Living for a month without spending a dime.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about my life here in San Francisco. To recap, I’ve been hanging out with my awesome friend Erin who came to visit for ten days. I’ve fallen way behind on my NaNoWriMo novel, but have adjusted my daily routine to make up for lost time. And Chanterelle and I are going to be taking Amtrak up to Klamath Falls in Oregon on Thanksgiving weekend (Nov. 26-29th) to visit a friend of hers. We’ll be camping in temperatures as low as 15 degrees up there (no hotel reservations, just a tent and sleeping bags), and have geared up as best we could. I am very excited.

So, what’s that post title up there about? What’s all this about living for a month without spending a thing?

While Chanterelle and I were catching up on our household organizing today, we did an overview of our finances. As I stared at my bank balances following a week of fun, eating out, and riding trains around the city, I realized we were way over the safe limit for expenses. I told Chanterelle just how bad it was, and we sat for a moment in quiet shock.

It only took a moment for the idea to strike.

“Hey…” I said, and Chanterelle looked up, her face registering the glint in my eye that I get when I’m dreaming up a scheme. “Obviously the only way we’re going to be able to stay afloat is to stop spending money.”

Chanterelle rolled her eyes.

“Well duh!” She said, but I held up my finger.

“What if we did that literally. What if we didn’t spend money for the entire month. I mean no groceries, no eating out, no shopping. Nothing.”

Chanterelle stopped to think about it. She looked skeptical.

“We have to eat. We can’t just not buy anything for a month.” she said, her expression challenging.

“Sure we can. We’ll just eat whats in our fridge. Plus, we’ve got stuff that’s been in the freezer forever.”

As readers of this blog should know, I spent the second half of October streamlining and purifying my diet. That process eliminated a whole host of foods we had bought (anything that wasn’t a green vegetable, a lean meat, or fruit basically) to the freezer, where it still sat. The idea was running wild in my mind now. This would work. It would be fun, enlightening, and it would bail us out of a tough situation. If it meant I had to fudge on my diet to save funds, then so be it. Its the habit, not the individual meal, that’s important.

After talking out the logistics and practicalities of our plan, we agreed to do it. We would respond as if our credit cards and bank accounts had been frozen and our wallets stolen. We wouldn’t spend money on anything in any capacity, whether online or in person, cash or credit card. Luckily, all of our water, electric, cell-phone, and internet bills had already been paid for the month (we didn’t plan it that way, we just like to pay our bills early) and the rent had already been mailed. We had already paid for the train tickets to and from Klammath Falls later in the month, as well as pre-purchased our monthly Muni passes, which allow us unlimited travel on San Francisco’s subway system and buses. We both had about $40 on our BART cards, and we are praying that it will be enough to sustain us for the month.

We took a look at our typical daily expenses:

1. Food (groceries, snacks at school, and eating out)
2. Coffee and Tea (at Starbucks or Samovar)
3. Movies/Entertainment (expensive here in the city)
4. Books and Clothing (mostly spent at thrift stores and used book stores)
5. Laundry (Chanterelle has alot of clothes, but I only wear one outfit)

These were the main expenses. Little unplanned expenses seem to stick on our credit card bills like hundreds of little leaches. Especially “quick runs to the store” for things like milk or bread.

How will we deal with these expenses without spending a single dime?

1. We will find inventive ways to eat what has been sitting in our pantry for months. We’ll eat smaller portions and simpler foods. We’ll also make sure to eat things like fruit and the little bits of meat we have left before they go bad, so nothing goes to waste.
2. We will make thermoses of tea using our supplies at home. And if we run out, we’ll go to Starbucks for some free hot water and drop a tea bag in. Ethical? About as ethical as charging $2.00 for a cup of bitter, cheap tea.
3. We’ll watch movies online and at home, as well as do other activities like seeing free entertainment in the park, or actually get our homework done. The one exception is the midnight showing of “New Moon” on the 19th, which we paid for a while ago.
4. We’ll check out books from the awesome San Francisco library (Chanterelle already does this) and order them for trade on PaperbackSwap.com. I will also take some time and read the many books I’ve had sitting on my bookshelf for a while.
5. We’ll wash underwear and socks in the sink. Chanterelle has enough in her closet to supply her with clean clothes for a month, and I wear nothing but two Icebreaker Merino Wool shirts that can be worn every day and only need to be washed every 1-2 weeks.

Will there be moments when we don’t think there is any way around spending money? Of course. But we have done this sort of thing before as a couple, and are practiced at using each-other’s hot-buttons to spur each other on. We’re both pretty excited about the experiment, and are committed to stick with it for 30 days.

We will begin officially as of tomorrow, Tuesday November 17th, and will continue the experiment through the next 30 days until December 17th. Just in time for Christmas.

I’ll be blogging consistently about our daily solutions, and I am sure we’ll learn things along the way. Not only ways we haven’t thought about saving money, but about ourselves and our own unconscious dependency on the cash in our wallets.

I have included a video below. It is the first in, hopefully, a series of many. In it I talk about the food we have stored up and how we plan to ration it.

It would be very cool of you, if you like the idea of our experiment, to follow along by subscribing to our posts and updates by email. You can do that here.

Living for a month without spending a dime., 4.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating If you liked this post, you might like these:

1. Becoming a superhuman, month by month.
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3. Money Fast Update – Day 6