Join Scott and Nikki as they converse with 3rd Decade team member, Nicole, about how she's incorporated no-spend challenges into her life, as well as other ways she and her husband have financially, mentally, and physically challenged themselves and made discretion a huge part of their lives.
A few notes from Nicole:
A resource that may help in getting started (especially for those who aren't already used to cooking at home):
The 4 hour Chef
List of free activities to do:
Join Scott and Nikki as they converse with 3rd Decade team member, Nicole, about how she's incorporated no-spend challenges into her life, as well as other ways she and her husband have financially, mentally, and physically challenged themselves and made discretion a huge part of their lives.
A few notes from Nicole:
A resource that may help in getting started (especially for those who aren't already used to cooking at home):
The 4 hour Chef
List of free activities to do:
How's it going everyone. My name's Scott Bennett.
Nikita Wolff:I'm Nikki Wolff.
Scott Bennett:And thank you for tuning into the 3rd Decade podcast today. We're joined actually by another member of our team, Nicole Del Percio.
Nicole Del Percio:Hi everyone.
Scott Bennett:And she is going to talk with us today about something that I've never personally done. Nikki, have you ever done a"No spend challenge?"
Nikita Wolff:I have not.
Scott Bennett:Yeah. So I'm, I'm we talk about it in class and, and there's a few of our participants who like it, Nicole here has done them quite a few times, actually. So as we were thinking through different topics and stuff, we thought this would be a cool one. Basically a no spend challenge is a month or a period of time, whatever you set that you try and remove all of your discretionary spending a hundred percent of it. And some people do it differently. Some people even set up so far in advance, they remove almost all spending. Um, and it's really kind of a cleanse to say, what am I spending money on? And, and how do I stop doing it. Nicole, would you, would you add anything to that in terms of what, think, what you define a no spend challenge as.
Nicole Del Percio:Sure. So I would also add to that a no spend month, isn't a replacement for tracking your spending and having a proper budget. And it's also not,"I w on't spend this now, but as soon as I'm done with this, then g o on a spending binge."
Nikita Wolff:<affirmative> yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure that's a lot of people's propensity at the end of it, cuz they've feel like they deprived themselves if they're not approaching it with the right mentality. So what was it that initially inspired you guys to give it a try?
Nicole Del Percio:So I think one of the biggest things is really, we just love challenging ourselves. And so I think kind of the biggest thing that inspired us was kind of a, doing a fitness, financial wellness, kind of all in one month together, we really enjoy working as a team. So my husband and I always kind of do all these little challenges and fun spending things together. Um, we think it's kind of really good for our mindset to challenge ourselves, to do things kind of that maybe difficult just cuz we think it helps flex that muscle so that as we do find challenges in life, we don't wanna give up. We say, Hey, let's just keep going. And I don't know, I just really love this. We do it. I mean we do it twice a year.
Nikita Wolff:Does it help serve kind of as extra motivation when maybe one of you is struggling and then you kind of have the other person to hold you accountable or to motivate you back?
Nicole Del Percio:It definitely does help. I think that's why we like doing it together because we almost look at it as a little, friendly competition. Um, I'm very competitive in that sense and the very first challenge I like to say I won and he lost.<laugh>
Scott Bennett:So can you go back a little bit kind of when you all decided yours? Right. I, I touched on at the beginning that some people define it a little bit differently and stuff. What was yours? What were the basics of your no spend challenge or what are they when you decide to do them.
Nicole Del Percio:Sure. So I think the first one we, when we do it, we don't call them no s pend challenges. We like to incorporate lots of stuff when we do it. So our f irst, most called a July experiment. And then now we do what we call the January or July experience.< laugh> so really we like to modify our habits and make better choices. And so we actually create a spreadsheet f or ourselves and with that, a no s pend challenge. We also challenge ourselves to do things like make sure we take vitamins e very day. We have quality time together. We read books, we exercise an X amount o f number of days a week. No electronics outside of working hours. And so I think that really actually helps w ith t he no s pend challenge because obviously if you're not online shopping, you can't spend
Nikita Wolff:Definitely if you're Not exposing yourselves to advertisement.
Nicole Del Percio:Absolutely. Yes. I mean we started this back in 2014. So we've been doing this quite a long time and every time we do it, we add stuff to it. we found that now we know how to do them and they're pretty easy. So we like to add things that actually become a challenge. So the second time we did it, we actually did the n o electronics. So no internet, even we didn't even do like streaming music. We pulled out CDs and put them i nto a little CD player.
