Anna Newell Jones
Anna Newell Jones, above, paid off over $23,000 of debt in 15 months.
In 2009, Anna Newell Jones was deep in debt — $23,605.10 to be exact.
"I felt hopeless about money, and the whole idea of trying to get out of debt was such a drag," recalls Newell Jones. "Not surprisingly, I did everything I could to avoid the topic."
Of her debts, which included credit cards, student loans, and a personal loan from her parents for college tuition and expenses, Newell Jones first felt the sting of her credit cards.
"Credit card debt is so stigmatized that I felt like crap for getting myself into that mess," she says. "I thought that if I could only get rid of my credit card debt, I'd feel a lot better."
Newly married and eager to be out of debt once and for all, Newell Jones chose a drastic course of action: a year-long spending fast.
What's a spending fast?
No matter how disciplined we are, the vast majority of us will need to spend some money — the cost of living. A "Spending Fast" (which Newell Jones has trademarked) structures the process of that bare-bones spending.
"A spending fast is where you spend money on the basics needed to live. It's created by structuring a wants and needs list, which is personalized by each specific person's priorities in life," explains Newell Jones.
To kick off her year doing the fast, Jones laid out her needs and wants on her website, And Then We Saved. She needed rent, utilities, cellphone without internet, necessary groceries, low-cost gym membership, medical costs, inexpensive photography exhibits for her side business, car payments and gas, a bus pass, and boxed hair dye.
She eliminated everything else.
"My husband, Aaron, absolutely despised the idea of the fast — at first," Newell Jones explains. "He's naturally good with his money and didn't really get why I had to do something he considered so 'extreme.' He came around to the idea once he realized I was serious, that I wasn't stopping until the year was up, that my idea was actually working, and that I was able to pay off significant chunks of debt."
And it was significant: Over the course of 12 months, Newell Jones paid off about $18,000 of debt. That's not to say the year was a walk in the park. "I can always justify deserving or needing something," she says. "I am a natural spender and constantly have to fight that instinct in myself. I was surprised by how free I felt almost instantly … but what didn't surprise me was that it was hard to break my habits."
It may seem that a "natural spender" who rhapsodizes about Etsy on her blog is an unlikely candidate for such a hard-core crackdown on spending, but Newell Jones says she needed those hard limits. "I like to go all in with things. Making decisions in the 'gray area' is hard for me because I like things to be black or white. The spending fast was black and white."