Cash Free Mondays

One of my financial goals for this year is to cut my discretionary spending. While I am making progress with some of my other financial goals, I am still having problems reducing my discretionary spending. Over the next four weeks, I am going to try an experiment where I do not spend any money on the first work day of the week (mostly mondays, but sometimes on a tuesday).

I am doing this for two reasons, the first reason is to reduce total spending. The second is to try to break spending habits that I carry on through to the rest of the week. ( Vending Machine Purchases, Fast Food at Lunch, Magazine, Lottery Ticket etc.) I think it will be easier to change my spending habits a little at a time, than to try to make major changes only to revert back to my old habits. Has anyone tried this experiment, and if so how did it work out?

Comments

[Douglas Cootey]

I haven't done this specific experiment, but I have cut back on expenditures before with positive results.

Every once in a while we will find that money is going to be tight so we cut back expenses in preparation for the tight time. This means we cancel cable, don't eat out, don't go to movies, don't rent, etc. It's extreme and not much fun, but it is amazing how much money we are able to save by doing this.

When the crunch time is over we find our habits have been changed. I don't watch as much TV as I used to, for instance. I don't go out to eat as much. I rarely order pizza. We found other things to do. I can't imagine that your experiment won't have positive effects. Much of what we do is out of routine.

Good Luck!

~Douglas

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