Seven Days Without Spending…

I was perusing my normal Sunday night CNN.com, and I saw the headline “Seven days without spending” and was enticed.  You see, I tend toward generally living frugally (except when relocating, which has been very costly)… but this was quite the extreme approach.

Honestly, the author sounds a bit like that eternally irritating guy that arbitrarily chooses something new and does it whole hog with no real planning.  To wit: I would never, EVER fathom entering into a gambit of no spending that would span my wife’s birthday.  I happen to have a very frugal wife, and even I know when to draw the freaking line!

But the gentlemen’s message is clear: we spend a lot more than we think on “every day living.”  The author even copped out a few times and elected to defer payments to his hair stylist, which in my book doesn’t count as not spending… deferring for the sake of proving a point and writing an nice CNN worthy piece smells a bit of niggling over the details, but I do have to applaud the guy for his dedication.

It sounds like he was very frugal to begin with, but this is not a step I am willing to take.  I have briefly considered trying to eat very cheaply for a month and see how that went, but I don’t think any span of time with a hard and fast “no spending” policy is a good one.  It just seems a bit masochistic to me!