The No Spend Diet

Nope, no thank you, not today, non merci, no way, no, no, no. No!

If there’s one surefire way to save money, that has to be it: saying the word ‘no.’

No to dinners, movies, plays, concerts, drinks out, latte dates, and anything else that might require spending more money than is necessary. Just one blanket ‘no’ to everything.

It’s an extreme cash diet that allowed one woman to live in notoriously pricey New York City on $60 a week for two months. “The past six weeks, I’ve gotten used to saying ‘no’ to things I normally wouldn’t think twice about – concerts, brunches and happy hours,” says Kathleen Elkins.

To explain further, here’s what you can do on the No Diet:

• Go out for coffee? No.
• Meet for drinks? No.
• See a movie? No.
• Go out for dinner? No.
• Do anything at involves spending money? No.

Saying no helped save another woman $23,000 over five years. She said no to bowling, Taylor Swift concerts, lunches and movies. “Sometimes, in order to reach our larger goals, we have to sacrifice. I know that I will never reach those giant goals if I spend our money on the small things every week,” said Rosemary, the author of the Busy Budgeter.

In both cases – in every case? – saying no was not pleasant. Declining invites out or to leisure activities can cut off social engagement, an extremely valuable part of life. It can also cut down on enjoyment of day-to-day life. A morning without a $4 extra foam almond milk latte is just not bearable for some of us.

It’s both common sense and a harsh reality: for as long as you can hack it, the No Diet works. If you are trying to save money, ordering the cheapest cocktail on the menu isn’t going to improve your savings as much as declining the invite to the cocktail bar in the first place.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a permanent solution for saving.

“This approach fails because it requires you to build a difficult habit that you keep for life. We deplete our willpower every time we say no to the little things in life that make us feel rich. This is the reason why many people who try this approach eventually give up,” says Ramit Sethi, a New York Times best-selling author and the CEO of GrowthLab.com.

Sethi says the better avenue to saving is not to focus on the little things that may give us joy throughout the day – welcome back, $4 latte! – but to instead focus on the big things. That means negotiating a pay increase, or paying less rent.

He also preaches automated saving – that’s setting up technology to automatically put parts of your paycheque into savings before you ever see it. That way, you’re left with an amount that you can spend freely without worrying about what you will save – that part is already done.

But there is a benefit to trying the No Diet at least once. It highlights the social pressure that goes into spending. If your peers are spending money, you will likely spend it too. One study found that a shocking amount of people would rather pay off large credit card bills than simply say, “I can’t afford it.”

So after two months of saying “no” to everyone, Elkins, the blogger who lived on $60 a week in New York City, decided to say yes.

“I realized that having a good time with friends and building relationships is what makes life worth living. While it's important to be aware of the social pressure to spend money, it's just as important to me to spend on experiences that will make me happy,” she wrote at the conclusion of her two month saving diet.

So while saying ‘no’ to spending might lead to a healthy bank balance, it can also make for a pretty dour existence.

A better way to save?

• Be aware of how much you’re spending and on what.
• Focus on life’s bigger saving and spending decisions.
• And - maybe the easiest saving tip to say yes to - automate your savings. Take a little off your paycheque and deposit it into a high-interest savings account before it even ends up in your pocket.