So remember when I was attempting to live the low spending life? I guess that’s putting it lightly; it was extreme low spending…$20 a week. I took that challenge as a learning experience that I could hopefully bring into our daily lives. I told John that even after we returned from Portland, I wanted to adapt a more conscious way of spending. I haven’t done too good of a job with that (yet) but it’s still fresh on my brain and it’s not too late. With that, if you’re going through your own need to spend less, I’ve gathered a few tips that, in my opinion, can help you with your low spending journey.

I want to be clear here though: in my mind, low spending does not mean no treats for yourself ever. I work hard and it is my belief that if bills are paid, it’s OK to treat yourself as long as you’re well within your means. For me, that means an occasional article of clothing (like this random H&M sweater I just purchased). Sometimes it means a trip for John and me. Whatever “treat yo self” means to you, it’s OK.

#1

Stay out of Target unless you have a list – maybe this is just my problem but I’ve found that if I go into a Target without a plan, it just ends up bad. Target is bad news for me when I’m trying to low spend.

#2

Prep your lunch – if you work in a traditional office setting, it helped me a lot when I prepped and planned what I was going to eat for lunch during the week. I realized I spent a lot of money on dining out for lunch during the week and something as simple as bringing my lunch allowed me to save a little money.

#3

Get inspired – saving money can be really boring if you’re not mentally into it. I found that getting some inspiration around me while low spending helped me feel like I wasn’t on my own and it helped me get motivated. One group that I’ve loved on this conscious spending is The Finance Bar. I love following them on Instagram and getting daily nuggets of information and inspiration for those who want to be better about spending and saving.  I also love visiting The Financial Diet – a website where the tagline is “the luxury of spending less”. I love it.

#4

Tell your friends – low spending doesn’t have to be a lonely journey. I’ve found that in telling my friends what we were doing, they totally understood when we couldn’t go out to dinner and drinks all of the time with them. In fact, our friends were quite supportive and either started or was already doing their own version of low spending and we didn’t even know it! That’s the beautiful thing about being honest…you never know who else is going through the same thing.

#5

Embrace restaurant specials – many folks think that frolicking is near impossible when you’re attempting to not spend any money but we’ve found that with a little research, easy and inexpensive frolicking can actually be done. It was fun to figure out which of our favorite restaurants offer happy hours or unique daily specials. Often times these specials get overlooked because they’re early in the day/evening but we found that it saved us a couple of dollars and still fulfilled our need of getting our and hanging out with friends.

Are you low spending? What tips do you have?