I’ve noticed something when it comes to money.

If you don’t stay on top of how you’re spending it, you will waste it!

Our spending has gone up some over the past few months due to being busier than ever and not paying attention to our budget as much as we should. Well, that’s about to change! I’m making a point to cut back on spending as much as possible in August and I invite you to join me.

Sometimes it’s good to detach yourself from day to day life, think about what you’re doing, and ask yourself if you’re happy with how things are. I’m doing this right now and I gotta say, I’m not happy with how we’ve handled our money lately. If I had to give one word for our money management over the past couple of months I’d have to say “sloppy”.

This is going to change, and I thought it would be fun to document on the blog.

Money Saving Challenge Rules

The object of this challenge is pretty simple – starting August 1st, your goal is to spend as little as possible for the entire month. I’m trying to think of something to add here to give more details, but I really don’t think that’s necessary!

If you can somehow spend $0 for the entire month, you’ve done the absolute best you can. I’m pretty sure the mortgage company is going to want my money, so I won’t be hitting a $0 spend month for sure.

I’ve done a pretty good job of cutting our recurring bills down to as little as I can get them while maintaining the level of comfort we want, so I predict most of my savings will come in the form of discretionary spending. No more gas station snacks for me!

So that’s the challenge if you want to participate – spend as little as you can for 31 days. You can do anything if it’s only for a month right!?

If you’re going to do this challenge with me, subscribe here to get on my email list and send a response to my welcome email saying that you’re participating in the money saving challenge. I’ll send out an email each Friday with a weekly update sharing how I do each week and you can respond with how you’re doing as well.

What’s The Point Of This Money Saving Challenge?

The point of doing this challenge could be different for everyone. For me, I want to reset my brain to get back to being uncomfortable with pulling out my credit card to buy something. I’m getting a little too comfortable making small purchases almost daily and they really add up over time!

I’m not trying to bring up the age-old debate of should you buy your latte every day or save those $3 instead. I just think it’s a good idea to reset your lifestyle every now and then and start with a blank slate.

When you cut out everything you possibly can, you get perspective of the things you really want because you will really miss those things. But sometimes giving yourself what you want isn’t the best choice! If I ate what I wanted to every meal, I’d probably weigh 500lbs right now and be on death's door.

Cutting back on spending for a month will help me realize that I don’t need certain things to survive, or even live a happy life for that matter. We live such luxurious lives in middle-class America and take so many things for granted. I honestly feel kinda weird calling what I’m doing a challenge because even if I don’t buy anything unnecessary during the month, I will still have so much more than a lot of people do in this world.

How To Keep Track Of Your Savings

I’m planning on comparing how much I save in August vs how much I spent in July. I’ll be doing this by comparing my numbers on my monthly net worth updates. If you don’t have a blog and don’t do your numbers every month, don’t fear! You can still come up with a system.

The most basic way to do it would be to go through all of your transactions for the previous month and compare them to the challenge month. This could get pretty time consuming though.

If you’re not using a monthly budget, I would highly recommend starting one! I know a lot of people in the personal finance community don’t like budgeting, but I don’t know of a better way to stay on track with your finances. If you need a reference to help you start budgeting, check out this post.

I use the Every Dollar app for budgeting purposes, but another app I use gives me a lot more value on top of budgeting. This app is called Personal Capital and it basically links up to all of my financial accounts to give me a clear overview of my financial situation in one dashboard.

Let's get this party started!

I hope you’re excited to challenge yourself this month and save some money! I’m hoping to shape my mindset during this challenge to be more focused and disciplined so I don’t give in every time my faulty brain wants something.

Other than spending money on bills I’m obligated to pay, I’m going to do my best to keep all other spending at $0.

Don’t forget to sign up for my weekly emails so we can keep each other accountable!

If you’re really wanting to step up and go public with this challenge, drop a comment below and share with your friends to challenge them too! Maybe we can get a bunch of people saving a huge amount of money in total.