My wife and I have did something similar in the past, and amusingly, I think we chose the same month! Either that or January. Not sure if that's a coincidence, or if both we and you concluded that it's a little easier to do in the winter when you're less inclined to go out anyway?
Anyway, it's a great habit to get in, not just because you spend less (even if you "make up for it" after the month is over, good chance you won't counteract all the spending), but because it's pretty likely you come out the other end of it broken of a few habits, once you realize how easy it is to go without X or Y. Of course you also learn some things are very hard to go without, but that's useful, too. One of the nice things about getting older is figuring out which things are important to you, and prioritizing those, and this is one of the better ways to do that.
Anyway, it's a great habit to get in, not just because you spend less (even if you "make up for it" after the month is over, good chance you won't counteract all the spending), but because it's pretty likely you come out the other end of it broken of a few habits, once you realize how easy it is to go without X or Y. Of course you also learn some things are very hard to go without, but that's useful, too. One of the nice things about getting older is figuring out which things are important to you, and prioritizing those, and this is one of the better ways to do that.
It's just after the holidays, when the extra spending around Christmas compounds with the bad habits. so it pushed the gauge a bit more into the red. it really crystalized around mid-January, so by then it was too late to run the challenge in January.
February is a short month, and is split into four tidy seven day chunks. I think my thinking was that it would be just a tad easier to complete being a bit sorter term.
The funny thing, is that we have kind of already started it this week, so it will go the extra days anyway! As long as we make it, that is!
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell