We saved $1,000 going 28 days without credit cards – sort of
Going on a cash diet isn’t what I’d call fun, but the circumstances and thoughts that run through your head are often funny – in retrospect. ⬤ In May, my family went on a cash diet and essentially put away anything other than cash. ⬤ We weren’t putting a lot of thought into the money we spent online, in stores or restaurants. Those 28 days on the cash diet – what some call “cash stuffing” – offered a kind of reset that I’d suggest that anyone consider if, like me, you come to the end of a billing cycle and wonder where your paycheck went. ⬤ Did we succeed? Yes. Were we perfect? No, not even close. ⬤ The pandemic ushered in a lot of credit-card only situations. And I knew at least a few times during that month I wouldn’t avoid hearing my money bleep out of a credit card as I waved it over a reader. I just thought I might be better at it.
Day 0: Here goes nothin’ ... on our credit cards
On the eve of this very small money challenge, I feel apprehensive. It’s not like we can’t stop this experiment at any time or handle emergencies if they crop up. Maybe I just don’t want to know about our spending.
Day 1: Our envelopes of cash
After visiting the bank over the weekend, we have six envelopes filled with a combined $2,000:
⬤ Son’s lunch (five days a week): $150 ⬤ Gasoline (one car): $50
⬤ Lunch Jim work (once a week): $40 ⬤ Takeout Thursday: $460
⬤ Groceries: $1,100
⬤ Miscellaneous: $200
Day 2: Cash diet dreams
The refrigerator is emptying. My wife and I are realizing that one of us will have to break down and bring a big wad of cash to the grocery store. Jen even had a dream last night that we ran short of cash at the register. In the dream, she digs into a pile of old papers to find bonds from my grandmother that she reluctantly considers handling over for our groceries.
Day 3: Expensive haircut?
Ugg, my son wants his usual expensive haircut. If I swap the gas money with the miscellaneous cash, we can swing this, but he guesses he also needs $40 to gas up the car. Once this is over, I’m getting some clippers on Amazon and looking up haircutting on YouTube.
Day 4: Rations getting low
And there it is. I ate the last three eggs. The store is inevitable now. I’m seriously going to have to face how much more expensive everything is. One bright spot: Tonight is take-out night – one vestige of the pandemic I cling to
and the family tolerates. Maybe we can still push this grocery thing another day.
Takeout night: That was easy. Rather than wait for someone to drop off our food, I drive the three miles to pick up our food, wait a couple minutes and save at least $15 to $20 on a tipping. I know that’s a whole different discussion.
Day 5: Getting groceries – Part 1
Jen draws the short straw for the first trip to the grocery store. She pulls $70 from the grocery envelope and off she goes.
Good thing she also has more than $50 of miscellaneous money in her wallet as she watches the numbers blip higher and higher on the register screen. She hands $112 over, and the woman at the register stares at the bills for several moments–like she’s not certain of what she’s holding–before she returns a handful of change.
Day 6: The party???
When your spouse says, “Honey, we’re going to go on a cash diet for a month!” shouldn’t that person alert you to any upcoming gatherings at your house? Just asking for a friend. We spend $300 preparing for the gathering – almost a seventh of our budget for a few hours with friends. Thankfully, and unexpectedly, all of our guests arrive with something to add to the festivities. Looks like we have a couple of days worth of leftovers, including a lot of cheap beer.
A roll of pennies? My son and his girlfriend beg off hanging out with a bunch of 50-somethings talking about vinyl records and interior design. I give them $20 out of the “Thursday takeout” envelope for dinner. Result: Two pizzas for under $20. Change: a few ones and a roll of pennies because the restaurant doesn’t have any quarters.
Day 7: Miscellaneous shopping
My wife and I pillage our miscellaneous envelope and purchase a few discounted items at a street fair. We might have $25 of the original $200 left with three weeks to go.
Day 8: Trading work for dinner
My cash-strapped son asks if we can help out with his one-year anniversary dinner. In different times, I might say: “Sure, but keep it under control.” Here, I feel compelled to make a deal. He can have a portion of our Takeout Thursday money if he promises to make us dinner on Thursday instead. He eagerly accepts.
Day 9: A cash-free day!
Maybe we can go a day without spending any cash. That would certainly help. Jen creates a dinner plan and shopping list for the coming week that will fit around our budget.
Day 10: You’re what?
Uh oh, my other son is coming home from college. Why don’t I have that built into our budget? He’s probably the best saver among us, and he’ll be on board with this craziness. But our food expenses are about to grow by at least a third.
Day 11: What? More gas for the car?
Seriously, is my son just leaving the car running each night? Note to anyone else starting a cash diet: Make sure your cars are completely fueled up before you start. There’s some learning going on, though. He’s not asking to use his credit card. He texts me to say he’s dipping into his lunch money to pay for the gas. Still, that lunch money needs to be replenished from somewhere.
Day 12: Diet goes off course
My son and I really cheated today. I didn’t create an envelope for golf, which is a huge oversight if you know how often my sons can golf in a month. Another pandemic vestige. And, yes, I should have pulled money out of an envelope to at least pay in cash and feel the exchange of cash. It doesn’t really matter; the course is credit only. So golf and pizza afterward are all on credit. So ashamed.