Nikita Wolff:Wow. Wow. I bet that was tough. At first
Nicole Del Percio:That one was really tough, but it was actually really nice to kind of just take a break away from all electronics. It's a hard thing to do. And we like to do that even when we go camping. So it's even nicer to do it when we're at home. And then we played board games, because I love board games games. So I made Tim play lots of board games that month with me.<laugh>
Scott Bennett:I love that. So what did you, did you have to do anything to prep for it to say, okay, we're gonna try and not spend any money on discretionary spending this month. Did you, did you buy anything before or anything like that before doing it?
Nicole Del Percio:So we did a lot of meal planning ahead of time, which was pretty difficult. Um, just because usually it would meal prep a week in advance and this was doing a whole month. Uh, so we did lot steps to go to the grocery store and purchase fresh fruit and veggies weekly, but that was really all of the spending we were allowed to do. So I think it was just kind of planning ahead and saying, these are things we can do during our, our no spend challenges. So we created kind of a whole list of things to do so that we weren't sitting here going, man, this sucks. We're not enjoying this time. We're not getting to do things we normally do. So we created a whole list of things and activities we could do during that time, which is really helpful for us.
Nikita Wolff:Yeah. That's a great idea. So you can't be like, there's nothing to, do you have a whole selection in front of you?
Nicole Del Percio:Absolutely.
Scott Bennett:That's awesome. So what were some of the most notable positive benefits, um, is specifically if you had any to, to your spending or how you both view money and stuff?
Nicole Del Percio:So I think it just kind of realigned our goals. We talked a lot about what we wanted to do. And so for us, we always like to have big challenges in our life. So at that time it was to pay off our house. And so it was kind of realigning our values and saying, okay, how can we best, make use of the money that we're bringing in and putting it towards the house or putting it towards investments. And so that was the biggest thing for us was just kind of relining our values and our goals together.
Scott Bennett:Cool. Nice. That's awesome.
Nikita Wolff:Very nice. What would you say are the hardest parts of the no spend challenge?
Nicole Del Percio:For our first nos been challenge, we did allow ourselves to spend a hundred dollars, as we wanted in that first time, just so that we, it didn't kind of feel like too difficult for us. So we each had a hundred dollars, Tim decided to pull money out of the bank. So he had it and I said, no, I'm gonna leave mine in the bank account. And so I think the hardest part was we had the sweetest little neighbor who would knock on our door and say, I baked some goodies. Would you like any treats? It's, you know,$5 and for me, I, no, sorry, don't have any money. But Tim, on the other hand he felt bad cuz he was, you know, a student athlete and who had to go door to door and do fundraising. And so he did spend money and that's why I won that, that challenge<laugh> but only cause he, you know, he understands.
Nikita Wolff:Soft spot for hardworking kids.
Nicole Del Percio:Absolutely. So I mean, I think that's the hard part is if you have, if you decide not to do a hundred percent no spend and you take money, know it's gonna be much easier to spend it.
Nikita Wolff:That's really interesting, that's it? Yeah. You know, I heard something recently about how like millennials view cash almost as like free money now mm-hmm<affirmative> like it's almost had the opposite effect. People used to say like, like the Ramsey method is like pull the cash out because it feels so much more real. Whereas people, our age like to spend on a debit card, you can watch your account dwindle. Whereas when, when I get paid back in cash or something, I just like stuff it away kind of. And then it's like, oh cool. Like I don't have to like actually really buy this cuz it's just kind of sitting around and I view it as like fake free money it's so I be the Tim in that situation a 100%<laugh>
Scott Bennett:Yeah, I hear you. I'm the same way. And I think, uh, there's some, some like painfulness when you have to buy a big purchase with cash, but I don't think many people do that anymore. Yeah. I I'm, if I have like five bucks in my wallet, um, I'm way more likely to like pick something up at the gas station and just throw that on there because it's not, I don't see that thing on my statements or whatever. Um, so I could, I could definitely see not drawing the cash before would, would maybe be helpful like you did. Um, were there any exceptions that you all made? I know you said you had a, you had a hundred dollars to spend a piece, but were there any exceptions to your no spend challenge?
