How To Have An Awesome Weekend (And Spend No Money Doing It)

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Here’s my challenge to you: this weekend, spend no money. That’s right – I challenge you to spend No. Money. At. All.*

A super way to save a little cash is to have a no spending weekend (or better yet a week!).

Weekend spending can really add up, whether it’s from kids’ activities, dining out, going to a movie, or shopping.

Now, you may have to prep a little (make sure you have food and drink!) but, hey, it’s only two days, for goodness sake. You’ll survive! I have faith in you. And you may be amazed at the savings and creative things you’ll find to do with your time

*Okay, so you’ve got plans this weekend – do it next weekend, but just do it!

(We had a pseudo no-spend weekend recently – read on to see what we did!)

Things To Do On a No-Spend Weekend

  1. De-clutter (and sell your stuff – turn it into a money-making weekend!)
  2. Attend free music/movies in the park
  3. Have a picnic
  4. Hike
  5. Go to a park
  6. Bike ride
  7. Play board/card games
  8. Host a potluck
  9. Learn a new skill (change your own oil 🙂 )
  10. Read a book
  11. Try a new recipe
  12. Play with your kids
  13. Create a piece of art for your home
  14. Sort, print and organize photos on your phone and computer
  15. Build a fire – in a fireplace or fire pit either at home or at a local park
  16. DIY something (refinish or paint some furniture)
  17. Visit a free museum
  18. Volunteer
  19. Camp in your backyard
  20. Go fishing
  21. Go to the beach
  22. Explore your library (movies/books/passes)
  23. Take pictures
  24. Make a budget
  25. Re-design a room using what you have at home (using Pinterest for inspiration!)
  26. Make lists (holiday, meal plans, back-to-school)
  27. Write your goals
  28. Garden
  29. Slow it down (just relax!)
  30. Host a clothing swap
  31. Write
  32. Draw or paint
  33. Play a video game
  34. Organize your cabinets
  35. Sit outside and take in your surroundings with a good cup of coffee/tea, or a spiked lemonade 😉

We had a pseudo no-spend weekend a couple of weeks ago. Here’s what we did:

Saturday

Promotional test at our martial arts school. As black belts at the school, my husband and I help out with the test. We hold boards, work with students, spar and judge at the test. Since many of the black belts have a tradition of meeting for breakfast prior to the test, we didn’t skip this. So, breakfast was the only exception to our no-spend weekend (we spent $39 on breakfast since we bought breakfast for two of our young black belts who are heading off to college).

Lunch with my parents…on them. Hey, they invited us! 🙂

Garden chores. I harvested 22 pounds of veggies, pulled the green bean plants, watered and planted cabbage seeds.

Replaced muffler on Jeep. My son bought a new muffler for his Jeep, so my husband and son worked on that.

Updated our net worth. We have a Google sheet we track our net worth on, in addition to using the free net worth tracking tool on Personal Capital. (Our no-spend weekend was the last weekend in July; we update/review net worth at the end of each month.)

Wrote July Grocery Spending Update post.

Grilled brats, cooked homegrown sweet corn and green beans.

Chopped veggies for canning salsa on Sunday.

Went for a short ride in Jeep. To hear the new, noisy muffler, of course. Boys!

Hubby built a fire and mixed cocktails. I enjoyed the fruits of his labor.

Sunday

Played Pokemon Go. We went to a park and walked around to catch Pokemon. This is one activity our teenagers agree to do with us, plus it gets us a little exercise and we meet all of the other friendly people catching Pokemon in the park.

Canned salsa. I forced requested my husband’s assistance with canning the salsa and, though he’s not crazy about spending the afternoon in the kitchen, he dutifully helped out.

Relaxed and ate some salsa.

Picked 15 pounds of veggies from the garden.

Cooked veggies for dinner.

Paid bills.

Watched 45 minutes of Fixer Upper on Netflix. (Netflix is new to us…again. I canceled for a while and am giving it another shot. As long as they keep some HGTV shows on there, I’m perfectly happy to pay the minimal monthly fee.)

This is not an unusual weekend at home for us, though it seems like we haven’t been home on the weekends much during the summer. Being away from home generally costs money, so I do believe it was a win for the budget, even though we did spend a little. I plan to have more no-spend weekends soon (with no exceptions next time!).