Too scared to check your bank account because you're worried about what you might find (or find less of)? Alleviate those fears altogether by participating in the "No-Spend Challenge", a savings strategy that challenges consumers to circumnavigate paying for non-essentials.

Yahoo Finance's Rachelle Akuffo highlights the rubric consumers can follow to cut out unnecessary expenses, work through debt, and build up their savings whether they're participating in No-Spend Year, Month, or just resisting retail temptations week-by-week.

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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

If you find yourself saying I don't know where my money went, this is for you.

The no spend challenge is making the rounds again on social media, and it's all about challenging yourself to avoid spending money on non essentials.

So we're not talking about your rent, your mortgage, Rory, medical, et cetera.

Joining me now with a breakdown of this is our very own Rochelle Auo I. I thought it was just, you know, an era of, you know, treat yourself on occasions or ball on a budget, but you're talking about no spending at all here, Rochelle.

That's right.

No more treating yourself to fine leather goods.

It's just in time for summer.

People want to be more attentive to their spending, especially with a swipe of a card or a tap of the screen, making it so easy for us to spend.

So let's break down the five steps of the No spend trend.

First of all, set your goal.

Decide your timeline, define your spending rules, plan for pitfalls and, of course, be accountable.

So let's start with setting your goal now This be a specific dollar amount, or this could be a pledge to pay down a certain percentage of your debt or even saving up for a down payment for a house or a car, et cetera.

Well, make sure you make it clear and achievable.

Next, you're gonna decide your timeline.

Now, some people are doing this for a year.

That's quite ambitious.

I recommend if you're new to this, starting up with a short amount of time, perhaps 2 to 3 months so that you've got a few paychecks and bank statements under your belt so you can really assess your spending without getting discouraged that you can't do it for a year.

Think of how we've all done with our New Year's resolutions, so the next part is to define your spending rules.

So once you take essentials out of the equation, you have to define what your unnecessary purchases are and whether you're going to remove them completely or perhaps limit them to a certain number of months.

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So think clothes, shoes, brunch, food, uber eats, you know, hypothetically, of course.

So you have to think of all those things that you tend to spend money on that aren't your essentials.

So then that brings us to planning for pitfalls.

You have to know your kryptonite.

Know yourself.

Avoid putting yourself in spending situations that will throw you off course.

So if you know that you're trying to save money, don't be out there in the sales at the mall.

Just just keep your distance from these things.

And most importantly, of course, be accountable every time you have the urge to then decide if it's a need versus a want and whether it's getting you closer to or further from that goal, it might help to have an accountability partner, perhaps a friend, a tweak as needed.

If you have, say, a financial emergency.

But get back on track, don't get discouraged because this is really about really paying attention to how you're spending.

Man, you you were really stepping on toes out there with this one.

Michelle.

So what tips do you have to help people stay on track?

I mean, I know it's not easy.

It's one of those things you think of, like doing your resume.

Nobody wants to have to look at their finances, but look the cheapest option the old fashioned way.

You get a look at your bank statements, get a notebook app or an Excel spreadsheet go through them.

It's miserable.

It's time consuming.

Nobody really wants to do that.

So there are a number of apps that can also help, depending on how you like to save.

So I like rocket money.

That gives you a really great snapshot of your subscriptions, as well as upcoming bills and your spending at specific stores.

I got a glaring one telling me how much I spent on Starbucks.

It was not pretty.

That alert.

Also recommend pocket God.

That's a simple way to track your spending.

And honeydew is interesting because that's for people who want to budget with a partner.

Now you still get to decide how much info you share with them, and you get alerts when you're both coming up against your spending limits.

Now, for people who are a little bit better with their budgets, there's also zero based budgeting.

That's when all your money, your assets, your debts are all accounted for every dollar, and it's also forward looking when it comes to some goals that you perhaps want to take that money you saved and put it into something else.

For that, there's every dollar and YNAB.

Which stands for you.

Need a budget.

All right.

Don't be out there getting gripped up by these $10 lattes.

Michelle, thanks so much.

I'm trying.

It's hard that we all are.

Thanks so much, Michelle.

Appreciate it.