No-Spend Month Activities

In my last post, I detailed some of my plans for making March my first No-Spend Month with my husband. We had an expensive year in 2019, primarily because we took the leap from renting an apartment to buying a house. We still paid debts off as we saved money for a down payment. Some of our debts are still around, albeit reduced, but we want to eliminate them all the same. That's where a no-spend month comes in. My previous post details the discretionary spending we're cutting out for March, so I wanted to use this post to list some of the free activities we'll be taking advantage of throughout the month.

Home Improvement: No house we saw was 100% perfect for us, but the one we chose is getting close. There are no shortage of projects we'll be doing with the materials and tools we already have on-hand.

• Painting our guest bathroom with leftover paint colors from other rooms
  (going for light grey walls and funky turquoise cabinetry!)
• Organizing my craft room
• Touching up paint in a couple of rooms
• Organizing the utility/laundry room in the basement
• Organizing and setting up work spaces in the garage
• Deep clean each room one by one

Leisure: Although home improvement is immense fun for me, the husband wanted to have a long list of "actually fun" things to do. I do my best to get resourceful when I know we're trying not to spend money, so I came up with a few things as well.

• Play Stardew Valley
• Learn any board game we bought but haven't played yet
• Have a party with what we have on-hand
• See a free-to-us concert from winning tickets at work
• Play "Chopped" with our pantry, fridge, and freezer 
• Bake cakes and cookies together
• Walk around the lake and play Pokemon Go, weather permitting
• Game night with friends
• Tea and coffee party with friends
• Write music together
• Write (code for him, blogging for me)
• Make more time to read
• Go to free community events at the creative center

I do have one "cheat" day for the month, which is to take a short trip to stay with a friend and see a concert together. It'll cost about a tank of gas and $25 for the show ticket, but I plan to not spend money out of my bank account by selling a few pieces of furniture in local swap groups. It's a show I've planned to see since January, and it was one thing I wasn't willing to sacrifice for the no-spend month. Planning is really the key, and although it might sound like yet another justification to cheat I think it's also important to leave some leeway in any plan. When we go too hard on ourselves, we're destined to fail. So if you have a no-spend month... I'd say it's okay to throw in a little cheat for your sanity and happiness.

Here's to planning a successful no-spend month for March 2020!