NSDs

I'm a member of the forums at MoneySavingExpert (shock, eh?!) and a monthly thread on the debt free wannabe board is the "NSD" thread. The idea is that you pledge a certain number (chosen by you) of "no spend days" in the month. For some people, this might be as low as 5, whereas some members go for figures as high as 25+!

Different posters have differing views on what constitues a spend, but I think I am in the majority in classing bills and DDs as not a 'spend'. I class grocery purchases as spends though, and I know some NSDers don't.

So, you may be thinking, "Why the strictness? Why not just be generally careful about your spending but spend as and when you want/need to?"
Well, the concept of NSD is that once you've opened your purse/wallet once in a day, it's not much of a jump to carry on spending. In fact, it can be really easy to lose track. Plus, I find just being "careful" leads me to feeling deprived when I don't buy myself things, whereas making it a form of competition with myself means I'm rewarded for my carefulness!

I pledged 15 NSDs this month - fairly high for my first month I guess - but we really don't have much cash left at all, so sensible I thought... Well, I'm on 8 so far! So I'm pretty happy!