You may have heard of frugal February. But “no buy” July?
The seventh month has become the seasonal focus of the “no spend” budgeting trend, popular on social media, in which people swear off discretionary spending for a period of time to save, pay down debt or just get a handle on their finances.
The interest in fiscal fasting comes as many Americans deal with financial uncertainty. Millions of student loan borrowers are in default, and many others are struggling with making payments again after a long pandemic-era pause. Late credit card payments are rising. And while inflation has moderated, worries persist that tariffs will stir it back up.
“Things are very expensive right now,” said Jasmine Renae Ray, a certified financial planner in Tulsa, Okla. “People are asking: ‘How do I save money? What can I control?’”
Seeing how much you can save by eliminating nonessential items can make it more of a game than a painful slog, said Gretchen Rubin, the host of the “Happier” podcast, who wrote about her own experience with a no-spend month. “It’s a fun experiment,” she said. “It forces you to face up to your spending habits.”
There has also been something of a cultural shift, with some Americans more willing to talk openly about money — or the lack of it — and to embrace more restrained spending, said Janelle Sallenave, chief spending officer at Chime, a financial technology firm. “Being frugal was viewed as being cheap,” she said. “Now, it’s being viewed as smart.”
OK, but why July?
February has traditionally been considered a prime month for temporary belt-tightening as people aim to pay off credit card bills from year-end holiday spending or try to stick to New Year’s financial resolutions. It’s less clear why July, more typically associated with taking time off from work, has become a target of aspiring tightwads.
“The month of July seems, to me, a bad choice,” said Annamaria Lusardi, director of Stanford University’s Initiative for Financial Decision-Making. Depriving oneself during a spell of planned relaxation, she said, may be even more challenging than at other, more structured times of the year. (When she returns to her native Italy for a break, she said, she likes to have two ice creams a day instead of just one.) It’s also a month when some families with children may begin back-to-school shopping, putting them in spending mode.
Some enthusiasts attributed the choice of July at least in part to a clever title. “It rhymes, and it’s very catchy,” Ms. Rubin said, which makes it easy to remember.
Still, some financial planners said examining spending habits in the summer could make sense. If you set financial goals in January, revisiting your resolutions in July to see if you’re making progress can be helpful, said Gloria Garcia Cisneros, a certified financial planner in Los Angeles. “It’s a check-in time, halfway through the year,” she said.
Paula Holloway, a plus-size fashion influencer in Indiana who has a blog, said she had come to “crave” periodic spending fasts since trying one a few years ago. She contended that it might be easier for some people to cut back in July because spending time outdoors could blunt the lure of online shopping and help combat any feelings of sacrifice. “It’s summer, and we have plenty of other things going on, so we’ll be distracted,” she said.
What insights can a spending break offer?
Ms. Rubin said deciding in advance not to buy extras for a month freed up time otherwise spent researching items and debating whether to purchase them. “The decision fatigue goes away,” she said.
Ms. Holloway said pledging not to buy new clothes for a month helped her become more creative with the wardrobe pieces she already had in her closet. She now thinks of outfits like recipes: Sometimes you just need one ingredient, rather than a whole new ensemble. “I came out of it more strategic about what I was going to buy,” she said.
The process helped her be more mindful about spending, particularly as she and her husband approach retirement age, said Ms. Holloway, who is 60. “Everything I say ‘yes’ to now is a ‘no’ to something else,” she said.
Can ‘spending diets’ have lasting effects?
James Choi, a professor of finance at the Yale School of Management, said he wasn’t aware of any research showing whether cutting back on spending for a short time could improve a person’s finances in the medium or long term. “My instinct is that, like with diet, sustained lifestyle changes are necessary to move one’s financial needle in the long run,” Professor Choi said in an email.
And a spending fast may be followed by a buying binge, much as severely depriving yourself of food can lead to a backlash of overeating. But it’s not clear if spending works the same way, he said. “We just don’t know.”
Dr. Lusardi said she favored a more consistent approach to budgeting and spending. “My concern is, you know you are doing this in July, so you spend more in June,” she said. “It’s a little bit tricky.”
Also, she noted, people are bombarded by marketing messages, via email and text promotions, urging them to buy. Without a sustainable spending plan throughout the year, she said, “I don’t think a challenge for a month is going to overcome that.”
What if I want to try ‘no buy’ July?
The idea is to limit any spending beyond basics like rent, utilities, groceries and medical care.
But there are no hard and fast rules, and you can decide for yourself what sort of things to forgo, and how to define a “frill.” Is taking an Uber allowed? What about ordering food from DoorDash? Ms. Rubin said she and her sister, who joined her in a no-spend month, agreed that buying gifts for others was allowed if a birthday was imminent, but stocking up on gifts for the future was not.
Ms. Cisneros advised using the spending break as a time to build awareness. “Spending breaks can be powerful if they’re approached with the right mind-set,” Ms. Cisneros said. You can consider, she said, “Where is your money going? Is it going to things that matter to you? Where should the money really go?”
Rather than ‘no,’ try ‘low’
Spending breaks are options mainly for people who have room in their budgets to afford nonessentials in the first place, Ms. Cisneros said. “These are folks who can afford to cut down.” If your budget is already tight, consider cutting back for a shorter period — say, a week — or trying a more flexible “low” rather than “no” buy month, she said.
One possible tactic to try during no-buy July, several people suggested, was to write down the item or items you want to buy, rather than simply hitting the “buy” button. Then, revisit the list in August to see if you still want to buy any of the items.
Ms. Rubin said her no-spend month spurred her to consider new ways to pare back purchases. She said that she loved to read, but that the stack of books she had bought had become unmanageable. So this year, she is having what she is calling a summer of “tsundoku,” a Japanese word for the habit of letting books pile up unread. Rather than buying more books, she is reading what is already on her shelves.
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