Like a lot of other people, I’ve been making plans for 2020. Among them: plans to make progress on my sustainability journey. 

I want to finish decluttering my belongings. In 2019 I decluttered books and clothes but then my #KonMari adventure stalled as I was distracted by other things.

I want to explore options to lower my carbon footprint and become more sustainable.

And, despite my initial cautious approach, I decided I want to pull the trigger on my NoSpendYear. It’s not going to be a year completely devoid of spending, as I know there will be some expenses coming up beyond the absolute essentials (like the writing retreat I hashed out with my friend that we want to do next year) – but I will do my best to keep the spending as small as I can make it.

By December 2020, I want to compare my spending this year and next year and see how much I can save up (towards, shocking plot twist, my downpayment). This year thanks to my Path To Less, I already managed to limit my spending.

In 2018 I spend almost 23,000PLN on non-essential expenses (out of 54,000PLN of all spending), averaging almost 2000PLN a month. This year I spent a little over 11,000PLN (out of 54,500 of all spending), averaging less than 1,000PLN a month on things you’d consider non-essential.

I’m not going to lie, I was surprised to see I spent overall almost the same amount of money, despite slashing my non-essentials in half. Then I looked closer on what categories I spent on and saw 2,600PLN on savings in 2018 (investments, retirement, etc.), compared to 11,000PLN spent this year.

I want to see if I can cut my overall expenses, as well as slashing my non-essentials. I’ll have to be thrifty, I know that for sure, but I also want to see how this challenge going to affect other parts of my life.

Wish me luck! And come back for the regular updates in 2020.

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