Dry January

Except with $$$ instead of alcohol

My awesome wife suggested that we have a spending freeze in January. A dollar-dry January. We splashed out a little over the holidays, so I was all in. We planned to spend no extraneous money beyond necessary bills and food until Valentine’s Day. Surprisingly, our children were on board as well. Well, our eldest daughter was a little begrudging. But our youngest daughter is already a natural saver, so she loved the idea - she could add more bills to the gangster roll in her piggy bank.

In no particular order, here are some observations about our spending freeze:

Mindless Spending: I’ve always considered us thrifty as a family. We tend to spend more on things we love, like travel, and conservatively on other things. We drifted a bit in our day-to-day spending. I blame the children. I’m only partially joking. We live in a city with endless bakeries and corner stores. Our kids are at the age where they are constantly pestering for stuff - from Roblox Robucks to stops at 7-11 after school. As a parent, I get tired of always saying no, so I often cave and take the “pay for a little peace” path. We have now instituted a once-per-week after-school treat. The kids pick when or what, but they only get one per week. If they want more treats, they get to use their own money. Their school has a fruit basket with apples, pears and oranges on every floor so they can grab a piece of fruit for the walk home.

Meals Out: I do most of the cooking Monday through Friday. It gets to be a drag. I rationalize eating out once a week as a harmless break from cooking. That drifted into eating out once a week, then ordering in once a week. Again, it seems easy. You know what else is easy? Homemade burgers. Eggs. Breakfast for dinner. Simple cut veggies on the side. Not every meal needs to be a production. Now, I target one or two 15-minute “easy” meals weekly. Plus, I get the kids to help more, which they enjoy. Previously, when they “helped,” it was more work for us as parents. Now they are old enough that their help is actually helpful.

The pantry: We moved into our new apartment less than a year ago, and the pantry is already a bit stuffed. We had layers of canned goods, rice, pasta, and, after Christmas, more sweets than we knew what to do with. We minimized buying staples at the store to finish our “backup” boxes of couscous and pasta in the cupboards. Our sweet tooth was satiated with our holiday backlog. It is kind of amazing how long it lasted.

Conscious Spending: In a world where Amazon exists, it’s easy to be frivolous with your money. We talked about buying several things but haven’t yet due to the freeze. I suspect that we will never buy any of them. If your purchase can’t stand waiting four weeks to execute it, did you ever really want it anyway? I added several things to an Amazon basket for purchase after our freeze. I already deleted all of them. After reflection, they weren’t things that we needed or wanted. In the future, I plan on using the basket to hold potential purchases for as long as possible. Hopefully, letting things simmer for a few weeks will calm the impulse buying.

A Goal Helps: We never explicitly discussed how to use the savings from our spending freeze. Coincidentally, the amount we saved almost exactly matched the fees for our kids' after-school activities this semester. We are currently planning our summer vacation. As we discussed this with the kids, we talked about the fact that it would be an expensive vacation. So, we are now planning another spending freeze in the Fall! I feel like this has been an extraordinary teaching moment for our children. They enjoyed and embraced it much more fully than I ever imagined.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever done something similar!

Dry $$$ January for the win!