At the end of December my husband and I discussed our finances. Our finances aren’t horrible, but they could definitely be better. That is why we decided to embark on a 90 day no buy challenge.
We are in the process of moving from one of the many islands in Sweden to the capital city Stockholm. My husband got a job there, and I am in the process of looking for a job in that location, as I need to quit my current job on the island once we move.
Moving from the island to the mainland is expensive, and we also have to pay one month of rent up front for the rental in Stockholm. Adding to our financial strain is a condo on the island which we own and have been unable to sell. Housing prices dropped by around 30% in my area and I would lose around $60,000 if I sell now. Therefore, we decided on what we considered the lesser of two evils, renting.
I wish I could tell you that I will be renting my condo out at cost or above, but I am not. The economy here in Sweden tanked and interest rates were raised to counteract rampant inflation. Unlike in America, you cannot lock in a 30 year fixed mortgage rate here, which meant that when the interest went up we ended up paying double in interest costs. Our home owners association fee was also increased by $200 a month. Our total costs now amount to $1,700 a month and no one is willing to pay that in rent, so we ended up renting it out for the $1,350 a month someone offered us.
Putting all these factors together, plus the unknown situation about how long it will take me to find a job and we decided to go cold turkey on shopping for a while. We agreed that the only things we could buy during this no buy challenge were necessary items and presents for birthdays. Our aim is to use the saved money to cover our moving expenses and first month of rent.
Table of Contents
The Rules of the Challenge
For our no buy challenge we decided that we could not buy anything that wasn’t necessary with the exception of birthday presents. Our daughter has her birthday in January, and while she doesn’t need anything, she would be very unhappy to not receive a present or have a birthday party. She is nine.
Necessary items are defined as things that we need such as car gas, food, pet supplies (we have a cat), and medications from the pharmacy as needed. We decided that all other items weren’t necessary because we all had enough. We even decided to forgo buying clothing, not that we do this often anyway. We said that clothing could only be purchased if a clothing item got lost or was damaged. In my daughter’s case, we made an exception. She is growing and I will most likely have to replace some of her clothing within this 90 day period as she grows out of it. She is also notorious for losing her winter gloves.
Results Thus Far
Today, we are exactly 33 days into the no buy challenge have not purchased anything. I cannot say exactly how much we saved by not buying anything, but I am going to guess around $500. Looking over past excel files, I had a lot of months where I put down figures between $300-$1,500 a month in the spend money category. Now in my defense, I put random expenses in this category as well. By random I mean unexpected things like dental bills, car repairs, and replacing items that broke. Presents for others were also placed in this category. The highest month which was around $1,500 included plane tickets I bought to visit my mom and dad in America.
While some of the above named purchases aren’t necessary, I don’t feel right about not sending a gift to my family members on their birthday and Christmas. A plane ticket to America is also not a necessary expense, but I want to see my mom and dad once a year. However, if I am brutally honest about my prior spending habits, I wasted a lot of money. Much of the $500 a month in spending wasn’t on presents or plane tickets, or unforeseen expenses. Rather, it was spent on what I now consider to mostly be junk.
My Personal Biggest Money Waster
I love playing video games, and it is also my biggest money waster. We own three Nintendo Switches and a PlayStation 5. I bought the first Switch. Then about six years laters we ended up purchasing two more. My daughter wanted a Switch to use while traveling. We travel a lot as we live on an island and have to take a four hour boat trip to the mainland. My husband eventually also wanted to get in on the gaming goodness and bought a Switch for himself since he travels the most of all of us.
The problem with this, however, is that it was costly. We spent about $1,000 on the three Switches and another $400 on the Play Station 5. Costs didn’t end there, however. Add in the nearly 100 games purchased for these two systems, mostly by me, and the costs are staggering. Now, I rarely buy a game for its full price. This means that around 80% of my purchased games were discounted. Despite this, I paid around $45 per game. Multiply that with 100 and you are up at $4,500. Add all that up and you reach a total cost of $5,900.
