Let the Non-Spending Officially Commence

I'm not sure that joanna henderson's perfect photo has anything to do with my spending hiatus, but it feels lovely and simple and, well...kinda, somehow appropriate.

I’ve been procrastinating writing this post all week, as once I write it, say it out loud if you will, there’s no going back, right?

On February 1st, I officially kicked off my spending hiatus.

(insert a little nail biting here...)

A little back-story for those of you not familiar with the hiatus… For the past couple of years, I’ve committed to not making any “non-essential” purchases for three months. If my girlies legitimately needed a new pack of socks (say all their old ones were too small and riddled with holes) or if they’d outgrown their tennis shoes, of course I’d buy new ones, but those sweet metallic ballet flats that Audrey “had to have”, no deal. You get the idea.

While there was certainly some financial motivation (i.e. recovery from the spend-fest that was the holidays) involved in my previous periods of non-spending, my primary driver for doing the hiatus was more a “consumption reset.” I like the idea of really appreciating and getting reacquainted with what we already own. There’s a boost in creativity when I’m forced to “mend and make do” and a sense of clarity that comes with not bringing a seemingly endless stream of new (and often unnecessary) stuff into the house. And all that time I’m not spending shopping, I tend to fill with more creative pursuits. During last year’s hiatus, we spent way more time at the museum, at the park, making things, cooking, reading…

This time around, I changed things up a bit. Instead of starting on January 1st, I decided to wait a month in order to take advantage of some of the post holiday sales + I didn’t want to feel guilty about throwing Millie a fun/festive b-day party…oh and there were those pre-Alt purchases too. It’s all about full disclosure here friends.

I also decided to do this for 60 days this year instead of 90. Looking back on previous years, I realized three months may have been a bit too long, as I seemed to have a tendency to go crazy upon breaking the hiatus in April. (Crazy like some deranged desert island castaway who makes it back to civilization and gorges on chocolate cake. ) Let’s just say that my Barney’s card got a lot of play last spring. Not good. (It's probably not good that I even have a Barney's card, but that's a topic for another time.)

So this year’s hiatus will go from February 1st- April 1st, and during this time my goal is no “non-essential” purchases on stuff. We'll still spend money on experiences, as I’m not limiting museum visits, road trips, meals out, etc…but we’ll be mindful when we do these things too. I’m also leaving some wiggle room for gifts, as it’s not always easy to make something for a six-year old boy’s birthday gift, but again, the goal is to be mindful...

Last year I asked if anyone wanted to join in the hiatus and blog about their experiences and many of you did. We ended up with a good support group, and that accountability certainly helped me when I was madly coveting some killer dress or a new little lovely for the house. So, I’m throwing it out there again but with a twist. Since this is such a personal decision, if you do join, you can decide how you want to do it.Some of you may be more interested in saving money than not buying anything new, so maybe your goal will be not to spend money during this time but instead use leftover gift cards from the holidays. Or you might decide 30 days is long enough for you or that you’ll only buy local or handmade for some period of time, and all that is great, as the goal is really to set a goal and be mindful and support each other in this endeavor.

So here I go…anyone care to join?