Well let me start of by saying that I am happy I called it a “No Buy Year” instead of a “No Spend Year” as my cat claimed most of my budget this month. She had gotten sick in the first few days of the new year and had to spend some days at the vet and we had to give her antibiotics and pain suppressants for a few weeks. But due to not buying anything I had enough money to pays the bills immediately.
January is always a expensive month for me as I pay for my health insurance for the full year, this saves a few percent each year. I also used a cashback website to get €20 back when I switched from health insurance provider.
As most people are still in lockdown I looked for entertainment to what I already have a bunch of steam games and a lot of e-books. This year I will aim to complete those as much as possible instead of looking to new things. Using what you have also saves a lot of time as you don’t have to bargain hunt for anything, because you are not going to buy anything. Another bonus was how simple it was to clean up my email accounts. Have a main one and a second one for spam or throwaway accounts. I could just unsubscribe or delete my account from all sites selling me something as I won’t buy it this year anyway.
On the income side I managed to get some extra money by selling a bicycle I did not use any more. This in turn also cleared up space in the storage area. After looking at my 2020 finances I managed to earn €1900 from all the things I have sold. This included some bigger items such as a motorcycle and a few laptops.
It was strange when the bell rang for a delivery, as I knew it was not for me because I did not order anything. Also saved a lot of time by not having to log any expenses in apps, as I did not spend anything outside of regular bills. Perhaps I could switch to just logging everything in spreadsheet as I don’t have that many transactions anymore.
February and March look to be easy months as well, no planned holidays due to lockdowns. I do hope to do some more motorcycle riding in March. As my motorcycle’s fuel economy is quite good it won’t cost me that much. Perhaps even a short international trip if the borders open.
