***First post!*** Woohoo!***
This is a little personal challenge I gave myself, that I thought I would share. If anyone wants to join me, please feel free. I started at the beginning of 2014, but you can start at any time.
Net Zero 2014
I'm fortunate to still have some money left over after bills and heavy 'stash building, to the tune of a couple hundred bucks a month. However, I realized just how much of this disappears to purchase unnecessary junk -- but could instead be going toward busting me out of this joint (job)! So, I challenged myself to a net zero discretionary spending plan for 2014.
Basic Rule: I can buy anything I want for myself or others as long as I offset the purchase by selling something else I already own.
Supplemental rules:
1. Only non-neccessity items can be sold (e.g. no selling the fridge to buy a sweet watch).
2. "Flipping" (buying to resell for profit) is not only allowed, but encouraged!
3. "Going negative" is allowed, but after that happens no new purchases are allowed until enough items are sold to bring the balance into positive territory. (I admit that this rule can be abused, but it is here to allow me to take advantage of deals and timing -- especially with regard to items I'm flipping).
I know that this isn't the most Mustachian challenge ever (that would probably be "don't buy anything unnecessary ever, AND sell off all unnecessary junk"), but this is something do-able for me and I'm already seeing positive benefits from it.
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EDIT: CommonCents asked to see a breakdown of what kinds of expenditures are budgeted on a monthly basis, presumably so that it's easier for others to see what the actual nature of the challenge is. That's fair, because this challenge sure would be easy if I budgeted a bunch of personal luxury spending :) Anti-mustachian alert: there is some fluff in here. I know that. The point of this challenge is to attack the fluffiest fluff first... the fluff that used to blow away on a monthly basis, leaving me wondering where it went.
Items I budget for each month:
Mortgage
Grocery and household items
Storage locker fee (roundhouse facekick time! See below for commentary.)
Lawn service (See below for commentary.)
Internet
Netflix
Home improvement stash (not considered savings since we plan on spending it)
Car payment (See below for commentary.)
Car upkeep (insurance, gas, oil changes, tolls)
Haircuts - got a Wahl and my first home haircut in May!
Occasions (birthday, holidays, etc.)
Eating out (See below for commentary.)
Supplemental cancer insurance (See below for commentary.)
Student Loans
Savings (currently 46% of net income!)
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Additional commentary on anti-mustachian items:
Car loan: I should be able to pay this off by June if I want, but may not because 1.9% APR is far lower than the average annual return of the S&P500. It is a very reasonable car in excellent condition (2012 Mazda2, 24k miles at the time of this writing). 4/23/14 UPDATE: I elected to take the lump sum I had accumulated so far (about 75% of the payoff amount) and put it into the S&P500 index fund rather than pay off the loan early. Math wins.
Storage locker: Yeah, it makes me sick, too. This will be going away before year-end.
Eating Out: This is luxury spending, but is more like a family activity for us. There is a reason that Houston is one of the fattest cities in the nation: the restaurant food here is amazing. (Also, the outdoors are miserable for 6 months out of the year.) We've cut back on this, but are not cutting it out completely.
Supplemental cancer insurance: I'm looking into whether we actually need this, but both sides of the immediate family have cancer history.
Lawn Service: I talked about this in another thread, but Houston reaches miserable (even dangerous) levels of heat and humidity for a large portion of the year. As a past victim of heat stroke, it affects me even more now than it used to. I'll leave it to the guys that are acclimated to the weather and own/maintain all of the equipment. I do look forward to the day that we move away from here and live somewhere where I can xeriscape/naturescape and eliminate this activity entirely.
