No Buy 2020 Check-In || February

Sunday, March 1, 2020
Hello friends! Here we are at the start of another month - and it's my birth-month, too! How exciting :) Once again, if you're not sure what I'm talking about when I mention my No Buy 2020, please head here to check out my initial post.

So, another month gone. And despite it being the shortest month of the year (even with this year being a leap year), it was still a bit of a doozy. I started off the month feeling a little low, and that mood kind of got worse and better at times. But when it was really bad? My desire to spend money was really high. It was really difficult during those times to remember why I was doing this (rereading my 'why' did help, but not as much as I would have hoped), and I'm not sure I would have managed had I not just fallen back on reminding myself to be compassionate - with myself, and with others. But it's still extremely difficult to challenge those habits that have formed over many years and try to direct them in a more helpful way. I absolutely don't deny that.

I did also realise that I kind of had to change the rules a little bit otherwise this whole experiment would feel more like a punishment than a joyful exploration. I feel okay about that, because honestly these rules are ones that I either made up myself, or took from someone else's no buy or low buy experiments, so it was kind of just a shot in the dark for me initially. These rules need to work for me rather than against me, and be the mst conducive towards me saving money rather than spending it (but also mostly being aware of my spending habits rather than just being mindlessly controlled by them). Here are the couple of changes I'm making:

~ One experience per month rather than per quarter. This still depends on whether Xin and I can afford it, but I didn't factor in dates with Xin, and those are really important - spending time with Xin is in my 'why' section, so cutting this out doesn't make a whole lot of sense!


~ If I don't use both of the coffee/tea dates in a month, whatever is leftover gets rolled over to the next month. I'm still spending the same amount of money here, just at a different time. 

~ There are a few intricacies in the way that Xin and I budget that have made me rethink my No Buy, and I'm not going to share those here because, well, I don't feel the desire to share my budget around on the internet, but basically I have opportunity to go out for more meals or tea/coffee if I'd like, but the money comes from a different part of the budget that I am more directly responsible for. This is my most wary rule-change, so I am keeping a sharp eye on it. I actually haven't used it as yet - in January I only used one of the coffee/tea dates and so had three at my disposal in February, so I haven't felt the need as yet.

I'm pretty sure I went over on the coffee/tea dates and eating out this month, but it was also a bit of a hard month in terms of my pain levels, and it turns out that's a big trigger for me - when I'm in a lot of pain for several days in a row, I want to buy things to ease my time a little bit. This often occurs with things like food, or drinks (bubble tea was my main thing in Feb, which was odd because I haven't had it in so long but in Feb I was just all about that boba). It also means I want to spend money on books, but I'm guessing those who know me or read this blog with any regularity will probably know that. I did buy one book - one I had on my wishlist, as per my rules - which was We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal. It felt really good to intentionally go into the book store and purchase a book that was on my wishlist, instead of impulsively buying it online because I was feeling bad.

Anyway, that's my update for February! I still feel pretty good about how this experiment is going, and it's really connecting in more with my word of the year (compassion) much more than I expected. I will try to keep checking in on the blog so any readers or those who are interested can see how I'm going, but I also want to check-in for myself. It helps to lay it all out a bit more generally, instead of just being stuck in my own head!

Love to all who read.


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