The 'No Spend' Fad Didn't Work for Me. Here's Why

No matter what stage of life you're in, it's important to have a solid emergency fund -- enough money in the bank to cover a minimum of three months' worth of expenses. Given that 67% of Americans couldn't cover an unplanned $400 expense, as per a recent SecureSave survey, it's clear that many people have work to do.

One route you may decide to take to build up your savings is to have a "no spend" period, whether it's a weekend, week, or month. The idea behind a "no spend" period is to limit your expenses during that time to essentials only -- things like groceries and gas for your car so you can go to work -- but avoid spending money on anything non-essential.

So, let's say you're having a "no spend" weekend. You'd be allowed to replace the milk in your fridge when it runs out. But you wouldn't be allowed to pick up a latte from your local Starbucks.

I can see why a "no spend" period can be helpful to people who need to give their savings a boost. But I tried several "no spend" weekends and found that they didn't do much for me at all.

Aggravation without the upside

As someone who writes about personal finance, I commonly offer advice on how to build savings and the importance of doing so. And I'll sometimes suggest a "no spend" period to facilitate that goal.

But I don't like to offer up advice without trying it out myself. So I've made myself implement a few "no spend" weekends to see how feasible it is to stick to only buying essentials.

In reality, a "no spend" weekend is quite doable. So is a "no spend" week and even a "no spend" month. But it's also, frankly, not an easy system to uphold. So if you don't have a pressing reason to save money, it may not be worth it.

That was my experience, at least. I make a point to maintain a pretty robust emergency fund and have a decent chunk of cash socked away already for retirement. I still try to push myself to save money on an ongoing basis, because it's hard to predict when something will go wrong with my house or car, or when I might find myself staring down a large medical bill and dipping into my cash reserves to cover it.

But because I'm generally a good saver and I have savings already, I found my "no spend" weekends to be nothing more than annoying. During my last one, I forced myself to cook dinner after a long afternoon of hiking with my kids when spending $20 on a pizza would've made the evening far more pleasant. And did the $20 in savings do a lot for my finances? Not really.

A good option when your savings really need work

If you're someone whose savings could really use a lift, then I'd recommend trying a "no spend" period and seeing what it does for you. I commonly tell people without savings to stop spending money on non-essentials and sock away every dollar possible until they have some sort of cushion. So the "no spend" idea falls in line with that.

But if you're someone who already has a nice amount of savings and you're looking for a boost, whether to have more comfort or meet a specific goal, like going on vacation, then I'm not sure a "no spend" period is the best answer. You may end up denying yourself small purchases that make life much easier or more pleasant.

In fact, the next time I want to give my savings an extra lift, I'll probably just try to work more rather than go through a "no spend" period. And you can do something similar by picking up a side hustle instead of banning non-essential spending for a period.

Either way, you're sacrificing something. It's just a matter of which sacrifice is more or less painful for you.