I love to plan. I have a slight obsession with my calendar. So when planning out our monthly activities ( shout out to local libraries being a lifesaver to this mammas budget) I decided maybe it would be a good practical to plan in advance days not to spend any money . I decided Thursdays would be my no spend day. The reason behind it is Thursday tends to be my busiest day and not having the option to spend money forces me to be organized and plan ahead rather than not manage to make lunches and pick up lunch on the way to preschool. Thursday is the day that kicks off my three day mini freezes.

This time around I had actually forgotten about it until this week when I noticed it on my calendar. The ironic thing is last time I was pretty unprepared for it, did great went the whole three days. This time I had more confidence going in because last time it worked great, this time my grocery shopping day was conveniently thedsy before so I had all I needed. I am losely quiting something I heard once before because I can’t remember exactly how it was worded but one time I heard something listening to Dave Ramsey ( I listen to his radio show often) and he said something to the effect of when you make changes something always happens after like a test to see if you meant it. My first spending freeze was fine, almost like God gave me a free pass to go ahead and try. This time I had more life happen during it… really sick five year old… and I spent money. She was sick and only wanted a few things and my oldest needed fasting lab work and was so hungry after the long wait at the lab. So not once but twice I went to McDonald’s.

I walked away from that spending freeze just shy of thirty five dollars all said and done. Was it a fail? Kind of. Definitely not a win. Will it be the reason that I stop trying? Nope. I could easily give up and say see this just doesn’t work for real life or I could say didn’t go perfectly going to try again. I’m going with the second one. At the very least this time around I had three days I was hyper aware of my wallet and made it one full day and one half day before anything was spent.

I have another three day spending freeze planned for this coming week and several planned for December. Permanent change won’t be an easy path but one that is worth it.