I’m sure we will hear this a lot this month, “You’re doing what? Why?” Well  I’ve decided to call it Junkless June, mostly because I couldn’t come up with anything better to call it but in short we are using June as a hard reset for both our bodies and our finances. We will be completing Whole30 as well as a “financial reset” to get back to the basics and to focus on a future of food and financial freedom.

We are the Wierzbas, we are newlyweds living in a new town in need of a slowdown. We got married in September, accepted a job November, and moved to a new city in February. The first 8 months of our marriage have been packed full of change and excitement, but we have decided to spend this month slowing down and getting back to the basics.

Since the wedding, and even more since moving we have really started to slip on our good habits towards financial freedom and food freedom. We have moved to a city with amazing food and so many fun festivals and activities. Living in such a fun place makes it SO easy to let our focus slip. We hope this month will help us reestablish our relationship with food and spending.

Have you ever noticed how similar dieting and budgeting are? One of the biggest similarities for me is that they just don’t feel sustainable and the “treat yourself” mentality always sends me spiraling for failure. I love Melissa Hartwig’s simple solution to stop dieting in her book Food Freedom:

• Step 1: Reset
  
• Step 2: Enjoy your food freedom
  
• Step 3: Acknowledge when you’re starting to slip and repeat as needed.

What I love the most about this solution is how applicable it is to all things in life, especially saving money. We are currently in Step 3 with both our food and our finances and June will be back to Step 1, our reset. I also love the acceptance that perfection is not reality, shit happens and you can never prepare perfectly for it. We are excited to share this reset with you. We will share our journey, our results, and most importantly our struggles  – because perfection is a false reality.

The Rules

Food

For our bodies we will be following the guidelines already established by Whole30. There are so many great resources to learn more about Whole30, but here’s a quick rundown.

• No added sugar
• No alcohol
• No grains
• No legumes
• No dairy
• No preservatives
• No weighing or measuring.

This isn’t our first Whole30, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be tough as hell. I am already missing cheese and crackers just thinking about it.

Finances

A financial reset will look different for everyone, but here are the rules we established for ours.

• Limit of $40/week on entertainment.
  
  • We also want to use June as a time to explore our new town. Things cost money, we will look for free things to do, but we have decided to allocate $40/week for some form of entertainment.
    
    
• No logging into personal capital.
  
  • If you haven’t tried Personal Capital, it is amazing! So amazing that I have gotten into a horrible habit of logging into it everyday, sometimes multiple times a day.   This is my equivalent rule to Whole30’s rule of no weighing. The fluctuations in the stock market and regular expenses can lead to the same emotions as the fluctuations on the scale. These emotions can ultimately lead to poor choices.
    
  • But Personal Capital is a great tool – if you don’t have it yet, click here to sign up! It is a fantastic tool for tracking your finances, your net worth and your financial progress. For the reasons explained above I would caution to limit the amount of times your log in. Depending on what all you are using it for a monthly or quarterly log-on should be sufficient.
    
• No traveling, even if using points.
  
  • We earned a lot of credit card points while planning our wedding by “travel hacking” basically opening multiple credit cards and earning the large sign on bonus. Travel rewards are great but the reality is even when you use points to book flights and or hotels traveling is not cheap. We learned this lesson in April and May after taking 4 trips in two months, using mostly points but still spending a large fraction our income on travel.
    
    
• No shopping – We are following Cait Flander’s shopping ban rules for this one. No shopping with the following exceptions.
  
  • groceries and basic kitchen supplies (plastic wrap, tin foil, etc.)
    
  • basic cosmetics (like eyeliner and mascara, but only after I run out)
    
  • toiletries (toothpaste, soap, shampoo, toilet paper, etc.)
    
  • cleaning products (namely laundry detergent)
    
  • gifts for others
    
• When necessary expenses do arrive, try to utilize gift cards we already have.
  
  • How many gift cards do you never use? We have a huge stack of them from wedding gifts that we always forget about.
    
• Simplify finances. This one will look different for everyone but the easier it is to understand where your money is going to the more successful you’ll be in saving.
  
  • Close individual checking accounts
    
  • Merge retirement accounts from previous employers
    
  • Simplify financial tracking sheet
    
  • Establish monthly system for paying bills and investing extra.
    
• Review and reduce unnecessary recurrent spending.
  
  • I’m a sucker for a good subscription, I once subscribed to have 3 new pairs of panties shipped to my house every month. Subscriptions are fun, but honestly most of them are less fun and no longer useful after the first 3 months, maybe less. I mean how many pairs of panties does one actually need? How many subscriptions do you forget to cancel even though you are no longer benefiting from them. During June will review all recurrent charges, decide if we are truly using them or benefiting from them, and cancel if we aren’t.

We will be sharing updates throughout the month. Updates will include our favorite recipes, our favorite free activities, our results, and our struggles. Thank you for checking in with us, we hope you learn something from our journey, gain motivation or even take the plunge with us! Junkless July anyone??