This week, I am reflecting on the ways I “failed” or cheated at my no-spend September goals.
I don’t see this as a self-deprecating or critical post.
I just want to be transparent and honest about the struggles of trying to stick to a no-spend month and consider ways I might minimize my spending further in the future.
The Fails
#1 – GrubHub
There is a back story here. At the end of August, I had a discount code for $15 off a GrubHub order, and since I had never tried GrubHub before, I thought it might be a fun date night in option or something like that.
A ended up wanting noodles one day for lunch and the local Thai place near us wasn’t open, so we figured we’d try out GrubHub that day. Well, I learned the pros and cons of this service.
The $15 discount code really only covered the fees incurred by a regular GrubHub order.
After I placed the order though, I saw an option to opt in for a free 30-day trial of GrubHub+ and get a “refund” on the $6.97 I was charged as a delivery fee. I figured it would be worth signing up for that refund!
Turns out the “refund” was really a credit placed on my account.
So I entered no-spend September with a $6.97 credit that needed to be used within the 30-day GrubHub+ trial window (or I would end up paying the monthly service fee for GrubHub+ and negate the whole point of trying to sign up for the free trial to save that cost).
Given this context, my first fail in no-spend September occurred because I wanted to use this credit while I had the free delivery that came with the 30-day free trial.
I noticed that several of the restaurants/vendors on GrubHub offered promotional discounts for your first order, and calculated that we could get one sandwich using the credit on the account and the promotional discount for under $10. I figured this was a good enough deal to redeem during no-spend September since it would be cheaper than some of the lunch options I might need to purchase groceries for.
Well, A is fancy and has a strong appetite, so he needed his own sandwich, and I wanted to be inclusive of my mom, so we ended up ordering two sandwiches and spent closer to $22.
#2 – Sick Supplies…and then some
I give myself some grace here because everyone in my house ended up sick during the first week and a half of no-spend September.
I personally weather a head cold without needing much in the way of medicines or salves, but my people…they need things.
I headed out to WalMart just eight days into the challenge month to get some requested cold medicine and other “essentials” that I knew my crew would require.
This included honey, orange juice, and some mandarin oranges.
While there, though, I was derailed from my sickness shopping list by some pretty fall wreaths (I had been planning to purchase fall wreaths since we moved into the house in January) and two clearance items (a board game I had been eyeing for the kids that was more than 50% off and a sleeping bag for my youngest child that was also close to 75% off; he is the only one of my kiddos who doesn’t have a sleeping bag and we have a backyard campout planned for this fall).
Those “impulse” purchases weren’t exactly impulsive, but they definitely were unnecessary.
The entire shopping trip ended up costing roughly $138. Eeek.
#3 – GrubHub Part 2
A and I ended up ordering take-out for a date night one evening during the challenge, and though there was a promotion and I was still using my 30-day free trial of GrubHub+, it was definitely an unnecessary expense.
The evening in cost a little over $60. Not bad for a date night, but this was a definite violation of no-spend September.,
It got more complicated because our order was delayed for almost an hour — so we ended up with a $7 credit on the account.
Which led to…
#4 – GrubHub Part 3
We used the $7 credit and another discount code a few days later to order smoothies. $12 out of pocket.
This one wasn’t a terrible expense, but I felt it deserved mentioning.
I proceeded to cancel my GrubHub+ free trial after that!
#5 – Dirt
I am not sure whether this one really qualifies, but I decided to include it.
A and I are in the process of making tons of changes and updates to the house we bought in January. In these nicer months (weather-wise), we have been making many strides outside.
He didn’t technically sign on to do no-spend September, so he bought several fruit trees to plant this month.
As he was cleaning up the area around the trees too, we decided to tackle a pit that really needed to be cleared of debris and filled in.
Thus, the dirt.
I ended up ordering a load of topsoil for delivery on September 30th; in retrospect, I could have waited a day and pushed the purchase into October, but that is just cheating in a different way, if you ask me!
#6 – Clothes
I don’t really consider this one a no-spend fail because I technically did not spend any “money,” but some proponents of no-spend challenges view the concept as no shopping challenges.
After minimizing my wardrobe recently, I realized that my pants for the winter were looking very tired and minimal indeed.
My favorite black jeans were sprouting holes and two of my other bottoms were threadbare.
Since I had some store credit and a gift card, I decided I could replace these items as long as I stuck to the value of the merchandise cards.
I ended up finding replacement pants and two long-sleeve tops within my budget, and I felt great about not being tempted by other items.
I should note that I disdain clothes shopping, so this actually wasn’t a massive challenge for me.