Invites to dinner don’t necessarily mean “we’ll buy you dinner.” In fact I’d bet they don’t USUALLY mean that. Invitations mean “join us for dinner” usually at a restaurant.

So yeah, IMO, telling friends “this is our Superfrugality month, no eating out!” would be helpful because A) if you say no to an invitation your friends already know why, no hard feelings; and B) if your friends are on board and want to help you, they’ll kindly refrain from issuing the tempting invitation in the first place.

If eating out is a big part of overspending – which for many people it is – then there is nothing “pound foolish” about saving money by not eating out.

I also started doing No Spend months this year. The first one was a big success and the second comes up in June. I’m not as frugal as the OP – I don’t restrict food purchases – I just don’t buy anything EXCEPT food.

What this means in practice is that I plan better.

The writer admits that over the course of the year little treats become routine.

February is the month she and her boyfriend use to find out where they’ve let occasional indulgences become habitual.

If the goal is to “reset” your spending habits, what do you do in March? I suspect that a bunch more spending happens when you’re no longer “denying” yourself.

Sometimes I get into a particular habit of eating out on weekends, or eating lunch out, or making multiple, unnecessary trips out of town and buying too many gifts (and things for myself too).

I think I will try this in June. I’ve already conditioned myself to be comfy at 83 degrees with the fans on, because for a while I just automatically set the stat at 78 because that’s where I was used to it being back in winter.

Stopping habitual spending for a week or a month is a good way to reset your level of happiness – purchases make us less happy over time, so doing without for a while is a good way to make them enjoyable again.

I like the month theme.
I’m having New Automobile August!

Currently I use a concept similar to superfrugality month. It works for me as I get paid weekly and have no children.. Every month I’m not allowed to spend any extra money until I’ve saved a certain amount. After that, I can use the rest of the month’s paychecks as I like – although I have an automated savings account transfer happening towards the end of the month, and this is not included in my savings target (my concept of “free money” – I hardly notice when the money leaves my account but will have my holiday budget sorted!).

I like my method as it has short, tangible goals – save $x and rest of the money is “mine”. It also curbs the lifestyle inflation pretty effectively.

I love it that you are both fully involved and use your savings towards someting fun like travelling.
I love eating out and I love trying to save money so I started a blog on doing both.
It’s also fun to see how much money you can save each month at the supermarket. My girlfriend and I just bought a 5kg bag of rice for $10 AUD. Bargain!

It was a little tough at first but eventually it all became habit. I saved $180+ on Starbucks purchases alone. Which was sort of horrifying. But the best thing was that it finally broke the habit. Even after the month was over I cut down to once a week. Now due to health problems I’ve quit caffeine entirely, but the prep work on my no-buy month made it that much easier.

The monthly challenge is good, but have a ‘program each month’ is a better idea. By calling it ‘program’, it avoids the word challenge and makes it at least 10% better (or more).

1. Eating out at Lunch instead of dinner as a family.
2. Picking to eat at (healthy) All You Can Eat places to satisfy everyone in the family (Sweet Tomato for example).
3. Bringing home one dish and making the rest at home from scratch.
4. Bringing only ONE pre-prepared dish from Costo/Sams/Meijer etc once a month (who knows what is in there).
5. Eating a lot of whole grains in various forms, including just simply boiled with some natural flavoring added to it.
6. Continuing to move towards vegetarianism to avoid the negativity of the unknown amounts of hormones/harmful-elements in the meats.
7. Buying in bulk when the price is right. I really mean bulk. For example, when mexican beans were priced at 39c per pound, we negotiated it down to 29c/lb and about 25 lbs of them packaged in smaller bags.
8. Buying a lot of fruits and vegetables every trip from ‘Fruits and Veggie’ grocery stores, and buying everything that is priced below 79c/lb (in bulk again) with a commitment NOT to throw away anything (forces the planning process to eat it).
9. Keeping snacks of fruits and veggies read in the fridge to eat 8-10 times per day.

By the way, I list a lot of examples here, since these are programs, that we have practiced, and it has become a habit from trying them out for 1-3 months, but we then are doing it ALL YEAR ROUND. These are “Life Style Choices” as we call them, and as a result, our family as a whole has lost 105.9lbs (in sum total), with my weight loss at 41.4 lbs out of that.

Money savings is huge, but what is better is that we have elongated our life with a healthier lifestyle of eating, which will last a long time with our teenager kids.

Kenny

Very impressive and inspirational to eat that locally for that length of time. We have friends who eat mostly from their suburban gardens in the growing season. They taught us how to preserve (can and freeze) which stretches the local season even further. Nothing like opening that jar of pears or peaches in winter to make our day!