333 - A Year of the Contentment Challenge
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Resources from this episode:
Work and Play Episode 332 : Dwelling in Christ with Jon Bailey
Work and Play Episode 093 : A Year of Contentment with Reagan Reynolds, Part 1
Work and Play Episode 094 : A Year of Contentment with Reagan Reynolds, Part 2
Show Notes:
Every January, I take on a Contentment Challenge. 90 days of no shopping to reset my spending and my heart. This year, I’ve done something a little different. I turned it into a whole year-long practice. Today, I am recording live from the messy middle three quarters of the way through with what I’ve loved, what has been hard, and everything in-between.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.
Okay, if you've been around here for any length of time, you know about my Contentment Challenge. You know most of the time it happens in January and it lasts through March. Sometimes I'll do it a different time of year, but most of the time that's when it happens. It's 90 days of basically a no spend season. No shopping for personal clothes, household things, basically all those little things that you want.
It's become my rhythm. I've been doing this for somewhere around 13 years now. It resets my habits at the top of the year and more than that, it resets my heart. The rest of the year, I just get what I need and I shop when I want, but I do so with a renewed mindset and I do think that every single year, that reset really helps my spending habits and my intentionality because of those first ninety days. This year I have done something different and today I want to tell you all about it.
So instead of just doing ninety days in the beginning, I felt the Lord prompting, kind of challenging me, kind of drawing me, inviting me into doing something deeper, like taking my Contentment Challenge to another level, which was harder, but this kind of draw or call or invitation is probably the best word, to try it for the entire year. Now, as I was praying about it, I felt like the best kind of pace and rhythm for me this year was to do the Contentment Challenge and then have like a week or two of kind of shopping in between and then do the Contentment Challenge again. Some people have done a full year of no shopping at all. I actually interviewed my friend Reagan who did that. She's been on the podcast. You could search Contentment Challenge Reagan for her whole story. It's an incredible story of when they did not do any shopping for a whole year and it was amazing.
But for me this year, I wanted a cadence. I wanted something that could feel like this is a healthy cadence for me. So this is what it looked like. This is what it ended up looking like. Four separate Contentment Challenges with a two-week window in between each one. So in those windows, I very intentionally buy the things that I need for the coming season or maybe things that I have wanted and seen and realized like hey, this is something I really truly do want while I was in that no spend window. Then I close the window and I start again. So here's where I am right now. January through March I did no spending and then I had two weeks to assess what I actually wanted and I bought it. April, May, June, no spending. The last week of June and the first week of July I bought some things. Then July, August and now September, which is where I am today, no spending. At the end of this month and the first week of October, I will have my spending window. Then it's the end of the year, October, November, December and that's the year and it's fun because my birthday falls right and of course, Christmas too falls right at the end of December and so that will feel like a really fun, I think, reward or celebration after the end of this Contentment Challenge year.
So I'm roughly 75% of the way through. I thought about waiting and doing this episode until January when I can recap the whole thing and maybe I still will, I don't know. But instead, I really wanted to report live from the middle of this. The lessons, the hard parts, the really sweet parts. I wanted to talk very candidly about it while I'm still in it. I'll say this up front. I have loved it. I have loved this year. I also will say that I've done the Contentment Challenge so many times by now that it was way harder for me to do the Contentment Challenge the very first time than it has been for me to do it this entire year. So if you've never done it before and you're considering it, I get it. I get the hesitation and how hard it is. But I feel like it's this muscle that I've kind of worked through my life and I really am absolutely loving it this year.
So today I'm gonna share with you three lists: five things that I've loved about this year, five practical habits that have made it work, and five things that have been genuinely hard. So let's jump in.
