Feeling like you never have enough money? It’s easy to let your dollars slowly slip away with every little credit card transaction. Thankfully, there are an array of strategies to help you save money. A low buy month is an ideal way to get a grip on your spending, save money, appreciate life’s simple pleasures and learn how to live with less money.
Read on to learn how to successfully do the low buy month challenge.
What is a Low Buy Month?
Before I get into how to do the challenge, what exactly is a low buy month? The low buy month is simply just that: buying a low amount of things – specifically, non-essential purchases that aren’t necessary for your survival. You’ll choose a percentage to reduce your spending by or a dollar amount you want to decrease your spending by. For example, if you currently spend $500 per month on non-essentials, you can choose to reduce spending by $400 or 80%, leaving you with $100 to spend on things you don’t need.
Who Should Participate in a Low Buy Month?
A low buy month is for everyone. However, this challenge may interest those who fall into the following demographics:
- Those who want to get a curb on their spending and save more money
- Indiviudals who want to save a large amount of money in a short period of time
- Unemployed individuals, underemployed individuals or households that have suddenly gone from two incomes to one due to a layoff
- Those who want to create positive saving habits and get used to spending less
- Individuals who need to replenish or build an emergency fund
- Debt-laden individuals who want to pay down their debt as soon as possible
Benefits of a Low Buy Month
Save Money
The first and most obvious benefit of participating in a low buy month: saving money. When you drastically reduce your spending in one or more categories of your life, you’ll be able to stash the cash for whatever you need. If you don’t have an emergency fund, doing a low buy month is a great solution for anyone wondering how to save money fast.
Why should you have an emergency fund? It’s simple: to pay for unexpected expenses. In life, there are so many things out of our control. You may break your arm, your car might break down or you may need to pay for a flight ticket to visit a sick family member. If you don’t have an emergency fund, you’ll need to rely on credit or loans. When you use these funding sources, you’ll end up paying a lot more with the added interest.
Aside from an emergency fund, a low spend month means you’ll be able to use the funds you otherwise would have spent on non-essentials on debt repayment or funding a short-term goal such as a vacation or new piece in your wardrobe.
Invest in Your Future
Aside from saving more money, how about putting those savings to work? Once you have a fully stocked emergency fund and your debts are taken care of, you should focus on investing. One day, you’ll get to a point in your life where you won’t want to or be able to work anymore. However, the expenses will keep rolling in. You’ll need to have a nest egg of funds to live on for several decades until you pass away. When you invest early and often, you’ll benefit from the power of compound interest – interest on interest. When you do a low buy month, you’ll learn how to live with less money and it’ll become easier to put away extra cash for the future.
Become More Aware and Thankful For What You Have
Since a low spend month means you’ll have a lot less to spend on consumeristic purchases, you’ll be able to spend more time focusing on what you already have. Instead of spending hours perusing the mall, go to your closet and your garage. Count all the things you have. If you’re anything like me, you already have tons of belongings, many of which you rarely or never use. Take a few minutes to reflect on what you have and be thankful. Did you really need that brand-new iPhone when your two-year-old iPhone works just fine? Probably not!
Focus on Low-Cost or Free Simple Pleasures
Aside from being thankful for what you have, a low spend month is a chance to focus on free or simple activities. There are many simple pleasures in life that we too often take for granted. For example, what about sitting outside and reading a book? This is a free, simple and relaxing activity that too many of us don’t partake in.
Here’s a fun challenge for you: every time you feel tempted to go to the mall or go online and browse, choose one simple pleasure to engage in. This can be anything from going on a long walk, making a fresh juice and enjoying it outside or enjoying a games night with the family. Focusing on simple pleasures is an easy way to retrain your brain to enjoy the things in life that cost little to no money throughout winter, fall, spring and summertime!
Reduce Consumer Anxiety
Since a low buy month means you’ll have a lot less to spend, you can spend less time in the mall or online. When you aren’t constantly bombarded with ads and window displays in the mall, you’ll feel more at peace. I find that when I spend time away from malls, stores and online shops, I can slow down and focus on my family, friends and things I already have.
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Guidelines for Successfully Completing a Low Buy Month
Know Your ‘Why’ for Doing the Low Buy Month Challenge
Before undertaking the low buy month challenge, it’s imperative that you know your main reason or reasons for doing it. Aside from saving money, what’s the number one ‘thing’ you want to get out of it? Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
- Become less consumeristic and reduce stress
- Appreciate the simple things in life
- Reduce or eliminate debt
- Create positive habits around saving money
Decide on Your Savings Goal for the Month
Besides deciding on a personal goal, you should know approximately how much you should and can save from a low spend month. If it’s your first time doing a savings challenge, you can go easy. Reduce your spending by 50% to start. If you successfully complete a low spend month with a 50% reduction, you can increase it to 60% the next month. All that matters is that you set an achievable goal.
