November – no spend month!

Some call it Morevember, we call it no spend November! In other words, we decided not to spend any money, but the universe had other plans!

We like challenges and we always like to take new steps to help our Earth in crisis. Most of the food we get on these days is free. We try to avoid plastic packaging and supermarkets. Our means of transportation is public or bike. We swap our clothes instead of buying them. So it should be no surprise that we decided to call November a no spend a month.

Why did I spend on wafer i.e. failing on the first day

Well, after a long day I found myself starving and heading to a grocery store. I usually do not buy food from stores like that, but I was in a pickle and needed to grab something. My first pick would have been a banana. Love these and they come package-free. But unfortunately, they were really green, so this option was out.

Secondly, I was looking at a Stollen. I never had that, though I have purchased it as a present for the family for Christmas. I realized that it was actually vegan. Sure, I wanted it! But since it was wrapped in a plastic wrapping and deeply covered in powdered sugar, I decided to pass. I couldn’t imagine myself biting into it and walking in the streets while carrying heavy bags. Then I saw the package of four wafers, similar to the world-famous Austrian Manner wafer, packed in an alu foil. It seems that this is a bit better material than just plain clear plastic. The price was wonderful at 0.99 cents. So this was the first purchase we did on the 1st day of no spend November.

Money is spent, but for the others

The failure on the first days was made up nicely, as we didn’t buy anything for ourselves for weeks. Money was still spent, as we entertained a few times and needed some groceries bought. If we wouldn’t have had anybody coming over, we wouldn’t have bought those items. I am not going to list them, as they were a whipped cream for a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie we baked, some potatoes, bok choy, etc.

Groceries for others: 15,22 €

Most of the money we spent on others was due to approaching the Christmas holidays. Since it will be for some time the last Christmas we are going to spend with family, we wanted to pamper then this time. Then again, if you look at the number below it is not much. But it is not final, some items have to be added.

Presents for others: 138,20 €

We are not materialistic people and we do not put so much value on the fancy stuff people usually are. Like no iPhone gadgets will be gifted or some brand names bought. We had names drawn and so we each make presents based on the list of that person had written down. We will add come little items, we know they want for sure.

What we spend on ourselves

The total of money spend, except the tickets we had to buy to commute to work, was 16,95 €.

Items bought:

• 0,99 wafer 1.11 – kind of necessary
• 2,79 Veganz cookies 18.11 – unnecessary
• 1,99 vegan ice cream for the date night 26.11 – kind of necessary
• 2,40 € sweets to share with our friend, when she was visiting 29.11 – not really needed
• 2,49 € toilet paper 30.11 – ran out, could have used the extra free tissue we had obtained…
• 6,29 € surprise present for Eve – I could have waited for December to buy it, so unnecessary

Eating out: 21 €

10 € for a shared vegan meal combo, while meeting a friend

11 € on Black Friday, when we were out with friends and got some little things for family, we both had burrito bowls.

Conclusion

As you can see we didn’t manage to avoid not spending any money. 16,95 € is not a whole lot of money shared between two people but could have definitely avoided. We just gave in to our needs. Sugar craving crept in. This is another subject we will try to manage after the holidays. Eating out twice during the holiday season wasn’t that bad as well. It probably will happen again.

We will definitely try to spend no money in 30 days again. It was fun and it was refreshing. Most of all I liked the idea of not going to any stores and not needing anything. Hopefully, we can try this again in January, as we have still lots of food at home, which we can make many meals out of. This will also inspire saving food from canteen and food sharing. This would be the main place to get out fruits and vegetables.

That leaves us just the toilet paper issue…