Do you ever realize that you just spent too much money? My wife and I did this weekend. To even out the budget, we’re going to have a “No Spend Week”. Fortunately, this fits in with the Minimalist Experiment quite nicely.

The concept is simple, we won’t spend any un-necessary money this week. So what do we consider necessary?

• Gas. The tank’s about half-full, so we’ll have to fill ‘er back up in a few days.
• Charitable donations. We’ve already planned our donations for the week and set the money aside, so it will be given just as we planned.
• Rent. As with the donations, the money is already set aside. That and we like living here and don’t want to have a hard time with our landlords.

That’s it. Nothing else.

We have a fridge full of left-overs, and a well-stocked pantry. We certainly won’t go hungry this week, even without a trip to the grocery store. At worst we’ll have to forego fresh fruit with our lunches, instead breaking out the bag of frozen fruit we’ve stashed away.

It will be easy to avoid shopping, as we simply won’t head to any stores. We have enough daily-use items that we aren’t concerned about running out. I’ve already simplified my clothes so I know that I can get by without anything new for a while.

The hardest cut-off will be our coffee shop visits. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I use them for their parking spaces. Those mornings I am playing taxi for my wife, waiting while she’s in class. It’s easy to find parking and I can generally get some work done (many posts have been hammered out in the 50 minutes I’m sitting on the sofas in the back.)

This week I’m hoping for nice weather, so that I can head over to the arboretum and possibly get some sketching done. This time of year, when the flowers are just beginning to bloom, it’s a beautiful place to be. If not, I’ll find somewhere else to while away the time.

While this week will provide us with some challenges, we know that we can do it. It will be quite an exciting feeling to know that we won’t have to be checking our account balances, since they won’t be changing this week!