Buy Nothing Month

So, we are 11 days into "buy nothing month," by which we mean "buy very little for 43 days." The general concept is that our current assets were steadily trending downwards. Much of this can be attributed to extra-ordinary items (e.g. weddings on the other coast, short vacation with friends, etc). However, we had enough successive months of this that the "extra spending" had become the norm--no matter how we tried to explain it away. The hope is that "buy nothing month" will 1) restore our immediate cash balance to where we want it, and 2) put us back in a more frugal mindset. So far, the results are positive, and progress has been made towards the first goal. Whether or not a small dose of frugality lowers our average consumption in distant months remains to be seen.

Originally we planned on making September buy nothing month, but we decided that things were sufficiently out of hand that we needed to start early. We've decided to allow ourselves a small entertainment budget, but placed rules around it. For example, trips to restaurants are limited and mostly reserved for social occasions. We've agreed to no new clothing or homegoods purchases. The other big change is cash: points be damned; many things we would normally buy with plastic and pay for 20-40 days later are now being purchased with actual cash. This helps in two ways: it limits spending and it will spread the benefits into October.