Stop buying frivolous stuff, doofus.

Today, on top of a 6-mile bike ride and a 4-mile hike, I drove my car recreational for the first time since March!  Because it is May! 

May marks my second Reduce Frivolous Spending month, the unessential goods and services edition. (See The Eating and Drinking Out edition here.) Now, I’ve been very tempted this week to rearrange my Operation Consumption Liberation (OCL) Challenge schedule to make May my month of spending less time on the internet, due to the unhappy fact that my ISP/phone company lost the order for my new modem and I’ve been going without the internet at home since Tuesday night.

The other reason I’ve thought about swapping months around is that I intended to do more investigation into my finances and spending habits to find out how much I waste on unessential goods and services, etc.  I sort of feel like this type of challenge calls for more research than I’ve done.  However, I haven’t exactly been monitoring how much time daily I waste on Facebook and tooling around on the internet either.  So… I’m sticking with the plan and I've done a hack research job of my spending habits over the last month.  Unessential goods and services, here we go!

Due to the economic situation in the last few years, an awful lot of people have undertaken a “Spending Fast” and blogged about it.  One of the most notable examples would be Anna Newell Jones and her “And Then She Saved” blog.  Check out her spending fast and her spending diet guidelines.  Inspiring to say the least. 

Now I am not going on a total spending fast.  I’m undertaking something more like the spending diet, but I don’t like using the word diet for anything.  What I’m going to be doing is limiting my unnecessary expenses.  I am not going to put my Netflix on hold, skip yoga, or make my friends suffer another month of Absolutely No Drinks or Eats out.   But I am going to be working with a limited amount of money for nonessential expenses this month. Thus, once that money is gone, for the rest of the month, I’ll be spending my free time at home reading, playing Mah-Jongg solitaire online, and watching stuff on Netflix.  Maybe I’ll reorganize my kitchen cupboard finally.

So, the key question is: how do I define unessential goods and services?   

First, I need to define what expenses ARE essential:

-Shelter (gotta pay rent)

-Internet and phone services are essential.  Plus, I’m locked into contracts for both.

-Health insurance, auto insurance, medicine, toothpaste, and doctor visits (no one should have to go without any of these!)

-Soap for laundry, dishes, and the body

-Food and drinking water is essential (dessert, however, is not). 

-Gas for my car to go volunteer 

 Now here are some examples of nonessential things I’ve spent money on this month:

-$55 Groupon for haircut and color at my salon (Great bargain, sure, but…)

-$49.50 registration for a 10k race next week 

-$16.99 gym membership (haven’t been there in almost two months, but the cost to join was ridiculous, so I keep paying it)

-$10.94 Netflix

-$39 debit charges at restaurants

-$120 cash purchases (Although I do pay for some smaller grocery purchases with cash, most of my cash generally goes to nonessential bar tabs, restaurant tabs, movie theater tickets, and small miscellaneous trinkets and sweets)

-$68.50 of miscellaneous non-medical Bartell Drug purchases (yes, some of those purchases were for other necessities—toilet paper, laundry detergent, and toothpaste—but all those lotions, bath salts, almonds, nail polish, chocolate, As Seen On TV gadgets…  Fact: I get a little bonkers in the drugstore)

But I really need some more hand cream!

And so on...  I’ve done my best to calculate my unessential expenses last month, and it came to about $420.  That is more than half my monthly rent.  Out of control!

So do I seek to half this amount in May?  $210 is still a lot of money to be wasting on that kind of stuff every month, so let’s knock off another $50. That gives me a nonessential spending budget of $160, which is cushy, but considers expenses from my upcoming travel. From that $160, I’m subtracting my anticipated bills for Netflix and the gym (~$28, auto-paid).  That’s $132 to spend on nonessential goods and services as I choose for the month.

FYI: I will not be buying a $300 gong this month.

To help me track my $132 nonessential budget, I have a $50 American Express prepaid card for most card purchases and I am withdrawing $70 cash from my checking account.  And yesterday, I pulled out $2 from the lingering “April” cash in my wallet for May--for clean record keeping, I put the remaining April cash in my loose change jar this morning.

Two exceptions:

-If someone wants to buy me dinner or take me to, I’m not trying to curb his or her spending so that is allowed.  However, I’m not terribly comfortable freeloading, and I will not be soliciting you to purchase meals, movie tickets, or new clothes for me.

-I can spend gift cards and previously purchased Groupons as I am wont to do.  But any new prepaid/gift card or Groupon purchases will be deducted from my nonessential budget.

That's it.  I will do my best to spend my $132 wisely!  I may be taking a few hints from this here site... And of course, I will be reporting regularly here at OCL on my nonessential expenditures and my budget balance!  If you have any budget suggestions, or want to join me, I welcome both.

Oh YEAH: To counterbalance the cruel feeling of depriving myself, especially when I’m denying myself lots of nice, trivial, feel-good purchases, I would like to add more outdoor social activities to my life this month.  Free or low-cost activities, that is: park play dates, bike adventures, hikes, backyard BBQs….  This part of my month is off to a great start (65 degrees and sunny in Seattle-woo woo!). Even if the weather does not cooperate, I’m not totally adverse to rainy day adventures either. So who wants to play?