No Spend 2017

So today is January 4th 2017. I really feel like I live in the future. We have screens at our fingertips for entertainment, information, emotional support, connection to people miles away. I mean things are kind of trippy if you think about it.

With all of our technological advances we keep getting more and more, but fewer and fewer of us are happy. Happiness, in this land of stuff and gadgets is still fleeting and chased after. Somehow in this time of now and more and bigger and better happiness doesn't seem to be one of those bigger and better things.

Everything nowadays is disposable. Friends. Clothes. Significant others. Family. Home items. Cars. There is always a newer better version of what we have right now. We are never satisfied. We tire of the old, casting it off as if it never held any value, yet it was once what we lusted after before getting rid of the version before it.

Insatiable. So in an attempt to combat this, the wife and I have started a No Spend 2017. Yup. 365 days of not spending money unless we need to aka bills, gas, groceries. No eating out. No buying drinks. No movies. No concerts. No weekend trips. Nothing. There may also be some paring down along this journey, but for now baby steps.

We started this as an attempt to pay off our consumer debt. Its a little overwhelming and we have plans for our life that doesn't include drowning in debt to institutions. So before January 1st we may have front loaded a bit, buying whatever we felt we needed, but wouldn't be able to buy come 1/1. These were things like a rug pad, a new coat, leggings, and of course wine.

We have created a budget and decided to allocate every available dollar to credit card debt, the mortgage, and savings. Savings. The hardest part is to put savings away.

Now there are stipulations. If we really want something then we have to use a giftcard or work it into the budget. But we may not work everything into the budget. If we do something extra then it takes from something else like the groceries budget. That's really all it can pull from. Because we don't have anything else. Except a contigency fund, but that's for emergencies, not fun.

So this year we are exploring minimalism. Less stuff. Less clutter. Less stress. And to start we aren't buying anything extra. We are going to live within our means, stop comparing ourselves to others and this American dream and see how far we can get and if just maybe happiness comes to us. We're tired of the chase.