I wish I could say the costs stopped there, but they didn’t. Nintendo Switch is notorious for having controller issues. The controllers get joy con drift about once every two years and need replacing. That sets you back about $80 each time you need to replace the controllers. So far we have had to replace 3 sets of joy cons. Add in a pro controller for another $100 and the upgraded yearly Switch family subscription for about $70 and the costs get even higher. I also ended up buying a Play Station Portal for around $250 because we only have one TV in our house.
Adding in all the extra costs comes to around another $1,150. Total costs spent on gaming over the last 8 years comes to a grand total of $7,050. I don’t regret buying the console systems, but I do regret buying as many games as I did. The truth is, I haven’t played most of them because I don’t have the time. I could have easily saved around $3,000 simply by only purchasing the games I really wanted and had time to play.
Instead of wasting this money, I could have paid down my debt. When I factor in the fact the I decided to forgo paying down my debt to buy games I don’t have time to play the costs become worse. Unpaid debt carries a high amount of interest and I regret not getting serious about paying down my debts earlier. While I don’t carry credit card debt, thankfully, I do have other debts which include a car loan, a student loan, and a housing loan. Interest rates on these vary, but I definitely could have saved myself a few hundred dollars a year in interest simply by paying down my debts as opposed to buying games.
What I Learned So Far
So far I have learned a few things from the no buy challenge. The first being that I do not need to buy a new game every month. I was really excited at the end of last year, because I knew that two new Switch games would release that I wanted. These were Hello kitty Island Adventure, and Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. The truth, however, is that I totally forgot about the fact I even wanted these games until nintendo sent an announcement to my email stating that they were now available for purchase.
When I got the email I had mixed feelings. At first I felt sad because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to buy the game without failing on my no buy challenge. I thought I was going to miss out on a fun gaming experience. Additionally, these games were child friendly games, and I was looking forward to playing them together with my daughter. However, I realized a few minutes later that I had completely forgotten about the games until that email came, and decided the games weren’t that important. If something is really important, you will remember it, usually.
I also realized that buying stuff wouldn’t help me to spend more time with my daughter, which is something I need to prioritize more. I have a few boxes filled with items that I purchased for my daughter. I thought that if I bought games and toys that we both liked, that I would spend more quality time together with her. The truth is it really didn’t. We have used only about a third of what I purchased. The rest have just been money wasters, and remind me of the fact that I haven’t spent as much time with her as I should.
Another problem with buying so much stuff is that you are hit with decision fatigue. When I ask my daughter which toy or game she wants to play with, she can’t decide. A lot of times she even tells me she is bored, despite having boxes filled with toys. I think if she had less toys and games, she would easily be able to decide what to play with. Owning less also teaches you to appreciate what you have, and this is a lesson she needs to learn. It was also a lesson I needed to learn.
When I was a kid I had video games, but just a few. I played the same games over and over again on my Nintendo 8 bit. I loved playing the original three Mario games for Nintendo, and I also loved playing Duck Hunt. On the weekends my family would enjoy playing a pin ball game on the system called Roller Ball, and we had two RPG games that we enjoyed called Faxanadu and Milon’s Secret Castle. I had way less than 100 games as a kid and I also appreciated them way more. I was almost never bored, and I also had very little trouble deciding what to do during my free hours.
Thinking back on my life as a child I realize it was much simpler than the life I live today, and it was much more productive. I lived with less, but had so much more. Having less game me more time, taught me to appreciate the things I did have, and let me focus on important things like my relationship with others. Since moving away from my simple life to the life I have today I lost so much. I lost time, I lost money, I lost relationships with people I didn’t keep in contact with because I spent more time with my stuff than with them.
I started to realize these things a few years ago as I started to declutter and got rid of around 60% of my stuff, and the no buy challenge has so far just reinforced what I have been in the process of learning. Buying stuff doesn’t always bring happiness. In fact it usually doesn’t. You cannot buy lasting happiness or love at a store. Happiness and love come from spending real quality time with the people you love most.