Last week wrapped up the month of February as well as this year’s no-spend February challenge. Today’s post will serve as a no-spend February recap.
NO-SPEND FEBRUARY RECAP
Last month’s challenge was a bit of a mixed bag; we definitely spent more money than anticipated… all month long, but due to crazy amounts of overtime my husband worked we still saved more than I’d thought possible.
THE SPENDING “FAILS” DURING OUR NO-SPEND MONTH
- We ate out during our supposed no-spend month. A lot. At least once a week. In fact, we spent more than twice the amount we usually spend in a typical month dining out. Most months we budget $75; in February we spent more than $230 eating out as a family. That’s a lot for us.
- We spent money on nonessentials here and there and I made room in the budget later. This happened to the tune of less than $100, but it was definitely far from no-spend.
- Although technically it was paid for with our FSA funds and not part of the regular budget, I was out about $130 on bloodwork. Bloodwork that came back within normal parameters and offered no explanations to an ongoing issue. So that was frustrating, to say the least.
- We enrolled our three-year-old in a weekly gymnastics class in order to provide some socialization. He’s not currently in preschool and really needs to be around kids his age. So we were out $125 for the first month’s tuition and registration fee. And he loves it. He’ll continue to go every Tuesday morning until he is enrolled in a part-time preschool program.
- It snowed, a lot by Northwest Arkansas standards. We spent more money on convenience foods and canned goods that could be prepared should the power go out since our house is all-electric. In a typical month, we spent around $500 on groceries for our family of four. During our “no-spend” month that number climbed to just over $600.
OUR NO-SPEND FEBRUARY SUCCESSES
My husband worked a hella overtime last month and that is the only thing that saved our budget. He also had more time off over the weekends, which was nice.
In a typical month we save $250; we first realized we could accomplish this after our first, very successful No-Spend February last year. I upped our automatic transfers to total $300 during this year’s challenge, which will add up over time.
An additional $500 was also set aside out of the monthly budget to put towards a future purchase. I also made a $75 contribution to our auto maintenance fund, which has been neglected since before the holidays.
TO RECAP
So while last month was by no means a typical month budget-wise with a raise and overtime thrown into the mix, it was certainly an interesting one. And for our single-income family saving $800 in one month is pretty uncommon.
I will definitely consider this one a success on the savings side, if not necessarily the no-spend aspect. And I’m debating whether or not we should attempt another no-spend month later in the year when isn’t quite so much going on. Is there such a month? Probably not. But I would like to give it another go before the year is up.
Did you participate in No-Spend February? If so let me know how you did in the comments! And stay tuned next week for some decluttering/minimalism inspiration! Until then stay frugal my friends!