Less & More: The WFH Mom Edit

Our household is losing a lot of money this year as we replace the siding on our house, replace the roof to our screened in porch, build a new backyard fence and adopt six new spring chicks to our backyard brood. So, there you have the impetus for instituting these no spend months in the Morey household. But, even if you don’t have huge expenses looming this year, busy moms and budget-conscious folks can benefit hugely and it’s also an amazing way to reset spending habits and avoid impulse buying if that’s a behavior you may be prone to. Even though I am generally NOT a “shopper,” I get in a rhythm during the holidays of pressing “purchase” way too much, so these challenges are a great financial reset for me.

OK. So – what is it? And why bother?

A no-spend month is defined differently depending on who you talk to. But generally speaking, here are the parameters:

• Track all spending: You can do this with a simple spreadsheet, but I love a good app. I used Mint for years, but once they were acquired and the interface I’d grown to love went away, I did a ton of research and ended up with Quicken Simplifi. I’ve provided some other tracking options in the resources section of this post at the bottom.

• Only buy necessities, not luxuries: This is up to interpretation, but for me, that means food and toilet paper. Not new skincare. Oh, and by food, I mean, groceries. Not pizza takeout.

• Avoid impulse buying at all costs: Among the other benefits (hello, beefed up savings account!), this should help you curb any addictions you have to the dopamine rush of buying new things for the heck of it. Out of the habit of mindless clicking, into the habit of mindful spending.

The difference between a no-spend challenge and a regularly budgeted month is that you don’t leave room for the “nice to have” stuff and you are more purposeful about finding free alternatives to things that you might normally plunk down some dough for. When I am NOT in a no-spend month, I have line items in my budget for “entertainment” and “shopping.” During a no-spend month, ideally, these would go down to zero.

The benefits of a no-spend month are financial, of course. Hopefully, your income during this month will vastly surpass your spending and you’ll have a little mini nest egg. But as above, it’s also designed to rewire your thinking about shopping and consumption and break any negative shopping patterns you may have fallen into. Hopefully, your living space and closet will be a little less cluttered as well at the end of it all. You might even find that after all that mindful non-consumption, you’re happier and feeling a creative energy boost.

Fine! I’m in. Now what do I do?

First, decide how many you will do throughout the year and when are the best months to plan for them. As one of my personal 2025 New Year’s Resolutions, I decided to implement three no-spend months into the year, and I set them for January, April and September. I chose these because no one has birthdays during these months, we won’t be on any major trips and I needed one in January after all the holiday decor and gift shopping I did in December.

Then, I informed my family. Nothing worse than planning a no-spend month only to wake up on day two to find that your husband just put $2k worth of welding supplies on the Amex (only mildly based on a true story). Everyone, including my kids, needs to be on board because everyone pulls together to make it happen. Does it mean my kids never asked to order pizza during the no-spend month? No, but at least they aren’t surprised when I turn them down cold and remind them why. With everyone in the loop, we made a list of what was “in” and what was “out.” Gas, laundry detergent and dog food = in, whereas new clothes, movie theaters and bowling = out. We even talked about ways to practice mindful spending on a budget and what that means for each of us.

Some people recommend prepping for such months by unsubscribing or unfollowing any temptation: marketing emails, social media influencers that show off all their new Amazon buys. But, personally, I don’t do that. I have a few other ideas about how to handle these distractions, but I figure that it’s not sustainable for me to never look at these things again. I have to change my mindset, not my environment. I just turn off the part of my brain that thinks “Oh, I could buy that” and just sort of pretend they are like the luxury influencers from the days of yore where I couldn’t afford anything they were wearing anyway.

How to get through it: what will we do for fun?

How much this no-spend challenge disrupts your life will depend entirely on how much you relied on money to spice up your life before you started. If your family is used to outings every weekend – lots of dinners out, takeout, bowling, roller skating, movie theaters … this might be more of a challenge for you. But luckily for us, we don’t really do a lot of that stuff to begin with, so it’s not as much of an adjustment for the Morey Fam. BUT – here are some fun weekend activities that we do that might help you:

• Hiking as a Family

• Board Game Tournaments

• Watching movies included in our DVD collection or the streaming channels we already pay for

• Inviting friends over for dinner (groceries are on the green light list!)

• Trips to the Library

• Cleaning places we don’t always clean (and maybe even discovering stuff we want to get rid of our sell)

• Ride our bikes

• Revisiting toys we own but haven’t played with in a while (hello, LEGOs, my old friend!)

How to get through it: what if I want to shop?

