"Gold star" charts

[Chicken lady]

I have always been motivated by achievement charts - when I was a kid I wanted to fill in every line on the summer reading list from the library. Even though you only needed part of a page for a prize. I practiced the piano to get those little gold stars on my chart every day. I would have worn my headgear 24/7 just so I could color in all the hourly boxes on the card, but my mom wouldn't let me wear it to school, and the orthodontist said 8-14 hours a day. (So why so many boxes?)

i have a bunch of new habits I'm trying to instill (I started some in the fall before I remembered I'm seasonal and the timing was bad) and I've been making lists and crossing them off as I do them. If I do them... Yesterday I had a brain storm. I broke them down into daily and weekly and made two large index cards - a daily one for February and a weekly one for the next 6 months or so. They aren't big enough for stars, but I'm going to put little check marks in the boxes to track my progress.

is anyone else a "gold star" junkie? Want to encourage each other?

[Zoe Girl]

I have a checklist system at work, helps my brain so much. I walk around alot in the afternoon and just couldn't find a great portable system so I went to a large notecard on my clipboard. If I don't get to everything I transfer it to the next notecard. I used to need one every day but I am at the point where one card is good for 2-3 days. It is a great way to jot down notes on phone calls no matter where I am in the building. Then I file them all in my desk so if I forget about the phone call or an email I wrote down it is super easy to find. Also I have a record of all the things I checked off. That is an encouragement to me as well as a CYA system.

I also started a long term project one that I keep separate so I am not re-writing those projects on note cards every day. Helps me balance the tracking with not getting overwhelmed by longer projects.

( in school I used to do the box system and color in during boring classes to just get through it )

[Aqua Blue]

Yep, I am hoping today get to put a heart shaped sticker on my calendar for a no-spend day. I even went thru my sticker stash to find valentine ones for Feb.

[Chicken lady]

So, did you get your sticker?

I don't really understand "no spend" days. Maybe because I don't shop very much? It's sort of like having "buy nothing" day on black Friday. I totally get that the deals might not be worth the insanity, but exactly how are we discouraging the sales by refusing to buy something at a really low price if we will buy it later at a higher one? Do you give yourself permission to ignore the "no spend" if you have a chance to save money on something you know you will buy?

How do the no spend days help you?

My check marks are working ok. I'm going to have to think out the weekly list more. It turns out I really only had a clear idea about Mondays. I'm also still working on pulling off a perfect daily. I have 13 items, but most of them are small - like take my vitamins.

[Zoe Girl]

My days are so varied, but I put alarms in my phone for medication and a small meditation reminder bell with my Insight Timer (i highly recommend this). However I may add some stickers to my note card system.

What I kept on thinking was what if you bought stickers to celebrate a no-spend day, then you wouldn't get the no-spend day! I have one day a week on the weekends when I try to let my son take our car to work or if he has the day off to just have a car for the day. That naturally becomes a no-spend day, but I don't buy things every day actually.

[Chicken lady]

Zoe girl, my dh as a soft chime on his phone that goes off every hour to remind him to take a cleansing breath.

My days vary a lot too, which is why I need the chart. Some things - like pack dh lunch on weekdays, are just automatic, but on days I don't go to work, it's really easy for me to forget things like brushing my teeth in the morning. And on days I do go to work, I often forget my vitamins. I'm trying to make those things just as routine.

Other things, like working on pottery or outside, may not ever truly be daily, which is ok, but I want to make them a priority.

[iris lilies]

So, did you get your sticker?

I don't really understand "no spend" days. Maybe because I don't shop very much? It's sort of like having "buy nothing" day on black Friday. I totally get that the deals might not be worth the insanity, but exactly how are we discouraging the sales by refusing to buy something at a really low price if we will buy it later at a higher one? Do you give yourself permission to ignore the "no spend" if you have a chance to save money on something you know you will buy?

How do the no spend days help you?

My check marks are working ok. I'm going to have to think out the weekly list more. It turns out I really only had a clear idea about Mondays. I'm also still working on pulling off a perfect daily. I have 13 items, but most of them are small - like take my vitamins.
I'm not Aqua, but no a goal of NoSpend days could be to put a stop on mindless spending. For instance, if I daily go to the company vending machine or buy take out several times a week, NoSpend goal helps me get away from those habits.

