What have I learned living on $250 for a month?

I’ve been asked this a few times over the course of my challenge and each week the answer seems to be different. I guess that’s kind of the best part of doing these challenges and writing this blog, I’m always progressively learning and changing my understanding of the world I’m exploring that month. Just thinking about the growth and development I’ve gained over the course of this month makes me believe that what I’m doing is really worth it.

I feel like this month has been especially insightful as it wasn’t just a nightly or weekly challenge but something I had to live every hour of everyday. The reality and impact its had on me has therefore been far greater. I wasn’t just learning something new with this challenge as much as I think the challenge was changing the way I will live my life moving forward. I know that sounds kind of hokey but let me explain and I think you’ll understand.

Lessons Learned

Budgeting is easy, commitment and sacrifice are hard

When I picked $250 as the number I that would live off of I didn’t really think much about the ramifications of choosing this amount, I just knew that it sounded crazy and that somehow I would figure a way to make it work (not a great decision process when making a month long commitment). Diving into it I quickly found how much trouble I had gotten myself into. I wondered many times over that first week if this was even possible to do and whether I had gotten in over my head.

Now looking back I’m realizing how surprisingly easy it really was. Not easy in the sense that I would want to do it over again next month (nope!) but easy from a planning and execution stand point. If someone told you divide 31 into 250 and then divide that by 3 and build a meal plan off of those amounts, I’m pretty sure you could do it. By far the more difficult part was the commitment it took to live it every single day. There were distractions everywhere I looked; cheater meals, unplanned obstacles and social pressures that all attempted to distract me from my goal. Committing to this challenge was a lot like committing to going to the gym. Everyone always starts out with the best intentions deciding to go everyday but after that first week life starts to get in the way. Getting results takes long term sacrifice though so if you want it bad enough you have to maintain that commitment no matter what. Then once it becomes routine the challenge doesn’t seem as hard and you can stay the course.

Just like those who commit to any ideal, if you can stick it out the reward is totally worth the sacrifice. For me knowing that I can live on $250 (or less) if I had to is a pretty freeing feeling. If I was to have an unexpected life change not only could I survive it but I could actually still have a lot of fun doing it.

Plan to Execute

This is the second month in a row now that not planning before I got started really bit me in the ass. I cannot over emphasize how important planning my meals was to my survival. When I hit week 2 and I had already spent over half my budget I started to really stress about how I was going to make the rest of my dollars stretch the next 3 and a half weeks. Once I sat down and planned out my meals for the remainder of the month and took the time to portion size out all my costs it was no longer a guessing game. I knew, without a doubt that I was going to make it through the month, and having that knowledge took a huge stress off my mind and actually allowed me to start enjoying myself!

If anyone is planning on doing any kind of budgeting month don’t wing it! Download this Monthly Cash Flow Plan before you start and set yourself up for success.

Healthy doesn’t have to mean expensive

I’ll be honest, I thought this was going to be a whole month of Mr Noodles and boxes of KD but surprisingly I ate pretty well for being broke. Here are some meals I ate and I think you’ll be as surprised as I was how good you can eat on a budget.

Leftovers for days

Surprisingly I still have quite a bit of food leftover. Even after planning all my meals I still over bought when I initially hit the grocery store. Considering how much is left I bet could have easily lasted for another couple weeks. Things would have just gotten a lot more bland as time went on…

Food scarcity is real and real scary

I’ve written a lot about my eye opening experiences at the FoodBank and the struggles that many people face living on this meager kind of budget every month. This experience more that educated me about the importance of supporting local programs like the FoodBank but it also changed my perception of those living within the cycle of poverty. Putting a face to poverty made me question why good people are being given such little support? How do you change such a systemic problem in our society where people, often through no fault of their own are thrown into a lifestyle of scarcity and survival with hardly any net to catch them or latter to help them climb up again?

I don’t know the answer to this question but I am inspired by those that are searching for one. People like Chelsea who despite her hardships is building a better life for herself and her family, or the incredible people at the FoodBank like Fraser, David, Teri and Lenetta who are supporting those in need everyday.

Perhaps with the right support they can collectively lead us to some answers and maybe a solution.

Life is fragile

After speaking with Chelsea I got a sense of just how quickly life can change in an instance and the security we thought we had can be taken away. I experienced this feeling myself when my dad had his heart attack midway through my month. Just when I thought life was heading in a certain direction I was ripped down to a scary and unnerving place. Luckily my Dad was okay and I was able to go see him even on my strict budget but the impact of the event still lingers with me.

From this I’ve learned how fragile life can be which has made me more thankful for what and who I have in my life. It’s also made me that much more focused on my commitment to make my life as full as possible. If my life only has a limited window of opportunity than I need to capitalize on it while I can and make my life the one I want to be leading.

Fun is Free!

Being a social guy I’ve always been one to spend a little more than I should on entertainment value. I’ve spent most of my life living in the moment so for example if there was a choice of getting new clothes or having an epic night out, it was almost always a night out for the win (unless we’re talking underwear cause that you don’t skimp on). I would buy beer for almost every occasion, buy tickets to expensive cool events, and drive my car basically everywhere/anywhere to go to a good party.

Turning things on its head this month, I couldn’t afford any of those fun activities but somehow I still managed to have an absolute blast. I think I was actually more active socially this month than most months where I have a budget. How did I do it? I just got creative.

I biked basically everywhere, I volunteered at cool events to score free tickets (or organized my own) and I found free wine and spirits tours to still enjoy the odd inebriated adventure. I realized fun doesn’t have to cost a fortune, most of the fun is finding something cool to do and getting awesome people to join you.

Looking forward

Who knew a budget challenge was going to leave such a profound impact on my life but I’m so happy that it did. I think there’s a lot I will carry forward from this month; biking, budgeting, creativity and commitment to name a few. What really excites me as I enter my next challenge is where this journey is taking me. If I can continue to learn, explore and execute at the same rate that I am now than I can’t wait to see what the end of this year will look like. Who know’s maybe this is what the rest of my life will look like… so far, that would be more than okay with me.