stocks through this app. One day I hope to make enough to buy a trip with my earnings but for now I’m constantly surprised at how much I might have spent on coffee daily if I didn’t make my own. (But I would gladly splurge all my coffee money at Small Victory where I took the coffee picture for this post. They have delicious cake and bread too. Thank goodness it’s not in Seattle and only in Vancouver, BC.)

Will you do a no spend month too?

Ultimately a no spend month doesn’t just have to happen in February, and it can happen any time during the year. And it’s so important to think about what we do with the money we work so hard to earn all the time. I’m thankful Rachel got me thinking about how I spend my money and where I can save. In our society we don’t talk about money enough or how we can save the money we earn for the dreams that we have. We’re only a few days into the month and already I’ve had the chance to think about some things I’ve been mindlessly spending on and I know I’m going to make some long-term changes. If you are thinking about a no spend month too, you should totally check out Rachel’s journey this month, and I think she even has some printables on her site to help out. (And I’m totally hoping this is something that we can keep re-visiting on the long-term).

If you are doing a no spend month, are you saving up for something too are you saving for travel or are you saving for something else? I’d love to hear!

(PS. there are affiliate links in this post)

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)