Of course this will happen. Old habits die hard. And for me, since I’m not unfollowing anyone or anything, sometimes I see something that catches my eye and I forget my temporary “I can’t afford anything anyone else is wearing” mindset. So, then what?

1. I shop my closet. I own so many things that I already love (some of them for over a decade, as you might recall!). If I see something that looks amazing, I head to my own treasure trove wardrobe and see what I already own that’s similar or could work in the same capacity. More often than not, I have something that fits the bill.

2. I save it for later. Maybe if it’s a blog post or an article, I throw it up on my style-focused Pinterest board. Maybe I bookmark it in my ShopMy. I also have a folder in my browser bookmarks labeled “Stuff I Want.” Occasionally, I’ll throw it in my Amazon cart without buying it. The point is, my mind sort of feels like the purchase is “handled” somehow and only the things I TRULY want stay at the forefront of my mind to last beyond the no-spend month and end up at my house.

3. I do something else entirely. Make a gratitude list, go for a walk. Plan your summer vacation. Write out a list of WHY you wanted to do this challenge in the first place, including things you’re already spending money or want to save up to spend money on.

4. Pet a dog. ALWAYS works. No need to spend money if you’ve got a furry companion already. What else could your life possibly require?

5. Join a Facebook group dedicated to no-spend challenges. Then if you have the urge to shop, you can post in there and have 1M strangers tell you why that makes you a bad person. Works every time!

What if I slip up?

Yep. This happens. My January 2025 no-spend month was NOT perfect (ask Sarah, I guiltily texted her when I made a purchase here or there). But, I spent a heck of a lot less money than I did the month before and I didn’t give into the “well I ruined it, might as well totally give up” mentality that routinely “all or nothing” folks such as myself sometimes adopt.

Lean into your support system. Because Dan and I had already discussed the no-spend month, he was there when I WANTED to slip up, but luckily, he didn’t let me. One Friday, I was not in the mood to make dinner (AGAIN!) or clean it up, so I said “Let’s order pizza!” and he wouldn’t let me because it was a no-spend month and we were going to stick to it.

Possible Backlash – what if not spending makes me want to spend more later?

This is a valid concern. It’s easy to feel like it’s time to “let loose” after the month is over and just go wild with the credit card. BUT. Here are some things that can help avoid that dynamic.

1. Remind yourself of the mindful spending habits you just spent a month cultivating. It wasn’t JUST about deprivation. It was about reminding yourself not to be a mindless robot consumer, hitting “purchase” because someone on the Internet told you it was a good idea.

2. Incorporate some of the “shop your closet” or “save for later” strategies you used during the no-spend month. If you still really want it after all that, maybe it’s a mindful purchase and it’s OK to go forth.

3. Don’t throw budgets out the window just because the “no-spend” portion is over. Minimalist shopping habits are still a huge bonus, so use those budget trackers to set a reasonable limit and check in every other day or so to see where you are, ensuring you’ll keep to your preset limits.

Once it’s over, you’re not done.

Once you finish, it’s time to reflect! Think about the things that worked well and the things that didn’t. Maybe you decide to increase or decrease what you include in your “in” and “out” categories based on your lifestyle. MAYBE it went so well, that you permanently decrease your “shopping” budget moving forward because the no-spend challenge made you realize that you’ve been overspending in that category and you don’t need to!

Think about the next one you want to do and make notes to yourself about how you can set yourself up for success, especially if they are in different seasons. Can you throw some things on your calendar that keep you and the family busy for free? Can you set a clearer, more measurable goal for next time that will help you feel more accomplished at the end (like: I want to save $500 for our family vacation during the next no-spend challenge)?

So, tell me. Have you ever done a no-spend challenge? For how long? Any tips/tricks I missed? When you do no-spend challenges, what do you miss purchasing the most?

Resources – 3 Easy Ways to Track Spending:

1. Quicken Simplifi: This is what I use and I love it. For $2.99 a month, you get an amazing dashboard that tracks all your income, spending habits and categorized budgets to keep you on the straight and narrow, financially. You can keep an eye on your net worth and set specific savings goals for things like vacations or that new puppy you HAVE to have.

2. Monarch Money: When I was researching budget trackers, this one was recommended frequently. This one is $8 a month and looks to have a lot of similar capabilities of Quicken. Wall Street Journal called it the best replacement for Mint (which is the free tool I used for about 15 years up until 2024, when they left me).

3. YNAB: “You Need a Budget” is another tool I heard discussed frequently during my hunt for a new budget tracker. I don’t know as much about this one, but they are offering a month long free trial right now, so it could be a good time to try them out.