Join Us for The No Spend Challenge

Every January, my church starts the year off with a church-wide fast. Usually, my family joins in with some form of fasting from food. This year, Carol and I decided to do a financial fast for the entire month of January.

Fasting is voluntarily going without food— or any other regularly enjoyed, good gift from God. It is for a period of time for the sake of re-centering our lives and focusing on God. 

Fasting from spending may not sound too spiritual to some but financial decisions are also spiritual decisions and we make decisions about money, multiple times each day. Denying ourselves spending provides many of the same benefits as fasting from food.

A spending fast has other benefits as well! It can help us become more aware of our spending and can result in saving money. This money can be used to jump start other financial goals, whether paying off debt, increasing savings or buying something on our wish list.

Our plan for this No Spend Challenge is to eliminate ALL discretionary spending throughout the month.

We will continue essential spending such as mortgage, utilities, food, gas and insurance. We will also continue to tithe and save as normal.

We will eliminate trips to the barber shop, hair salon, restaurants, movies and online purchases. For friends and family with birthdays this month, we will explore our 'creative side' rather than purchase store-bought birthday presents.

We plan to utilize food we have in the pantry and freezer.    

Here's the breakdown for our No Spend Challenge: 

Tithe - 10%  

Investing - 6%

Essential Spending - 39%

We expect at the end of this challenge to save 45% of our typical monthly budget! 

We plan to share our wins and losses in a later blog post. We invite you to join us for the No Spend Challenge!

Journal with us the lessons you learn along the way.

Simply follow & tag as we journey together this month on the No Spend Challenge! #nospendchallenge