When my bestie and I went to Costa Rica in July, we ended the trip with a startling revelation: we needed to focus on launching our children well. No big business aspirations. No lofty goals. (We usually leave a retreat with both of those.) Just the deep knowledge that this time is precious and our efforts at home DO matter and make a lasting impact, even as kids gets older. Or, as I’m finding as of late, especially as kids get older. We also resolved to go through our old content and start re-sharing what we know, in addition to new things we have learned along the way.

Hence, this space dedicated to teaching valuable knowledge and skills - everything I wish I would have known and want my kids to know to be successful when it comes to food. That real, healthy, nourishing food doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive, and that it can and should be delicious. And that it’s not just food that affects what we eat. Hence my motto, prayers and protein.

As I was combing through my archives this morning, I came upon this post that was published November 5, 2015. It was a look back at a No Spend Month Challenge we had just completed and the lessons I learned from it. Ten years later, I was reading it over and reflecting on those lessons - what stuck, what didn’t, and what has born unexpected fruit.

I’m republishing that post here, with my reflections 10 years later. Enjoy.

In late September, my husband and I decided to do something crazy - sign up for the 31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero Challenge from Living Well Spending Less. The purpose of the challenge was to spend as little as possible for 31 days. Seriously.

We still paid our bills. And there were some food items we decided on ahead of time that we’d replace when we ran out (namely butter, milk and green veggies). We also had a few pre-planned events before we started the challenge, so we budgeted for those.

But. That was it.

We did so for a few reasons:

Yes, I’m weird like that.

So how did it go? It actually was fun. And challenging.

My husband and I saw just how much we got used to spending without even thinking about it. We had to get creative more than a few times instead of just running to the store or heading to a restaurant.

We also saw just how little we can actually spend in a month. Our food budget, for instance, will be dramatically reduced from now on because our favorite foods are so cheap - there was a lot of impulse buy stuff in our pantry at the beginning of the month. No wonder our food spending got out of control!

Overall, it was a good experience. Here’s what I learned:

We found this out right off the bat when we told our kids. Our son quickly asked if we’d still be paying bills. Surprised at the question, we told him we would. Turns out his concern wasn’t about losing our home or electricity.

“Oh good,” he replied. “I was afraid we’d lose Netflix.” Priorities.

Aside from that, the kids were pretty aware of the challenge. If they asked to do something that involved spending money, they quickly remembered and mentioned the challenge when we said we weren’t going to. Because we let them know ahead of time what our goals were, there was little grumbling.

10 years later: My kids are now 20, 18, 17, and 15, and all still live at home. Since becoming Benedictine oblate novitiates, my husband and I have begun looking at our home as our own monastery. So we’ve started talking to our kids about treating this more like a community where everyone buys in to its success and peace, vs. them just being kids dependent on their parents to do everything. They are currently taking a more active part in my peasant maxing efforts.

I’ve known this for quite some time, but was reminded during the challenge when I ran out of coffee. Scary, I know. But I mentioned it on Facebook and offered to barter my hippie goodies in exchange for some good coffee.

Many people expressed interest and offered up coffee beans and I ended up trading a good friend a few bars of homemade soap for coffee he’d just roasted himself. It’s delicious.

10 years later: I bartered just two days ago with my mom. She needed a frankincense essential oil roll-on, which I had, which was almost the same price as the food she’d added to her Azure Standard order for me.

Also, I normally wouldn’t have posted it on Facebook, but since we were doing a challenge I was able to get out of my own way. Otherwise, I think I would have had some weird sense of shame around it. I think I need to find or start a local bartering group on Facebook and invite friends to join because it is a really awesome way to save money while building a community of like-minded people.

A lot of people tell me they aren’t creative. I don’t think that’s true, though. From what I’ve seen, we just lack the necessity to be creative. When we have all we need at our finger tips and can run to the store or order online when we run out, there really is no need to be creative unless someone decides to go crazy on Pinterest.

But when it’s Halloween and you’ve once again forgotten all about it until the day of and you can’t run out and buy costume supplies, you figure it out. And when the whole family is brainstorming, it’s even easier!

We ended up with a firefighter, rock star, mummy and hipster.

10 years later: This is still one of my favorite pictures of all time of my children. That mummy now makes the most incredible costumes completely out of cardboard and starts months in advance. I told him just the other day that he would do awesome in costume design or could even start his own cosplay business.

Also, this is them now at my second child’s graduation in May. Why do they always look like they belong on an album cover?

I still went to coffee shops. Gasp. But as someone who works from home, getting out every once in a while is crucial. And if I’m going to a coffee shop, it’s my opinion that I should support their business if I’m going to use their wi-fi. But I set the limit of once a week.

I’ve set some stricter spending limits for myself now because I saw how well they work when it comes to potential impulse buys.

10 years later: I was actually reminded of this last week when I was so antsy that I had to get out of the house, which I don’t do much of these days. But when I saw one of my favorite people at the coffee shop and had a nice chat with her, I remembered how crucial this was to my well-being (why do I forget certain things so quickly?) I think I will actually go back to the once a week outing and not even make myself do any work if I don’t want to, mainly for my own well-being. I did maintain those stricter spending limits, though.

We had friends over a handful of times and they knew in advance about No Spend Month. They came anyway and graciously accepted our weird assortment of snacks and drinks. We even had a no spend gathering and everyone dug through their cupboards and brought what they had.

Near the end of the month, my best friend Dusti came to stay in our bus for five days. Instead of running around doing things that cost money, we finished our latest book on hospitality. We share our tips for entertaining with children, an introvert’s guide to hosting and doing hospitality on a low budget.

10 years later: we have since taken that book down, but I’ve got plans for my own in the works because hospitality is such a central part of my life mission. I also want to do another no-spend potluck gathering because we had such a great time.

I feel like I should know that by now, but this month showed me just how blessed I am. We were gifted all sorts of organic food at the beginning of the month. Family and friends found out about the challenge and offered to give us things we ran out of. Visitors saw it as an opportunity to spoil us with treats.

I am blessed beyond measure.

10 years later: still so true.

The funny thing is, it was pretty easy to fall into the habits required by a no spend month because I used to practice them all the time. However, as money became more plentiful, I became complacent.

I’m going to stick with these habits, though, because I truly enjoyed the creativity, intentionality and thriftiness that came with spending zero.

10 years later spoiler: I did not. I know, I should have learned, but there was still a lot of mindset growth and emotional healing that needed to happen, a lot of which has been happening in the last 18 months. Like losing weight, until you address the underlying beliefs and patterns and heal those, you will just go back to them and gain it all back.

Reading this also just reiterates the lesson I’ve learned on staying vigilant - to seek God daily and practice discipline in other areas every day because it’s so easy to fall asleep again. I think this is why the Benedictine rule says to remember death daily - because we forget the simplest things so quickly.

But also. Falling into those habits again is still easy. And even fun now, especially because my kids are older and more involved so it feels more like a community effort.