First, the five things I've loved. The first thing that I talk about all the time, it's one of my favorite things about the Contentment Challenge, is my decisions are made for me. I feel like so much of my decision fatigue is just automatically removed from my life when I do this. It's true of every Contentment Challenge. It never gets old. If I see something that I want, if there's an ad served to me on Instagram, something that catches my eye at Target, there's no deliberation. Sure, I'll have a pause and say, that's cute, or I could use that. But there's no trying it on. There's no derailing my shopping plan. I usually just keep scrolling on Instagram. There's no like, should I buy this? Should I not? I's just a no. It's just right out of the bat just no or a not right now and there's a lot of freedom in that.
Number two, it has made me radically more intentional. So when something does catch my eye and I genuinely think I could use this, I put it in a note on my phone. I'll talk about that note more in a minute because it's like my number one practical tip. So I'm saving that for the five practical things. But the point is the decision doesn't disappear, it just kind of gets deferred. So I'm not walking around going, man, I can't have this. It's still gonna be available to me in a couple months in that shopping window, if I even still want it then, which spoiler alert, a lot of times I don't. But it has turned me into a genuinely thoughtful shopper.
Number three, it has shifted where my money and attention go, this year in particular. So because I've removed buying clothes and home stuff for the majority of my year, that focus goes somewhere else. This year, I feel like that focus and energy has gone towards my health. I've talked a little bit about this in a recent episode. I just joined Burn Boot Camp. I have been moving my body outside, stretching, eating well, nourishing myself, hydrating. My focus has really shifted on my energy. Like taking care of my body, getting strong, instead of like what I'm wearing, it's like how I'm feeling, if that makes sense. Now you can absolutely do both. You can take care of your body and you can shop all year round. I'm not saying it's either/or. I'm just saying that for me, when shopping comes off the table, it leaves room for me to truly consider other areas in my life. I want to be honest. I have spent more money on health this year because I have not been spending money in other areas. Burn Boot Camp, the peptides I've told you guys about, my hydration drinks that I'm trying. But all of this has been in conversation with Will. He's been supportive, maybe because he knows I'm not spending on other areas. I think he just is excited for me to feel energy when I have a baby that's one and a half and I'm coming out of that early postpartum time.
But do I miss shopping? Yes. Like of course I do. There are trends that I'm watching go by and my closet is starting to feel a little ancient and outdated, but it's a good trade-off in my book. Like I love the way that my body feels and that shift has truly taken the whole year. I don't think that I would have experienced this in just a one 90-day contentment challenge. It's taken me like all the way to this third quarter to really settle into these bigger picture things that I want to try for me, which is great. It's been a really great payoff. I don't think I would have dug this deep if I hadn't been doing it all year. I think the Contentment Challenge has just gotten me here, and I'm really grateful.
Okay, number four, I fix things by letting go instead of adding on. This is a big one and let me explain what I mean. When I'm on the Contentment Challenge, I stop asking myself, “What can I buy to fix this in my life?” I'm not buying new organization bins. I'm not buying anything in my wardrobe to fix maybe something that I don't have or like I'm not getting new seasonal decor for my house. Instead, my eyes are going to everything that I already have and more importantly, everything I need to let go of. It flips me into purge mode, which I have desperately needed this year. Now, I'm gonna be honest. I'm three quarters of the way through, and I still feel like there is so much left to release, so much stuff that needs to get out of my house.
Getting a load to our donation ministry is a real priority for me this month because I have bags and bags that I've cleared out, but I haven't actually like let go of and donated yet, but the Contentment Challenge really helps me shift my focus on instead of buying things to fix problems, I let go of things to fix problems. That I think is something we all need.
Number five, I have really loved and enjoyed every single purchase that I've made. Every one. Now, I think that's because of how few there have been. You know, I have these little spending windows that I've been able to spend in. When I buy something, I am like really, really enjoying that thing for the rest of the year. Okay, I'm gonna tell you two stories real quick.
