At various times we have shared something we do in our home called “penniless” week. It’s a challenge that we place on ourselves that means we don’t spend a penny on anything that week – acting as if we are penniless.
The only exceptions are:
- Emergencies – thankfully we haven’t had one in the weeks we have done this
- Gasoline to get to work – This hasn’t been a problem yet either as we also try to gas up before the week starts or Alex takes public transportation with his prepaid card
- Still pay your regular bills – what we are talking about here is the living expenses that you spend after you pay bills, you know…. the things you write checks for or slide your debit or credit card for. You are still obligated to pay your debts, heating, insurance, electricity, mortgage, etc. This is different!
- Any absolutely necessary expenses – We have to be very careful with this one; absolutely necessary means just that – not because its a “want”; We really try to cut out the reasons we would “need” to spend.
We may not “love” penniless weeks, but we LOVE the end result!
For example, if you don’t grocery shop, eat out, causal shop, avoid activities that cost money, skip date out and do date in, make your beverages at home (like coffee!) and any other expenses that you have sometimes during the week; you could actually end up with a few hundred dollars extra in your pocket or bank account!
It is not always easy, but in the end, the rewards are awesome!
What could you do with a few hundred extra dollars? Perhaps seed your vacation or other dreams fund, catch up on or get ahead on the 52-week money saving challenge, pay off debts faster, save for a need quicker? What?
We try to have a penniless week about every 2 months or so. We have done it more often or less often depending on the season.
But this time, we want to do this with you!! Will you join us for a penniless week?
Rules:
- Before the week starts, buy just the fresh foods (produce, milk) that you may need for the week, but don’t make up for penniless week by double spending the week before in preparation! We’ve also just used the milk we’ve had on hand and then used our powdered milk in the pantry if we ran out! The goal is to make a bit of a sacrifice!
- Gas up your vehicles for the purposes of getting to work and try not to drive them to the point that you need to refill that week!
- Literally eat what’s in your house (penniless week is also a great way to eat foods you’ve been needing to eat before they expire!). Sometimes your meals are a hodgepodge and sometimes they may not technically be a meal. But you are getting food, so everyone is sacrificing and happy with the end result!
- Find free ways to entertain yourselves and to have fun.
- When the next week starts, don’t overspend to make-up for not spending the week before. Just do your normal grocery shopping and your activities like normally planned/budgeted.
What you may learn:
- It is character building for everyone to learn to temporarily sacrifice and to learn to “live without” to reach a goal.
- It is a test run to see if you really can live without and help identify perhaps problems your family has or addictions that are developing, like coffee out, unnecessary snacks, movie theater addiction, etc. We learned something similar when we have done no electronic entertainment weeks! It is quite eye-opening!
- The value of your hard work and sacrifice. Each time we do this, we seem to come out of the week being even wiser with our allotted budget for the rest of the month. It also helps us to value each penny and consider how much meaningless spending actually ends up costing you ($1 here, .50 there, etc.)
- A good chunk of “seed” money to help you reach your financial goals and dreams!
Alright…… who is ready to join us??
We will be starting on Monday, January 27th and the last day is Sunday, February 2, 2014!
Rose
I already live like this every week! To save on your grocery bill, eggs, potatoes and Ramen are all very inexpensive but you can use them in many preparations and they store well. Good luck to you all. Like I said, due to my salary, I’m am forced to live this way. I look at it as a game and see how little I can spend in one week. It’s not that difficult once you get the hang of it. Good luck to all of you! 🙂
Yana
Rose,
My family has also had to “live lean” for quite a few years now, due to the bad economy and my husband’s unpredictable amount of work hours (i.e., temporary layoffs, no overtime, company cuts of hourly wage, etc.). I’m a stay at home mom whose additional jobs– which I enjoy immensely– are everyday and home project budgeting, research and DIY repairs, comparative grocery shopping, cooking at home 99.5% of the time, and coming up with creative ways to save extra money, such as using cloth diapers for our baby, exchanging baby items for free with other local moms, making my family’s own soap and all-natural body care products from scratch (deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, body butters, etc.), and building a 440-gallon rain barrel storage system from extremely inexpensive ($7.00 per 55-gallon barrel) pickling factory containers, which seasonally feed the water supply to our washing machine and basement toilet, thus saving us money on THOUSANDS of gallons of clean “grey water” per year!.
We also haven’t had cable or satellite for fourteen years now (savings currently conservatively estimated at $12,000+) and use the local library for all our movies and entertainment. We also do a LOT of reading and have taught ourselves invaluable new skills, such as running wires for NEW electrical & lighting, plumbing, new construction (studding new walls & sheetrocking, et al.), building retaining walls and laying new patios, other types of hard and soft landscaping, laying flooring, and cooking EVERYTHING from scratch (yes, I even make our own crackers, pickles, pies, cookies, and trailmixes, etc, etc, etc).
This year, we’ll be planting “square-foot” garden beds on our front lawn to grow our own veggies! (I wish I’d started this project YEARS ago!!) Needless to say, this will eventually save us big bucks on our fresh produce.
I love this “closer to home” lifestyle and the vast amount of savings that comes with it. I find this way of life helps to keep me and my family happy, healthy, and enthusiastic about just “being” and “doing”. As you said, it’s quite easy and natural once you get the hang of it!
I always try to remember these sayings:
NEED IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION
and
WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY.
And live by this one (that I made up for myself) as often as possible in this modern-day society which most of us find ourselves:
HOW WOULD PEOPLE HAVE DONE THIS [insert project type here] 300 (or 500) YEARS AGO?
The best of luck to everyone! ♡ May God bless you all in your heartfelt efforts!
And hugs to you, Rose!
Jen
I’m in. 🙂
TrudyAnn Willis
I’m In …..I love a good challenge!
Sue
We call it live off the house.we only buy perishables and do not use credit for the month of Jznuary
kris
I’m in….excited to try this!
Laura
Startin Monday?
I will do the best I can. 🙂 I am up for this challenge! Thanks!
Katherine
well this is how I pretty much live every week. Thanks to living expenses I only make enough to survive. Maybe a little less than that actually.
Selina McGinn
I talked to my husband and we’re going to do the challenge.
Moldovanka
Are you kidding?….We live like this every day!!
Cheryl
I try to do this every week. I have a calendar that I write my daily expenses on. The days I spend nothing get a BIG $0 in red on them. It’s like a game for me! I keep the calendar visible so I see it every day. I think doing this next week will be easy for me. The only problem being the Super Bowl. My friend usually has a party but I don’t think he’s having it this year. That will force me to go to a bar because I don’t have tv. So I’ll probably have to buy at least one beer or an appetizer. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll find some creative way to not spend any money. Love this idea!!
Donna McClung
I’m in too.
Maryann
I’m in. I will start on 1/27/14.
Jo Adamson
We are in, as a stay at home mum of two girls under 3 we seem to bleed money on groceries and toddler groups…..