Nicole Del Percio:We didn't put any exceptions in for spending. We do allow exceptions for the other items within the no spend challenge. Since we do the, the whole spreadsheet of like taking vitamins, we allow two exceptions to miss those things. But within spending, we don't allow exceptions in that.
Nikita Wolff:So two single exceptions, like you can skip your exercise that you were supposed to do that week. Once. Yeah. It's not like a whole day. You can mess up. No.
Nicole Del Percio:One of the activities. Exactly
Scott Bennett:Interesting. So I've heard people as well when, when talking about this and it it's much harder for a month. I, I think some people start at a week or trying to do a no spend challenge for a week or, or something like that. Cause I have heard and read articles about people who will fill up their gas tank. Right. And make sure that their groceries are so they're literally spending nothing for the week. Did you all do any of that?
Nicole Del Percio:So we didn't do that, but I mean, I think we kind of do that on a regular basis. Um, I think you often describe us as being extreme in that sense.<laugh> I don't look very disciplined be I think we like to look at it as like we're setting goals. Cause we have a long term vision and then we have this little short term motivation to help kind of set those long term goals into motion.
Scott Bennett:Yeah. I think that's huge for, for both of you. One thing that I've just seen how you is the almost gamifying of this stuff, it's your hobby, right? That that's cool. Uh, I think that's, that's awesome and it's really healthy and stuff. So, um, yeah, cuz because as my wife and I talked through it granted now I'm, I'm gonna be honest, some, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking like, oh man, how would we do this with our kids? Um, it would be a really cool lesson for them though. Especially as they get older, uh, Addie right now are trying to teach her, you know, what money is and, and you know, that things cost money and things like that. It would be really cool to get them involved really hard. Uh, but cool. I think as well to say, Hey, yeah, let's, here's why we're not spending anything and, and here's what we're doing. Um, but I think we'd have to give ourselves a little bit more flexibility. Yeah.
Nikita Wolff:Or a shorter time span.
Nicole Del Percio:Yeah, exactly. I think part of this is just it's creating those conscious spending habits versus that impulsive purchasing. Because I think a lot of times when we get something like our kind of our rule of thumb when we purchase is how will this, will this make my life better in the next five years? And if the is no, we really take that time to kind of think like, do we, do we really want this then? Or is it worth spending this money on this thing?
Nikita Wolff:Who do you think would benefit most from some, something like this?
Nicole Del Percio:You know, I think everyone benefits from doing stuff like this. I think the more you like if you're already really good at, with conscious spending habits, I think just then creating things that are more challenging for yourself. Because I think as humans, we do really well with, working on things and not just being complacent in life. And so I think everyone would benefit from doing these challenges every so often. I mean, we do them twice a year and really, it's just kind of a reset of those of those goals for ourselves. And so I don't expect people to do it twice a year. I mean, I don't even expect people to do it for a month. I just say do it for a week just to see where you're at.
Scott Bennett:Right, right. And it we've, we've touched on it a lot. This to me is like the ultimate guide to conscious spending. To me that is the secret sauce to budgeting or to, you know, having, uh, an income and expense tracker it's spending consciously. Right. And when I think in no spend challenges, uh, um, and what they accomplish, it forces you to consciously think about it and, and probably doing it a couple times a year, um, for the length of time you're doing it. Like now those other 10 months of the year, you know, so much better what you're spending on. Right.
Nicole Del Percio:Absolutely. I mean, we also are, are, uh, a little bit of freaks in the way that we track every month, our spending, I mean, we've done it so much. So that for a while we know that our biggest expense for us is groceries. Um, and so we tracked within our groceries, but was meat spending, uh, fruits and veggies, desserts, alcohols to see really where that money was going. And when we tracked it, we obviously spent a lot less in those categories because we were very conscious about what we were spending. So we're like, do we need dessert this week? Cuz last week we spent$40 on dessert. So I think it's just doing some stuff.
Nikita Wolff:For sure. It keeps you really honest with, especially if you're like finding yourself, like I'm spending more than I want to every month on groceries why is happening. It's like a very clear cut way to get your answer.
