WaPo has this story today about the Wheelock family in Alexandria, Virginia, not spending money for 2 weeks, including groceries (everything but bills and the mortgage). Apparently they didn't stock up beforehand, they just went cold turkey one day, which I think is impressive. Here's how it went:
One of the saving graces of the experiment, they said, was their decision to keep up with their prepaid weekly fresh milk and egg farm co-op vegetable deliveries. Other than that, they ate out of the fridge. Katy Wheelock took the breadmaker out of its box and began baking bread, substituting honey for sugar when the sugar ran out.
They dug through mysterious packets of meat in the freezer -- finding a leg of lamb that saved them one night when they had to entertain -- and finished all those dusty cans of black beans, olives and soup and packages of pasta, rice and weird taco seasonings stashed in the back of their cupboards.
"The first week was pretty normal," Austin Wheelock said. "But the second week was," he paused, "a little leaner."
But by then, they were hooked on not spending. Finding savings provided the same feeling of instant gratification that a little retail therapy does, Katy Wheelock said.
It was agonizing when, with the help of mint.com, a free money-tracking software program, she tallied the family's expenses. In October, the Wheelocks had spent $844 eating out. In November, $200. In October, they had spent $1,171 shopping, and for the life of her, she can't remember what they bought. In November: $224. And in the "personal care" category, they'd spent $313 in October. In November, $0.
By using mint.com to track their expenses (and non-expenses), the mom of the family estimates they saved $2,000 over the course of two weeks. This seems to me a little insane for a family of four...
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