While the prospect of reducing spending by 90% is exciting, it’s often unrealistic – especially for those who have never attempted to cube their spending. Slow and steady wins the race!
Write Down Your Goals and Reasons in a Journal
Once you’ve determined your goals, it’s important to write them down. When you put pen to paper, your brain remembers information more easily. Additionally, when you have a record of your goals and commitments, you can look at them and remind yourself why you started in the first place.
Choose a nice journal or notebook that you’ll be happy to write in. Take half an hour or an hour out of your day on a weeknight to sit down on the couch with a cup of tea, your journal and a notebook. Take your time writing your goals down. There’s no rush!
Determine Your Rules and Boundaries
In addition to knowing how much you want to save by doing the low buy month, you should set some boundaries for yourself during the challenge. When you create rules, it’ll be a lot easier to stick with good habits. Here are the top rules you should consider implementing when doing a low buy month.
1. Tracking Spending in a Journal
Aside from writing your goals down, you should track every single dollar you spend, whether it be on necessities or non-essential purchases. It’s ok to make mistakes! However, if you don’t keep a record of where you slipped up, you won’t remember where you slip up. On the other hand, when you see where you went wrong, you can know for next time. For example, if you monthly budget for takeout is $50 and you go over budget by $30, you’ll know your area of weakness. Alternatively, if you’re really struggling to stay on budget, you can adjust your spending limits so you can indulge a little bit more on the things you enjoy.
2. Paying in Cash
When you pay for purchases with a card, it’s difficult to see the money leaving your hands. On the contrary, if you pay with cash, you’ll physically feel the money leaving your hands and see the money leaving your wallet. Paying in cash will help you think twice about whether or not that pair of pink Nike shoes fits into your budget.
3. Avoiding Shopping Malls and Online Stores
When you’re on a strict budget, nothing can derail it faster than being surrounded by temptations! Avoiding shopping malls means much less exposure to things you want to buy but don’t fit within your budget limits. Additionally, you should ban yourself from visiting Amazon and other online shopping platforms. While you may think that there’s nothing wrong with casually browsing, before you know it you may click the ‘order’ button on a new watch you really don’t need. Wait until the month is up to visit the mall or visit an online platform.
4. Doing the Low Buy Month Challenge with a Family Member or Friend
Want to stay motivated? There’s no better way to succeed at a low spend month than doing the challenge with a family member or friend. Choose a loved one that will encourage you to stay on budget – not deter you. You may have well-meaning friends who want to have fun with you, but every time you’re around them, you seem to go way over budget.
The Main Drawback of Participating in a Low Buy Month
While a low buy month is one of the best ways to save money, become more appreciative of what you have and build good habits for life, there is one main drawback to this challenge. The primary drawback of a low buy month is failing to account for unexpected expenses.
For example, if your budget is only $50 for clothing per month but your favorite blazer you need for work suddenly rips, you’ll need to replace it immediately. A good quality blazer may cost more than $50. Right then and there, you’ve gone over your budget for clothing. Avoid this situation from happening by stocking an emergency fund of 3-6 months’ worth of living expenses before you decide to do a low buy month or other low spending challenge.
Alternatives to a Low Buy Month
Low Buy Week
Not sure if you can drastically cut down on spending for an entire month? Try it for a week. After a week, challenge yourself to do it for the rest of the month. A low buy week is ideal for those just starting out with saving money.
Low Buy Quarter or 6 Month Period
If you’ve successfully completed a low buy month, try it for a longer period of time – say, 3 months, 6 months or more. Building off the momentum and success you’ve had is an ideal way to continue creating good habits for life. After you’ve mastered cutting out spending for 6 months, you can try a low buy year as well.
No Buy Month or No Buy Year
Feeling truly committed to frugal living? Why not completely cut out spending on non-essentials for an entire year? This challenge isn’t for the faint of heart, so try a low buy month first before doing a no buy month challenge or no buy year challenge.
A Final Word on the Low Buy Month Challenge
A low buy month challenge is one of the best ways to save money for short-term and long-term goals, become more thankful for what you have and build positive financial habits for life. Even if you slip up, give yourself some grace. Saving money consistently isn’t for the faint of heart. Be proud you’re giving it a try – your future self will thank you!
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Janita is a frugal living expert and owner of Frugal Fun Finance. With over five years of personal experience finding and trying out the best ways to make and save more money, she's eager to share her knowledge. Janita's strategies have helped her save thousands of dollars for funding investments and traveling to over 20 countries.
Janita completed training in personal finance at The University of Western Ontario and McGill University, two prestigious Canadian universities. Her expertise has been shared on GoBankingRates, Yahoo Finance, and NASDAQ.com.
