The $1,000 Challenge

[nsarwark]

Brian O'Connor wrote a nice book, "The $1,000 Challenge" adapted from a series of newspaper columns about how he cut $1,000 per month out of his family budget.  It's nice to see a personal finance writer taking things a bit farther than the standard "stop buying lattes at Starbucks" line.  My quick review of the book is here.

-Nick

[Jamesqf]

Yeah, except that if I cut $1K out of my non-mortgage spending (I don't actually budget), I'd be negative - which would be a nice trick if I could manage it :-)

[ch12]

Yeah, except that if I cut $1K out of my non-mortgage spending (I don't actually budget), I'd be negative - which would be a nice trick if I could manage it :-)

Yeah, except that if I cut $1k out of my total spending, I'd be negative.

But in my case, that'd probably mean that I was mooching off of my parents and living in Siesta Key...which, come to think of it, wouldn't be a terrible outcome.

Beyond making and spending my own money, that is.

[mariarose]

I own and have read the book.  I thought the author was a good, clear writer who was able to make his points in a clever and humourous way.  Nice bits of exaggeration from time to time, and the stories flowed with ease.  Frankly, the book inspired me to come up with my own challenge based on my own circumstances.  No, not $100.00 per week for 10 weeks, as I don't even earn that, let alone have enough fat to cut that out! I agree that his categories/strategies were not ones that pertained to my life.  The part where he wrote of finding ongoing charges on his credit card that he simply had not examined for a long time was funny and well written.  And I took it as a caution that if I were unwise enough to put an ongoing charge on my card, I may need to be more diligent about getting it off.  Might be a lot better for me if I forego the expense in the first place.  (The way to hell is paved with good intentions thing!)  I am planning to gift the book to someone else who I think will enjoy it, and who has a much more mainstream income/way of life than do I.  Nicely written book, made me think, was not a life changer (for me), enjoyable read.  Does not deserve to be panned.

[MrsPete]

Interesting concept, and I'd like to read the book.  I'm always interested in ways to cut back on things; however, I doubt I could cut out $1000/month -- we're not big spenders now, and the things upon which we do spend aren't really negotiable. 

[BZB]

I just read this book and was planning to write a review here, but found this thread in the search results first. I agree with other posts that the book is geared toward people who have mainstream, consumerist spending patterns. However, it did make me start thinking what kind of personal spending challenge I could do. The aspect I liked best about his $1,000 challenge was he was cutting recurring expenses, so it has a substantial impact over time. This challenge originated as a feature in his personal finance newspaper column, to cut $100/month for 10 months. I liked that he chose a different category to focus on each month. I think that would make it easier to make a habit out of the changes. For example, if I spent a whole month focusing on permanently cutting at least $100 in transportation expenses, it would give me enough time to develop and reinforce new habits before changing my focus to the next topic.

[grantmeaname]

There's prior discussion over in the book club, and a BIG thread on two others with a similar conceit, if you're interested.