Another Try At A No-Buy Month!

You guys all know that I’m very, very good at shopping. I mean, have you seen my hauls?! I’m great at buying new things. One thing I’m not so great at though, is saving up money. And therefore I have decided to do another no-buy month. I’ve done one in the past and it didn’t go so well, so I’ve decided to try again. So, in today’s post I’m going to tell you why I’m doing it, how I’m doing it, my tips and tricks and some of the rules I have set up for myself. If you want to read about all of those fun things, make sure you continue reading this post!

Why I’m doing a no-buy month

I’m doing it because I know myself and I know that I can’t save while allowing myself to shop. This goes well for about a week or two and then I collapse. There’s always a moment where I think “I’ve hardly shopped the past couple of weeks, I can allow myself to buy one new blouse”. And that always results in like ten new packages arriving at my doorstep that very same week. It’s just not something I’m good at.

Therefore I’m not allowing myself to buy anything this month. Right now it sounds like a big challenge, but if you look at it from another point of view: a month is just four weeks. Four simple, short weeks. It would be insane if I can’t manage to not shop for four stupid weeks, right?!

My rules

To make sure this month doesn’t end up being a disaster, I have set up a couple of rules for myself. Some things that I don’t allow myself to purchase and some exceptions.

I can’t buy any beauty products. There’s no exception here since there’s nothing urgent I can run out of in a month.
I can’t buy any pieces of clothing.
I can’t make any exceptions on the no-spending deal because of a great discount.
I do allow myself to buy food when I’m really hungry and don’t have anything on me.
I can only eat out two times this month.
I can’t buy unnecessary items of food just because I feel like it.

So in short, I can’t buy anything but food whenever it’s much needed. Like when I’m waiting for the train home but I’m starving to death and have nothing on me. Obviously I can get myself something at that point. But I can’t buy food just because. It does need to be reasonable.

And I can only eat out two times this month. I do like to eat out, but it’s not like I do it every week. But just in case I want to go crazy this month: no more than two times.

Tips & tricks

In case any of you feels like taking on this challenge with me, I’m now going to share some tips and tricks that have helped me in the past. Because, even though I did fail one time, I have also once completed a no-buy month successfully. So here we go!

Keep in mind why you’re doing it. Remind yourself of that when you’re having a difficult time.
Remind yourself of the fact that a month isn’t that long.
Think in weeks, this makes it feel a lot shorter.
Focus on other things than shopping and don’t scroll through your favourite webshops for no reason. You can’t buy it anyway.
You really don’t need everything you want to buy right now. Write it down and look at that list after you’re done with your month and you’ll realise I’m right.
Keep this in mind: You don’t need everything you like!

And with that being said I’m going to wish all of you guys and myself good luck with my no-buy month. Thank you so much for reading about it and be sure to let me know your best tips & tricks to survive a no-buy month. Oh and by the way, my no-buy starts at march 23 and ends at april 23. The hauls that appear on my blog throughout this period are from before the no-buy month.