My No Spend Week - Natalie

We’ve challenged a selection of bloggers, content creators and the public to only spend their money on the essentials for one week. Check out the My No Spend Week hub for some inspiration on saving. Maybe a ‘no spend’ week could change how you view your spending habits?

We’ve quizzed our diarists all about how they feel about their spending habits before their challenge week and then after, how they might approach saving and spending in the future. Today we’re hearing from Natalie. 

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Hi, my name is Natalie and I’m the owner of UpYourVlog. I’ve been a blogger for over six years now and recently went freelance full-time as a blogger and writer. I am 27 years old and live in London. I have a busy lifestyle and often find myself in the city for both work and pleasure.

Are you a saver?

I try to save money where I can. As I'm self-employed, I pay myself weekly so will try to save straight away. My worst spending habit is online shopping because there's always a temptation in the form of email newsletters with discounts. During lockdown, I’ve been trying not to overindulge by spending money on take outs or buying more things out of boredom.

I’m saving for lots of things at the moment - getting married next year, saving for driving lessons and a car. Living in London, there's always temptation to spend so I certainly want to try and save more money where possible.

Take the No Spend challenge 

Monday

Monday is a time where I’ll have plenty of motivation to do my work from home and so I won’t normally feel tempted to spend any money. However, there’s always that temptation when you work from home to get distracted browsing online. We had our HelloFresh delivery, which is a weekly food delivery, but other than that, nothing else came out of my bank account.

Tuesday

I tend to procrastinate a lot on these days and I was certainly browsing online during my lunch break and into the evening to spend money on ASOS. As I was trying to do no-spending days though, I thought I could wait to buy clothes.

Wednesday

Mid-week and I’m doing well with my no-spending week. It’s nice to know that even though I am often good with my money, it goes to show that you can go at least a few days without spending any money. It’s all about resisting the urge to spend.

Thursday

We had run out of Nespresso pods for our coffee machine and as we’re not commuting into London or having regular coffee shop drinks, we needed some more. I would certainly say this was an expenditure that we could have gone without and in total we spent around £31 on 100 pods. That should keep us going for the next month or so!

Friday

Friday can certainly be a day where I’d be tempted to spend money as it’s the weekend and well, why not? I did succumb though as I wanted a new bikini for whatever summer we have left and I knew that it was going to be warm over the weekend so I bought a bikini set for £35.

Saturday

As part of the lockdown, we had a zoom call with friends and my partner ordered us some drinks for the call. However, it was a bit overkill at £52.

Sunday

No spending today. After looking back on my previous days, I feel like I let myself go and lost focus on trying to make this a no-spend week. It was certainly harder than I thought.

The verdict

I definitely did find the challenge difficult as the week went on though not so much to begin with. I didn’t really miss spending the money at the start of the week as I know that I can go a day or two without having to spend. However, it does feel nice to treat yourself every so often. The week overall was a big ask to not spend any extra money other than the necessities of food and bills. However, I’d like to think that I had a good balance of no-spend and spending days throughout the week. I spent £108 in total. I think if I’d have held back on the drinks on Saturday, I would have felt better. I think that was unnecessary spending, especially as we could have just nipped to the shops to get something else for a lot less.

I definitely had more of a thought process when it came to spending money this week and I think I can carry that with me on days where I feel like I need to spend, when actually I don’t. I think that attitude was somewhat ingrained with me already from what my parents taught me about the value of money. I think I’ve realised where I can save money and how to tackle those areas where I spend unnecessarily and can in future remove the situations that tempt me. 

This week has certainly opened my eyes to budgeting better. I think knowing how much I should spend each day is helpful. 

Your No Spend Week?

So, what do you think? Could you go a whole week and only spend on essentials? No treats or coffees or new clothes? Let us know on Twitter and Facebook and if you’d like to write your own ‘My No Spend Week’ diary – send us an email telling us all about yourself to socialcomms@thenottingham.com. Check out our range of savings accounts and our Essential Savings Guides too for some more tips and tricks for saving money.


*The featured content creators have been paid to take part in and keep a diary of their ‘My No Spend Week challenge’. However the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed belong solely to the content creator and the opportunity is open to members of the public too if they also wished to take part in the challenge. There is no commercial relationship between The Nottingham or content creator and any products or brand mentioned in their diary.

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