No Buy Experiment for me

I just received my December issue of Reader’s Digest with Manny Pacquiao on the cover. Well, this is not another post about Manny Pacquiao wins over Oscar Dela Hoya.

There was one thing the caught my attention while I was reading it. It was a short story written by David Hochman about his family’s No Buy Experiment. When I decided to leave my current work to take care of my son. To be honest, I was really hesitant. I was always thinking on how we will cut our expenses so that my husband’s salary will be enough to cover our monthly expenditures. But unfortunately, we always end up with barely enough to pay for the bills and basic needs. David Hochman says that they tried to experiment on not opening his wallet for a month except if the situation really calls for it or that they really need to buy something important. He and his family usually go to the mall at weekends and they end up buying things that are not necessary. So what he did was to still go to the mall at weekends to spend some quality time with his family but left his wallet behind at his house. This was done to avoid impulse buying. After a month, they checked their funds and realized that they saved nearly $2,000 just by doing this little experiment.

After reading it I checked my daily record of expenses for me to know how our money was spent. And I found out that we spent $45 for items that are not that important at all like CDs, clothes & shoes. And that’s just for 2 weeks after payday. I want to try doing Hochman’s No Buy Experiment and I hope that this will help us to discipline ourselves to use our money wisely.