[Chicken lady]

Ah. My spending for this week looks like this:
saturday - bought everything I could think of that we needed for my classes and a few personal supplies at 10-30% off prices I already knew were good during a special event I was attending. Also spent 2.68 on class supplies at goodwill half price day.
sunday - stayed home, spent nothing
monday - paid cc online
tuesday - went to nearby grocery store for essentials (caused by bad planning)
Wednesday - bought planned groceries at two stores on my way home from work plus an $8 treat for the week at the bakery (it's a bakery special and I let myself buy one if I drive past on a week they are offering it)

today i don't plan to spend anything, but I won't pass up a savings opportunity if I see one.

[iris lilies]

Ah. My spending for this week looks like this:
saturday - bought everything I could think of that we needed for my classes and a few personal supplies at 10-30% off prices I already knew were good during a special event I was attending. Also spent 2.68 on class supplies at goodwill half price day.
sunday - stayed home, spent nothing
monday - paid cc online
tuesday - went to nearby grocery store for essentials (caused by bad planning)
Wednesday - bought planned groceries at two stores on my way home from work plus an $8 treat for the week at the bakery (it's a bakery special and I let myself buy one if I drive past on a week they are offering it)

today i don't plan to spend anything, but I won't pass up a savings opportunity if I see one.

for me, the best savings is NoSpend.

Driving past Goodwill, for instance, rather than stopping in--a NoSpend day would help me with that.

we also used to have No Drive days here, they were cool, too.

[Chicken lady]

Yes, but I planned to stop at the goodwill because there were some projects from the workshop I wanted to do in class and I needed "tools" i didn't have. i was driving past, I knew it was half price day, and the only cheaper alternatives were don't do the projects, or ask all the parents to donate stuff, wait for it to come in, spend my time sorting through and disposing of the donations that were not actually useful, and politely thank everyone even if they sent me trash because next time they might actually have the thing I need. Well worth the $2.68!

the no spend day might have kept me out of the bakery, but I've already limited that, I like to have some treats, and since I clump my errands to save gas, driving down that road meant I was already going to break the no spend.

i do understand how it can be useful, I just don't think it fits my lifestyle. Aqua blue may wonder how a person could forget to brush her teeth....

[Aqua Blue]

I did get the sticker:cool:! To Zoe girl, I suppose if I went and bought stickers it would be a spend day. I have a folder full of stickers, some bought at a great mark down mostly for scrap booking, which I did for a while and have gotten out of, some bought at garage sales, some gotten in garage sale free boxes and some given to me by my sister, who used them with kids. They haven't been by any means a big ticket item.


It would probably be more accurate to call them not going into a store days....because whenever I go into a store(especially a thrift store) I usually end up with something. For me it is more about simplicity than saving money. I like having days where there is no consumerism at all...just like you tho, I stop at things when I am near by, so I don't get too many stickers a month. It works for me and is a little reward for focusing on that, if it doesn't do it for you, there are plenty of other things. There are lots of things on this board that seem useless to me. What do you get gold stars for?

I am rather a minimalist, lived on less than 21k this past year, so honestly if I want to indulge in a sticker for whatever I will.:~)

[Chicken lady]

Your no store days sound a lot like my stay home days from the simplicity angle. I try to do everything when I have to leave so that I can stay home all day as much as possible. I've been a little short on that lately though. Today I had to go into work just for an hour and I drove down my main shopping road (becaus it's the shortest route) but I'd already done all my errands so I wan't even tempted to stop, and the whole thing felt like a giant wasted chunk of my day.

I get stars (check marks actually) for brushing my teeth in the morning (bedtime is routine) and taking my vitamins and a bunch of other silly little stuff. Some of the big ones are working on pottery, and Exercising, and not bring my nails all day. I'm doing less well with those.

[Chicken lady]

So, after one month of my star chart I discovered that it works pretty well, but not as well as it did when I was a kid. It is good for keeping track of my progress.

i had a high of 27/29 and a low of 2 (exercise, which I basically decided to toss out for the rest of the month when I became chronically exhausted week 2 - next lowest was 15). Average of just under 19, jumping to 20 if I throw out exercise, and a median of 19.

so I hit my goals at least half the time. The hardest ones require leaving the house, and the easiest is my vitamins - which I used to have a hard time remembering, but they are take with food, so I have now mentally attached them to breakfast. The two days I missed, I didn't eat breakfast.

Aqua Blue, how was your February? Anyone else try this?