First, the laptop. First quarter, no spending, my spending windows coming up and I am really thinking about what I actually need. Like what do I really need that will help me in my life? I realized I really needed a new computer. I had been making an old laptop work for a long time. Terrible battery life, so bogged down, that it was genuinely impending my day-to-day work, podcast stuff, emails, basic things. It was dying on me. It was so frustrating. But I hadn't seen it because I'd never really paused to look. I made it work and kept living with it, but the clarity of not shopping and having this window of like, what do I really need to buy right now allowed me to step back and ask, what would actually make my life better? The answer wasn't another small purchase. It was the one big thing that I've been ignoring. The laptop that I got was a high dollar purchase, not actually as expensive as I thought it would be, but it's easily, hands down, the best thing I bought all year. If it weren't for the Contentment Challenge, I really think that I might still be trudging along with the old one. It gave me a lot of clarity.
Okay, then number two, there's just everything else that I've bought this year. I am wearing one of the outfits that I got this year and I'll tell you about that in a little bit. But I can't tell you how happy those purchases make me. I wear them often. I just really really enjoy them. I feel like if I had just picked it up casually in a normal year, I don't think I'd be enjoying my stuff this much. I think the scarcity has made me appreciate it so much and that has been a really big benefit in my opinion.
Alright, let me hit on five practical things that has made this work for me. Number one, I've mentioned it once. Keep a note in your phone. Hands down, my number one tip. When you see something you want, you put it in your notes app. You leave the link to it. You leave the name. My note is called “Mama Wants” because it's the things that mama wants. This note does two jobs. It guides me during my shopping windows and it's also a gift list. So I have this list in my phone. I have shared it with Will. So at any point for a birthday, Christmas, anniversary, Valentine's, he can just pull something off that list that isn't checked off and he knows I'm gonna love it because it's something that I specifically want.
But here's the best part, and I am not exaggerating when I say this. Over 50% of what goes on that list, I don't want anymore by the time that window opens. Like there's no urgency left. The desire is just gone. I realize I don't actually need it. It tells you about how marketing works, right? That dopamine hit of wanting something right now is powerful, but it's almost always temporary. This one habit has cut my spending more than anything else. So even if you only do a standard 90-day Contentment Challenge, do this as part of it. Then go back at the end of the challenge, look at the list, learn from it, and enjoy picking a few things that really have stayed with you.
Second practical thing. Stay out of stores that you love. Just don't go to Target. Don't go browsing. Whatever the store is, fill in the blank for you. Don't, just don't go in there because you're gonna find stuff that you want and then you're gonna feel sad because you can't get it. Same with Facebook Marketplace. That's definitely something you want to stay away from on the Contentment Challenge because obviously there's urgency there. Like you might find something you love and if you don't get it, then it's gonna be gone. It's gonna be snatched up by someone else. Just don't, just don't go there. Just don't look at it, okay?
You know, a little warning. I went into Walmart one time thinking I was safe. It's Walmart. Guys, I was not safe in Walmart. Just stay out of stores. There were these tiny, adorable, battery operated lamps that I so wanted to get. I didn't. I almost did. Confession… I went back to Walmart looking for them because I was like, I can't stop thinking about them. They're so cute. And I couldn't find them. They were gone. I'm sure they're probably online somewhere, but then I just thought, no, no. No, I don't need that and I don't need to go to Walmart anymore. Guys, Walmart. What in the world? Okay. I hate Walmart and yet here I am. I kinda love it.
Okay, number three. Unsubscribe from emails. Any marketing emails, just take the visual cues of want out of your life. It's simple and it works.
Number four. Practical tip. This is kind of like a, I don't know, how do I synthesize this into a practical tip? It's like an idea. Let your brain get retrained. So what I'm trying to say is like zoom out for a second. Notice how you're feeling throughout the entire experience. When you feel sad, when you feel anxious, when you feel like, I don't wanna do this. I really need to be able to buy what I need to, just chill for a second and say, why am I feeling that like that? Like what is what is going on and how can I retrain my brain with contentment?
Not like what do I want to buy right now, but what do I actually want? Look at your habits, look at the things that your eyes are focusing on all the time. When you start to just step back and allow yourself, allow your brain essentially to be retrained in the way that it thinks and is interacting with material things, you can actually ask bigger questions like what do I want to be doing with my money as a whole? What do I want my life to feel like and look like and do I like living in that scarcity urgency/I need to buy things all the time mindset? Will and I have had some really big financial conversations on the table for years now. Years. Like what are our next big financial steps? This year, and I don't think it's an accident, this year I think we're finally getting clarity on them. We have not known what to do. Because I'm not caught up in the little day-to-day spending noise. I feel like when you stop managing a hundred small decisions, you can finally see the big picture.
Number five, the last practical tip is when you do get to spend, spend with joy. This one is practical in a different way, but I mean it. No guilt. Those two weeks of shopping are so fun. Even after the Contentment Challenge is completely over, just let go and have fun. I am so sure of my purchases. I know what I want. I enjoy them and there's freedom in getting exactly what you want and knowing exactly why you want it. So that's my encouragement is when you do get to buy stuff, buy it confidently. It has made me a more confident shopper and it has been just a lot of fun.
Okay, closing it out with five things that have been hard. So this is my chance to just be honest and maybe give you a little bit of a pep talk/heads up, this is hard. It's not all amazing and easy and it's a hard thing. So I want to just tell you five things that have been hard.
Number one, denying myself on a daily basis. Obviously, in a lot of ways, the Contentment Challenge is like a fast. Like we're fasting from spending. There are things that you simply want and you're just telling yourself no. I love that that's a practice in my life. I feel like it falls in the category of being a spiritual discipline, not because I'm holier than anybody else, but because training my eyes back to the Lord and away from materialism is just a good practice for me personally to have. If you know a little bit about my story, you know that my upbringing was very materialistic driven. So I just think this is a healthy and good practice for me personally. It's like working out. Like you're denying yourself comfort and rest and leisure, but the payoff is real. You build muscle, you build endurance. Same thing here. It's good, but it's hard.
Number two, decluttering is emotionally hard. I declutter a lot during the Contentment Challenge. I have been processing recently why is this so hard for me. There's a lot that goes into that. Just real quick, obviously, I have five children. There's just a lot of stuff in my house. My sister and I have been processing this recently about again, my childhood. It goes back to my upbringing and how there is just a big focus on stuff and buying stuff and how that was praised a lot in my upbringing. It's just hard for me personally to let go of stuff. It might not be hard for you. I have a friend recently, she said, “I'm just a natural purger. I have no problem letting go of stuff. Like if to me, as just part of my rhythm, I'm just constantly clearing stuff out.” I want to be that, but that is not me. I want so bad to be that. But it's a real fight for me. I think that that's part of why the Lord gave me the word “drastic” for this year. He's calling me to be drastic in letting go of stuff. But what's drastic for me, I don't think looks drastic to anyone else. I think it might look normal. But it means just like digging deeper and actually releasing things and kind of wrestling with them.
But clearing out clutter and stuff is time consuming. It’is tedious. There's emotional weight to letting go of things you have memories attached to. I am not gonna sugarcoat that. That doesn't have to be part of your Contentment Challenge, but I'm warning you, it likely will be because it just naturally happens when your eyes get taken off of what you can buy and are redirected to your home. You just start to assess the things that you own.
Number three, what's hard is sometimes you miss the window. This one's a little petty, but it's real. You see something that you want, you put it on the list in your note in the Notes app, and you go to buy it when your shopping window opens and it's gone. Sold out. You missed it. Just know that happens and know that the greater good still wins. Growing closer to the Lord, living intentionally, all of that is worth more than one or two items that you miss. But the moment is genuinely disappointing.
Number four of what's hard is kind of watching a year of trends pass you by. I said it earlier. I'll say it again. My closet feels dated. I just feel out of style. When you're out of the game for like a full year, you just kind of start to notice, but it's a trade I'd make again. TBH, I don't think anyone is really that concerned about me being out of style. Like we think a lot of ourselves and our clothes and what we're wearing. Everyone else around us is not really that concerned about it. Like, truly, they don't care. If I were to see you, I don't think that you would care if I was actually wearing something trendy or not. I think that's another mindset thing that's actually really good to kind of work through on the Contentment Challenge.
