30 Days of Nothing Challenge…

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Today at Biblical Womanhood, Crystal wrote about her Two Years of Nothing experience about when her husband was going through law school. I couldn’t help but see a few similarities between our current situation and the situation they have come out of. Paying for school with cash, living on as little as possible, and extreme frugality.

I read THIS POST on the 30 Days of Nothing Challenge, and I was intrigued. Basically, the challenge is that for the entire month of September, you live with only the absolute necessities and refrain from spending on anything you don’t absolutely need. I love the idea of this and began reflecting on our current spending and lifestyle.

I came to this conclusion. I have made so many cutbacks. The cutbacks we’ve made don’t make me feel deprived in anyway. The cutbacks have actually had the opposite affect on me, I have now realized that I can cut back even more!

I shared some of my thoughts with my amazing, supportive hubbie, and he shared that he felt like we already do live with only the absolute necessities. To an extent, I do agree. I could, however, make a list of about a dozen things we bought this week that we didn’t have an absolute, necessary need for.

With that said, I do agree with him in the fact that we all need to give ourselves a little grace. We can’t beat ourselves up over every un-needed purchase. A treat every now and then can do a body a whole lot of good. I see the value in the occasional “splurge.”

But I still feel convicted. I have given in to the American way in some areas of my life. I have let worldliness creep in the cracks. I have believed that I have the rights of entitlement… I work hard, I deserve a little… I am so beat today, I need…. Its a special occassion, we can go over the budget… When will we ever get the opportunity again… Its been a long day I deserve some…

And the list goes on and on. Wanna know the truth? I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve anything. It is by the grace the of God that I am even who I am, where I am and blessed as I am.

What am I going to do about this? We’ve got a few ideas. I’m only doing absolute necessary grocery shopping from now to the end of the month. (My Walgreens trip was amazing, but the $37.70 out of pocket while I wait for rebates kind of rocks my food budget a bit.)

I’m going to try not using the dryer this week when I do laundry and see how that goes. (That’ll be a fun challenge!)

I am thinking about propsoing a no electricity after 8 pm night each week. Maybe Wednesdays? Sundays? We’ll see what hubbie says.

And the biggest, scariest cut we think we are going to make? We think we would like to challenge oursleves to go sugar free in the month of October. We have heard so many great things about this benefits of sugar free eating for your health and it would impact our budget in a great way. Because I have a lot of baking already done and some more planned for company tomorrow, we decided not to inforce this until next month. It’ll take a lot of focus and prayer for me– I’m addicted to sugar. Its sad! I can’t go a day without a sweet!

So for us, 30 days of nothing is going to look a little different than for many of the other families participating. But something tells me that this challenge will work wonders on our self discipline and self control.

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