My $21 Budget Update

Good Morning DINKS.  We recently published a post that featured budgeting tips from Fiona Lippey, she is a financial guru who is known for smart budgeting and great savings tips. Lippey is also an author who shares her savings tips with readers on how she lives on only $21 per week.

In an effort to determine how realistic a $21 per week budget can be and because I am a person who rarely turns down a challenge I decided to launch and accept the Dinks $21 Challenge. I wanted to see if I (and our readers) could live on a $21 per week budget just like Fiona Lippey.  I am not going to lie; I honestly didn’t think that anyone could happily live on only $21 per week. But to my surprise, I did.  There were definitely things that I lived without all week as I only spent $21 on myself, but I would definitely not say that I was unhappy.

The $21 Challenge

We launched the Dinks $21 Challenge and we asked if our readers would join us. We wanted to know if we (and you) could live on only $21 per week. If you took the Dinks $21 Challenge and blogged about it please send us a link so we can share it with our readers.  We want to know if you could live on only $21 per week, we want to know what you bought with your $21, and we want to know if your spouse was able to do the same.

$21 per week is not a lot of money, so trust me when I say that when you only have $21 to spend on yourself for an entire week you will definitely make it work.  You want to get the most out of your money and you will be surprised at where you can find some deals.  I constantly found myself looking for coupons and going out of my way to find deals on snacks, food, books and movie tickets.

Depending on how you interpreted the challenge, living on $21 per week could be an average of bulk spending throughout the month or it could a micro budget of actually only spending $21 per week on personal items.

How I lived on a $21 per week budget

Last week I spent my $21 on snacks, a movie rental, and two subway tickets.  I would have enjoyed my $21 a little bit more but I wasn’t feeling well so I had to take the subway to work two days last week.

I definitely gave up a lot of personal items last week such as a new blouse and a new shirt that I wanted.  However I didn’t let temptation get the best of me, even though both tops were both on sale I didn’t buy them. In an effort to stay within my $21 budget I brought my lunch to work every single day last week.  I spent my lunch hour outside with friends instead of shopping or waiting in line for my meal at the food court.

I learned that living on a limited $21 per week budget was not as restricting as I thought it would be.  I lived without some items that I wanted, but those items are just excessive and unnecessary.

I am not sure if I will stick to the $21 per week budget because sometimes I spend triple that amount on myself in a week. Besides, what would I do with all of the extra money that I could save? As our friend James mentioned in a previous post I am not working towards achieving a target net worth.  As long as I save for my future and achieve all of my personal and financial goals I am happy.

Could you live on only $21 per week as a couple?

Photo by adamb

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.