Number five, fighting the urge to get legalistic. This one snuck up on me. This is something I have had to learn time and time again on the Contentment Challenge. It's actually what my closing story in this episode is all about. So hold that thought and I'm gonna come back to it. But the Contentment Challenge is just not about being legalistic.
Okay, I want to give a couple of clarifications because I know people wonder and there's always questions around the Contentment Challenge. So I want to clarify a couple things. First of all, this challenge was only for me this year. I bought things for my kids and my husband all year long. Especially my kids, I mean, they are growing and changing so fast. I just bought two pairs of Crocs for my boys this week because theirs are literally falling apart and their feet are so big. My youngest daughter, she's a year and a half. She's growing out of everything and a lot of her hand-me-downs are 10 years old. So she's needed new clothes and I have felt total freedom this whole year to get what they need. Also, gifts are allowed always. Gifts are allowed, giving and receiving gifts. You don't want to be like nasty about it. Like just receive a gift. Like give gifts. Be generous, right?
Christmas is coming and I did wonder, okay, am I gonna do all my Christmas shopping in that two week window? The answer is probably not. I would love to. That'd be amazing. But I'm gonna be shopping for Christmas, I'm sure, longer than that. So that's all completely consistent with the challenge because for me, this year was about me and my heart. Buying gifts is about blessing other people and that's totally fine to do.
Okay, so here's the moment from this year that I think I'm gonna remember most. Will and I had tickets to a concert recently. We had a babysitter and as we were driving to the concert in downtown Raleigh, we stopped and got a burger and the sky looked crazy. Crazy storm clouds. It was really dark and we're like, okay. We looked at the radar and this huge thunderstorm is coming in. Then we get a text and it's basically like, please proceed to your cars because this concert, which was at an outdoor venue, is postponed. Like indefinitely. Like we'll let you know when we can start the concert. We were like, what do we do? Like, what are we supposed to do? We have a babysitter. We're in downtown Raleigh. We've got like probably an hour minimum to kill because this storm was just approaching and it was not going anywhere for at least an hour.
So we went to the mall. We were like, let's go walk around the mall. We can't really go like walk around outside anywhere. It's thundering and storming like crazy. So he takes me to my favorite store in the mall, which LOL, what a high school date that we're on. This was so fun. We never go to the mall. Like, I never go to the mall. This was like, what what are we doing? This is so great. But he took me shopping and he was like, let's go to your favorite store. I was like, babe, I am on the Contentment Challenge. Let's just walk around the mall. I don't have to go into any store. He was like this is a gift for you, okay? Can I please just take you to a store and let me buy these things for you and you count it as a gift?
So obviously in the Contentment Challenge, one of my rules is I don't buy things for myself, but I can receive gifts. I kind of wrestled with this in the car. I'm like, are you sure? Is this okay? I don't know. Is this fine? He was like, please just let me do this for you. We have nothing else to do. All the kids are taken care of. This would be so fun for you. And low key, I was like, yeah, it would. I haven't been shopping in a store in who knows how long. This is so fun to try on clothes. So in the middle of the Contentment Challenge, I went shopping with Will at my very favorite store and it blessed me so much. I got this soft boyfriend tee that I'm wearing as I'm recording this. It says “Book club” on it. I love it. I got this denim pullover hoodie that’s like really soft with the zipper. I wear it constantly. This hat that I'm wearing says “Organic sweet cream butter.” The whole butter trend cracks me up. I love this hat. It's so cute. I love it more than is reasonable, honestly. It was great. Then I got this stretchy pair of black billowy pants that are almost like athletic pants, but way more comfortable. I wear them at least three times a week. I'm obsessed. They're so good. Four or five items. Like I have lived in every single one of these. I have loved them. They mean so much to me because it was Will seeing me in the Contentment Challenge and giving me such a gift on this date night.
