It’s here!  The month of No Spending starts tomorrow.  We decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve with friends tonight instead of Monday night with everyone else.  When I made our reservations a month ago I saw that on the holiday there would be a prix fix menu that included champagne for $75 per person.  I thought that seemed fine at first, but the more I started to think about it the more I realized that none of us prefer champagne to drink with dinner so that meant potentially an additional couple hundred dollars in drinks and tips.  Add to that the extra cost of a ride share on a holiday and the money kept adding up. I realized the restaurant we chose is always festive and asked if anyone would want to celebrate early. Turns out the idea was a big hit! The great thing is it’s a festive place and night anyway so we won’t miss out on any of the party atmosphere  and the service will be better because it’s not the busiest night of the year.

I hadn’t even started thinking about the Spending Fast yet, but clearly money was on my mind.  Credit cards are so removed from actual money in my mind that the looming inevitability of running out of room and being forced into not spending never felt real.  The fact is we are about to max out all of our cards and it’s causing us both a ton of stress.

Am I nervous about committing to a month of not going to a restaurant?  Absolutely! That is our main source of entertainment and I worry we won’t be able to stand the temptation and then we’ll fail.  On the other hand, I am super excited to set a strict parameter and stick to it. We can’t seem to handle moderation, so a program that relies on absolutes is best for us.  Since we are celebrating New Year’s early this we decided to go ahead and start our No Spend month on Sunday December 30th. We’re going to stay home on New Year’s Eve for the first time in our lives!  I’ve planned a taco bar with movies and video games for entertainment. I hope this is the first of many new things for us.