Budget Redux Pt.1: Survivor Week Training
I’m down to the last few few things I have to sell (record player, second printer, misc. bike parts, etc) so it’s now time to do some serious Stage 3 Purging. The next 2 or 3 weeks I’ll be working on my budget by doing an exercise called a “survivor week”.
The idea behind this is simple. For 7 days, you spend no money. Mine are going to run Friday night-Friday morning, but I suppose you can run them from whenever you’d like for however long you’d like. You get all of your groceries, run all of your errands, and make sure you have enough supplies to get you through the week…and then you put your wallet away. I’m going to be doing this over the course of a few weeks to cut things out slowly, because it’s not just a fun thing to do- I’ve purged a lot of the things that I own, I want to purge a lot of the expenses I don’t need to have. On the road it’ll be super important that I’m careful with my spending, so I want to get used to it far in advance.
Like a diet, shrinking your budget isn’t something you should just do all at once, because it’s integrated into your lifestyle. Cutting half of your expenses in a day probably won’t work, and you’ll go back to your old spending ways at the end of the week. By making smart decisions and getting used to them over time, you’ll change the way you spend and keep these habits. It’s also not about going without- it’s about finding cost free (or lower cost) alternatives to things like going out to eat with friends, or going to the bar, or driving and paying for gas, that you can then use when the exercise is over. Even if you implement these alternatives 50% of the time, you’ll be saving lots more money that can go into savings.
I’m starting by doing all of my grocery shopping and running all of my errands on Fridays for the week because that’s when the farmer’s market is open. I’ve also dropped off and paid for my film processing, gone to the bike shop and grabbed a new tire, and placed an order for new t-shirts, because it’s time to cycle my old ones out. Because I work for myself, business expenses do not count- I need to ship things every day and buy supplies once a week, and I think it’s fair to separate that from my personal spending. Here are my plans for the next 3 weeks:
Week 1: no take out/restaurants, no shopping at all, $30 entertainment budget, $50 emergency budget
Week 2: Week 1 + no travel expense, $15 entertainment budget, $25 emergency budget
Week 3 (Survivor Week): Week 1 + 2 + $0 entertainment budget, no cable tv or movies on demand, $0 emergency budget
The “emergency budget” is for things like bike parts (if something breaks) and food supplies while I’m getting used to the project. I’m one to run to the store every night before dinner to grab a couple things, so I’m not sure how much of specific things I go through each week as I’m always replenishing.
Like I said, the goal here isn’t to go without. By doing all of my shopping in one 12 hour period, it saves me a ton of time during the week and also gives me the whole week to simply write things down for my next shopping day. It gives me time to look through the sales fliers, assess my pantry, and most importantly it forces me to keep a budget and stick to it. I’ll be updating the blog with my experiences and things I learn, and feel free to do this with me!