Day 13: Beautiful day, bad choices
I need a haircut. My wife and I decide to take advantage of a beautiful morning. I collect my cash, and we walk the couple of miles to the shop. After paying the bill and tipping, we have all of $10, but, darn, it’s a great day. So many restaurants with outdoor seating, and I don’t have an ATM card. Don’t judge me. Lunch is delicious. Clearly this cash diet isn’t going to be one for the books – unless it’s on track to be the worst.
Day 14: Boozy brunch
Friday and Saturday were rough, but we’ll right the ship today. My wife is just hanging out with a few college friends for brunch. She says the wad of stray bills from a couple of envelopes will do the trick. That’s until the brunch cocktails start piling up. The bill is divided up, and out comes the plastic. Ugg.
Day 15: Halfway done. Are we done?
This whole thing is going sideways. A weekend on credit cards. If we had just prepared, we’d have a lot less cash now, but at least we wouldn’t be back to using our credit cards. There’s no rule against drawing money from an ATM. This exercise is all about feeling the cash slip through your hands.
Come on, Sergents. We can do this!
Day 16: Prepping for another mouth to feed
My older son will be here soon. There’s no way we’ll make it with the amount of money remaining in our envelope. Last week we received more than $500 in dental and medical reimbursement checks. I’m going to reverse the cash tide and bring those pieces of paper to the bank. It will be nice for a change to get money back for a few pieces of paper.
Day 17: More gas!!
My younger son hits me up for another $60. More gas and dinner (he’s working late).
Day 18: Electric slide
I’ll soon be heading out the door to to pick up my other son. Of course, our only vehicle big enough is an electric SUV that I’ll need to plug in before we return home. Just try finding an EV charger that takes cash. It only amounts to a $15 charge.
Day 19: Cash crickets
It’s 5 p.m. and no one has asked me for cash today? How is that possible?
Maybe everyone is tired of hearing me gripe.
Day 20: The glass isn’t that broken
Loose gravel flying off a dump truck cracks my windshield as I’m driving to pick up my older son. The crack isn’t across the entire windshield. Yes, when the sun hits the crack just right, it’s blinding, but it can probably wait until the cash diet is over. Right? This diet is leading to some of the oddest thoughts.
Day 21: Mother’s Day
My wife takes my sons off for a Mother’s Day hike and brunch – for which she plays by the rules and hits up a nearby ATM – twice.
Day 22: Hair. Gas. When does it stop?
One son needs a haircut. The other needs to gas up the car. AGAIN! Don’t know if they’re feeling the pain, but I am. Another $100 out the door.
Day 23: Five days to go and already reflecting
We’re almost there. Probably one last big weekly shop tomorrow. Our remaining cash in our grocery envelope should easily cover the bill. It’s funny how these envelopes of cash make you feel as if they’re the last dollars you have in the world, and you want to stretch each of those final dollars as far as possible.
Day 24: The last big grocery shop
That was surprisingly easy. I even bring change with me so I can keep an extra $1 bill intact. I’m a couple pennies short, but the guy checking me out lets it pass. It’s oddly fulfilling to rid yourself of a bunch of change by handing it to a merchant. (Yes, I recognize using credit cards doesn’t leave you with stray pennies and nickels in your car’s cupholders.)
Day 25: The setup starts
“Hey, Dad, there’s only three days left in the diet. Right?”
“Yep.”
Day 26: Splat
“Hey, Dad, there’s only two days left in the diet. Right?” “Yep. Why?”
“So I can get these shoes. “$180?!?!?”
“So that’s a ‘no’?”
Note to anyone else starting a cash diet: Make sure your cars are completely fueled up before you start.
Day 27: More hair care
Halfway through my weekend run I start reveling in the thought that we still have plenty of cash left. Maybe we could even go an extra week? This is also the time in my training runs where I frequently think: “Maybe I’ll run a marathon some day.” A few miles later, I’m home and my wife needs more than half of what we have left for her hair appointment. I’ll never run a marathon.
Day 28: The finish line with a caveat
The moment of truth: All of our credit card companies monthly bills have arrived. We went sideways halfway through the diet, but otherwise, these bills should be very easy on the eyes. WHAT! Look at all those subscription fees!
4-weeks of pain, $1,000 of gain
In reality, I wasn’t terribly surprised to find subscriptions filling up our credit card statements at the end of our cash diet, but the totals were eye-opening.
Regardless of our large subscription charges, the much smaller balances on our credit cards quickly suggested to me that we spent less that month. We’re not a thrifty bunch, so saying we saved more than $1,000 isn’t like saying we cut our spending in half. My calculations put our savings closer to $1,500, but it’s a bit of a guess because what we buy changes from month to month.
Tips for tracking and stashing your savings
Still, saving $150, $1,000 or $1,500, that’s real money. Some tips to track your cash diet (one I wish I’d considered before embarking):
⬤ Put all your credit card expenditures from a recent month in a spreadsheet. Organize them in groups and total them. That establishes how many envelopes you’ll need and a benchmark for how much money you’ll want in each. My guess fell way short on gas spending.
⬤ Track where all your cash goes each day. I kept all of our receipts (I thought), but in the end, some receipts didn’t make it back to the cash envelopes. So I’d suggest a second tab on the spreadsheet where you account for each day’s cash disbursements.
⬤ It’s not “savings” if you spend the money in the next month. That $1,000 went into our savings account along with the $2,000 I originally withdrew. Hopefully most of the $1,000 will stay in there when the windshield repair bill comes in.
Not a bad reward for putting up with some inconvenience. And, sorry to all the cashiers who had to endure this exercise, too. You’ll be glad to know we’re back to our bleeping credit cards.