How a spending fast can help you boost your savings

Take a 40-day spending fast this Lent season to help you reach your financial goals faster.

You may not be a Catholic or a Christian, but the 40-day Lent season which starts today (Ash Wednesday), offers an opportunity for you to reach your financial goals faster by borrowing and observing one of the principles of Lent. Lent is a season of fasting, giving up something or self-denial. During Lent, many people choose to abstain/fast from one thing or another as a way to grow spiritually. You can apply the same principle to your money by going on a spending fast (also known as a financial fast or spending diet) for 30 or even 40 days, like Lent. Some people even choose to prolong the fast for a whole year to help them achieve a big goal like paying off debt faster, but as a beginner, I’d advise you take it slow then see if it is something you want to try for longer or every few months.

How it works:

For 40 days you just buy the things that are absolutely essential e.g. food, rent, school fees, etc, and leave out the rest. If you can buy some of the things you need during the fasting period in bulk so that you don’t keep going to the shops where you will find many temptations, the better. You can fast from eating out, alcohol, new clothes and shoes, accessories, some beauty treatments, travel, subscriptions, eating lunch at hotels during the work week, using your car every day if a matatu is cheaper (you know your weakness – that thing that you can do without but you keep spending money on it). If you won’t die for ditching it for the next 40 days, then you don’t need it (but that does not include taking a bath or basic grooming). If you have monitored your expenses continuously for a while, you will know exactly what to cut off because you know exactly where your money goes.

You can take measures like carrying packed lunch to work the whole week or at least three days a week instead of eating at a hotel or leaving your car at home and taking a matatu if the matatu is cheaper (you do the math.), taking a matatu instead of a taxi (as long as you are safe) and so on. Just check your budget and be ruthless about cutting out things you can cut out even if it’s just for three days a week.

Calculate how much you expect to save at the end of the 40 days by cutting out certain expenses and plan to put that cash somewhere safe like in your savings account or Mshwari lock account or a piggy bank or somewhere else of your choice, as long as you don’t touch it before the end of the fast. So if you were to spend Sh250 on lunch today but because of the spending fast you carry lunch from home for three days, put that money (Sh750) in your spending fast savings account or piggy bank. If you do that for six weeks (42 days), you’ll have saved Sh4500 by carrying lunch from home for only three days a week. If you carry lunch five days a week, you’ll save Sh7500 by the end of the 40 days. Now do the same with your weekend alcohol budget (you won’t die without it unless you are an alcoholic, in which case you need medical assistance), weekly coffee budget and those other small, small non-essential things you spend your money on without paying attention. Do the math and tell me if you still don’t have money to save, as many people told me when we started this (52-week saving) challenge.

To avoid feeling deprived, you can put some money in an envelope to spend as you wish during the 40 days of fasting, what we call “cheat days.” Be sure to put a date on that envelope e.g. March 1 to April 13 (when Lent ends). If you spend all the money in that envelope before April 13 or whichever date your 40-day spending fast ends, then you have no money left to cheat with so you’ll need to grit your teeth and forge forward; it is for a good cause after all. Plan your cheat days so that you have them spread out over six weeks, but do not assign too much money on your cheat days’ envelope. Alternatively, you can leave the envelope alone and give yourself a big treat at the end of the 40 days with that cash for making it through the fast.

Lastly, think about what you want to do with that cash that you are going to save during the 40-day financial fast: Will you use it to help pay off a loan you’ve been struggling with faster? Will you use it to buy those shares you always wanted to buy? Will you finally get to go on a getaway to get some much-needed rest after a lot of hard work? Will you use it to shore up your savings for the 52-week Savings Challenge? You get to decide what you want to do with the cash you’ve saved during the fast.

So will you give up anything for the next 40/42 days? What will you give up and how much do you expect to save by giving up those things for a short while? What will those savings help you achieve?


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