Spending Freeze.

September was a great month for me. I celebrated my 27th birthday, rang in the greatest season of the year (AUTUMN♥), and accomplished a few goals. With Jenny's "Let's Make Habits" challenge, I blogged every day. I also did a wardrobe clean-out (more on that soon) and a spending freeze! I have to be honest, the spending freeze was really difficult, though not impossible.

For the entire month of September, I challenged myself to spend money on nothing besides gasoline. Since I live at home, I didn't have to worry about rent or food, so if you decide to do a spending freeze, you may want to factor in those kinds of things. I stipulated that I could go shopping or out to dinner only if I had gift cards or someone else was paying.

I started making a list in the Notes app on my iPhone of all the things I wanted to buy, but didn't. However after a few days the list was so long and repetitive that I stopped. It's really incredible how easy it is to spend money. Whether it's a caramel iced latte at Dunkin Donuts (my weakness), a bag of chips at Quick Chek, or some online shopping (Moorea Seal and Ruche had sales, guys). As tough as it was to not go out to dinner and on other money-spending excursions, it was fun to be creative and think of things to do that didn't require money. If you do make a list, I suggest you analyze it, or if you didn't make a list, simply think about your spending habits. What don't you need to spend money on? What do you spend too much money on?

Truth be told, I did break the freeze in the last week of September, but I made up for it during the first week of October. Hey, give me a break! It's hard to quit cold turkey. At the end of the month, I rewarded myself with this little blue leather Coach wallet. I might do this again in November, and maybe September's set-backs won't happen again. Learn from your mistakes, Lauren.

Here are a few main bullet points for you tl;dr-ers:
• Set specific guidelines for yourself at the beginning of the freeze.
• If you know you'll have to spend money on some things, account for that ahead of time.
• Make a list of all the things you want to buy, and analyze it!
• If you have a moment of weakness and buy a caramel iced latte like me, don't be too hard on yourself and make up for it another day!
• Reward yourself with something when you're done. You deserve it!

Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to leave more tips in the comments! :)