Nicole Del Percio:It is. And I think motivation behind why you wanna do nos spend challenge is important. I mean, I'm not a big fan of doing something to say, well now I get a reward because I did this no spend challenge. I think the motivation needs to be that the accomplishment of getting it done and doing it itself. I think people who are big spenders, don't like doing these challenges, like you said, it forces you to really take a, that reflective look in the mirror and say, Ooh, should I have bought these things? And it's not meant to be, make you feel bad about doing it. It's just meant to be, you know, looking at where you're at. So you can make sure that your, the way you're spending aligned with your values and goals.
Nikita Wolff:Well, and also I think that it's like exercising a muscle, like it's that discretionary muscle where if you, or somebody who is just like constantly buying things or not thinking before you buy things and then you have to like refrain for a month, it's kind of like, it's like any other muscle, if it, if you never use it, it's not strong. Yeah. And so if you intentionally create exercises to use it, like you'll get better at it.
Nicole Del Percio:I, I think that something that to also take into account is if you're doing a no spend challenge and you're used to eating out and not cooking at home, don't just jump in and say, okay, for a whole month, I'm gonna cook at home, practice those things and start doing it slowly and bring, start incorporating that into your regular, uh, routine before you do your no spend challenge because cooking, when you say all right, I'm just gonna cook at home. Sounds really easy, but was a lot of steps into cooking before you actually make, make those meals at home and do that meal planning.
Nikita Wolff:Yeah. And you wanna set yourself up for success, not like, you know, go from never cooking to thinking you're gonna be a chef suddenly it's, you're gonna fail immediately. Whereas if you set yourself up for success might play out differently.
Scott Bennett:As I'm thinking through this, you know, kind of applying it to our own lives. One of the challenges, I think that I wonder if you all ever had encountered this or continue to encounter it is did you have to do any training of kind of your family and your friends, right? You, you brought up not going out to eat and stuff, you know, I'm thinking you're invited somewhere and stuff. Did you tell people before, Hey, we're not, we're doing a no spend challenge. So if, if you wanna hang out, let's, let's do something where we don't have to spend money. Uh, I think that it, it's probably hard at the beginning, but I think it could be kind of cool to open up the dialogue that way to actually speak about money with, with your social circles.
Nicole Del Percio:Yeah, we did. We think it's really important to do that. And so when we were actually doing that, a lot of times our friends were like, oh, we'll come up for dinner and we'll make dinner here at our house. And we would just kind of rotate back and forth whose house we did dinner at. Um, I know my friends always have been very supportive a few years ago doing this in the middle of summertime and they had a pool party. And so they were having lots of food and everything that I wasn't partaking in. So I just brought veggies and different things that I had already had in my refrigerator ready to go. And that's what I took and ate that day. So I think it's just preparing in advance and knowing that it's okay to still be social and do things, just looking for them to do it in a no cost way.
Nikita Wolff:Just little modifications.
Scott Bennett:Yeah. And it forces you to have that conversation. It's like, okay. Um, yeah. It's not just like, no, we can't do that. It's like, no, here's, here's why it's a challenge. And knowing that it's not forever, um, I think it's a lot more digestible for people to think about. So something
Nikita Wolff:I can even speak to a little bit, uh, not in a spent challenge way, but in whenever I chose to deliberately like slash our eating out budget into like a third of what it was, I, uh, would have friends It's just kind of part of our social nature to be like, you wanna go get coffee? And I really like making coffee at home. I choose to make coffee at home pretty much every day. And so kind of following it up with like, um, I'd actually really enjoy making coffee at home. Would you be up for coming over? And I could make something for the two of us and then give them like the different options of the type of coffee I could make. So that way I'm not spending$5 at a coffee shop. Um, but I still get that experience of, you know, drinking an enjoyable beverage with a friend and having good conversation. And sometimes I've even like still made a thing of it and like met him at a park and just like brought it in like a Thermos so that it stays warm. So there are definitely options
Scott Bennett:For sure, for sure. And it's being creative and stuff. Well, Nicole, thanks for coming on. You could speak to so many of the things we speak on and, and your perspective, it's great, cuz you do so many any of them and you, you really are such a disciplined and you know, you think about money in such a kind of holistic way, which is great, which is what I think we can all approve on. So thank you for coming on and agreeing to answer our questions.
Nicole Del Percio:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Nikita Wolff:Thanks for listening to today's episode, Nicole's gonna provide us with some notes and resources that we'll attach in the episode description. And as always let us know if there are any topics you'd like for us to cover. We hope you're doing well. And we'll talk to you all in a couple of weeks.