I think here's the lesson. Like, I loved everything. I loved that moment. I love that time. I love that gesture from Will. But this is the fifth hard thing that I mention. Don't get so legalistic about the Contentment challenge that you miss the gift of it. I did struggle with it on the way to the mall. Then I really felt the Lord say, like, hey, you're doing this for the whole year. Can you just lean into the circumstances of this evening and enjoy it for what it is? Like your husband loves you. He wants to give you this gift and bless you. So in that moment, I felt so free and confident after I kind of sat with it for a minute. I don't feel like I broke the challenge at all. I don't feel like I failed. This is a year-long practice I'm doing, not a scoreboard. That night is gonna be one of my favorite nights of the whole year, like favorite memories of the whole year because it just allowed me to see that the Contentment Challenge is not about being legalistic. It is about really enjoying life. It is about listening to the Lord, it is about freedom, it is about enjoying the things that you have and being really intentional with what you buy. All of those things happened that night. So I just wanna say, don't ever feel guilty buying things when you get off the Contentment Challenge or if there's an opportunity like this, just let it shape you into someone with better perspective, better buying instincts, and more intentional financial habits. That is what it has done for me and it's been just a really sweet, great year.
So I figured you might be curious about some things that I've bought this year. I've shared a couple of them. But to be honest, I was thinking, I was like, let me share a fun list of things I've actually bought this year in my spending windows and y'all, I can't hardly remember. Doesn't that prove my whole point? Like I can hardly remember the things that I bought. Here's what I do remember. My laptop, which I talked about. I also got a new phone. Again, this is another big purchase. The time was up on my phone and the battery was dying there too. So it was time. This summer I remember buying a new bathing suit. Everything I mentioned that Will bought for me at the mall. I'll leave links to those things because these things have honestly been my favorite things that I have bought and I know they're still at the store because I just did it and they're just so comfy and so great. But I think I bought some clothes, a few clothes. I think I bought some jeans shorts at one point. That's it. I have not done a ton of shopping this year. I've been really intentional.
Here's what's on my list for the upcoming spending window. I want some new PJs. I need some new socks. My sock drawer is bananas. I want a new nice fall dress and some fall staples, good pair of jeans, some sweaters. I need a new bra. Just basic things, like underwear, maybe one good fall outfit, and some socks. That's it. So it's nothing crazy. That's it. Then there's this pair of kitchen shears that I would like to have, but I'm honestly kind of like, I don't know. I don't know if I need that or not. Like things that I've seen, you know, or that people have mentioned that I'd like to have, but I don't even know if I'm gonna get it.
So if there's one thing I want you to take away from this episode, it's this, okay. You don't have to do a full year of no shopping to get the benefit of the Contentment challenge. You can start the practice of starting a note in your phone. You can start and try the 90-day Contentment Challenge. You can start from now until Christmas. You can start planning for it now to start in January. Just try some of these practices and even the Note app thing, it's such a game changer for me. It's gonna surprise you. Like it's gonna surprise you how helpful that is.
If this episode encouraged you to really consider the Contentment Challenge or if you want to do it with a friend, that's something that a lot of you have done, which I love. You can share this episode with a friend who might need it and say, hey, do you want to do this with me? In like January through March or pick your window. It's so fun to have a buddy to do it with. You can always go to nancyray.com/contentment-challenge. I have a resource that is genuinely helpful. It's how to prepare for the Contentment Challenge. Some scripture and activities to do throughout the Contentment Challenge and then kind of how to end the Contentment Challenge well. So you can always head there as well.
But hey, if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, leave a review. All of that stuff helps people find the show. I really just hope that this show blessed you today.
Thank you so much for listening to episode 333 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray. Everything I've mentioned today can be found in the show notes nancyray.com/podcast/333 and you can find me at nancyray.com or follow me at @Nancyray on Instagram almost daily.
I'm gonna close with words from Philippians 4:11-13, which says,
“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”
Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time.
