Gearing Up for a Low-Spend 2025

 I've put more thought into my previous idea of doing a no-spend year for 2025 and set some parameters for myself. This will be more of a low-buy year than a no-buy year because I already live a frugal lifestyle and I would like to continue working toward some fitness goals that include enrolling in a new Zumba school and continuing my distance running efforts.

I made myself a graphic on the free website version of Canva to organize my thoughts on the parameters I have set for the challenge.

Image of a graphic describing the parameters of my low-spend challenge (red, yellow, and green light categories are spiked out).

Expectations:

In the spirit of full transparency, I give myself too much credit for my frugal lifestyle. While I was brought up to shop sales, take advantage of coupons, and make do, I have caught myself spending a handsome sum on unnecessary expenses many times. I expect that the low-spend challenge will reveal that I am doing that somewhere in my life without even realizing it. My race expenses will probably be much higher than I realize and I'll be annoyed with the expense

For example, I spent a lot on personal care and skincare when I finished grad school and went into full-time work. I'd had a resurgence of the painful acne that had plagued me as a teenager and spent thousands on facials, ozone treatments (which did work, admittedly), and topical products to try to clear up my skin. Ironically, the problem was hormonal and only addressing the underlying issue eliminated my acne.

There was also a time in my life when I spent too much on restaurants and takeout. When I first started working full-time, I was not yet in the swing of packing breakfast and lunch every day and prepping easy dinners for myself. In grad school, I had sometimes gone home for lunch and eaten before leaving for work/school. After improving on that front, I backslid again when my husband and I moved into our house in 2017. We picked up dinner a few nights a week, making the excuse that he was working 2 jobs and we didn't have time to cook at home. Sometimes we were out at mealtimes and would stop for a drive-through dinner. It wasn't until the COVID pandemic forced us to eliminate dining out almost completely that we realized how much money we were spending on restaurants.

On a lighter note, I am also planning to combine the low-spend challenge with a decluttering challenge. In order to use up the housewares, pantry food items, and personal care items, we will be clearing out all of the storage spaces in the house. When I cleared a single shelf in the basement yesterday, I found FIVE bottles of shaving cream! That is probably 3 years' worth of shaving cream that I never realized I had. By finding and using those items, we'll reduce waste and also our spending.

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