Our seventh month of No Spending is coming to an end. We have just five months to go. I continue to learn a lot about my attitude toward money and what motivates me to spend. For instance, we recently made plans for a major vacation next year. After we priced it all out, I became physically nauseous at the thought of spending a substantial amount of money on a pleasure trip. This surprised me, sort of.

I can give myself permission to spend money on practical items or even charity, but taking a vacation seems frivolous to me. Even thought the trip is important and meaningful to me, I still had a hard time putting the plans on paper. This was an interesting revelation to me – one that I’m still pondering.

I also get to feel my spending habits in more tangible ways by not spending. When I feel stressed, I want to head out shopping to buy something that will temporarily numb my stress. Although I’m not an excessive shopper, I still see the way stress motivates me to buy. If I were spending, I would obey the urge to shop and never realize the root of my sudden need for something new.

Without spending, I’m taking new opportunities to understand what motivates me to buy as well as how I justify my spending. When I want to buy, and I don’t, it creates a tension inside me that invites further reflection to resolve. I ask myself questions like: Why do I want to buy right now? What do I want to buy and why do I think it would help me?

These questions help me sort through the reasons I might buy. Sometimes I’m just bored and looking for something to do. Like last week, the kids and I wanted to do something fun and different than our normal routine. Eventually we thought of heading to the park for a picnic and feeding old bread to the ducks. We had a great time and went back for an encore on the weekend with Dad.

At other times, I am lonely or anxious or insecure and making a purchase promises to assuage my feelings, or at the very least, distract me for a little while. The reality is that spending money in this case will only be a temporary fix. That new outfit or handbag will not truly resolve whatever it is that has me down. So after the excitement of the purchase wears off, I will still have to deal with my emotions – or buy something else!

No Spending has definitely been a challenge at times, but it is providing greater clarity for me about my finances and my internal beliefs about money. These need to be examined more closely in order for me to grow and understand myself better. It is amazing to me how intrinsically connected spending is to other areas of life. The financial sphere has ties to emotions, status, self-image, security, and so much more. Just the simple act of not spending has uncovered a myriad of revelations about myself.