You’ve no doubt by now heard of a No Spend Month and how helpful it can be in breaking bad spending habits. But have you ever heard of a No Amazon August? Well, it’s a similar concept, except that you’re not buying anything from Amazon for the month of August! I even made you a printable tracker if you want to use it!
No Amazon August Rules
The rules are simple. You’re in charge. If you have Amazon Prime, you can still pay for it and watch your favorite Prime TV Shows and Movies. If you have specific subscriptions that come every month from Amazon, like dog food, you’re totally allowed to keep them if you want! However, you’ll need to get real specific about how much you spend on Amazon annually. Let me show you how.
Figuring Out How Much You Spend at Amazon
Log into your Amazon account. Then go under Account and Lists. From there, scroll just a little bit until you see Download Order Reports. You’ll then be able to generate a report for any date range. I highly recommend you do a Year-to-Date report. You may be shocked to see your total…I know I was! 😰
You can then download the report into a Numbers or Excel file and then just tally up the numbers from there!
The purpose of doing this is that we won’t be committed to following through on not spending any money on Amazon for the month of August if you don’t first get real with just how much you’re spending every single year for the convenience of Amazon. Don’t get me wrong. As a mom of three kids, I know. It’s so much easier most days to just click that 2-day ship even though Rakuten notifies me that I’m overpaying for the item.
Let’s Take It a Step Further…
Last year, I spent 9% of our family’s take-home pay through Amazon (not including our yearly Prime Subscription dues)! That’s a lot y’all. This realization helped me understand my own unhealthy relationship with Amazon. Granted, the Pandemic helped fuel that drastic rise in my Amazon spending, but still. I’m ultimately responsible for what I’m doing with my money, and mindlessly buying stuff we don’t need isn’t the wise choice.
So, here’s what I want you to do. After you total up how much you spent last year through Amazon, I want you to figure out how much of your household’s take-home pay you spent through Amazon. It’s a simple calculation. Take your take-home pay and divide it by the total number you spent through Amazon. Then multiply by 100. There you have it!
Did that amount surprise you? Does it make you angry? Do you feel more motivated to stick to your goal of not spending anything unnecessarily through Amazon? If so, make sure you grab your free printable below!
Tips for Being Successful at a No Amazon August
- Remove your payment info from Amazon if you can.
- Change your password.
- Remove the app from your phone/tablet.
- Review all of your subscribe and save items – do you need all those? Cancel what you don’t need.
- Decide what you’ll do with the money you save (more on this below).
Make a Plan for Your Savings
Okay, so remember how you downloaded your order history? Let’s come up with an average of what you spend a month through Amazon (again, not including your Prime membership). Simply take that yearly total and divide by 12. Use this number as a guide and a goal. Make it a plan to put that amount of money in August towards your current financial goal. So if you’re working on paying off debt, make it a goal to put that amount (or close to it) towards the debt you’re currently working to pay off. If you’re beefing up your Emergency Fund due to fears of a Recession, then put it there.
No matter what your goal is, make a plan and then, most importantly, execute it. Going through this challenge does you no good if you don’t take drastic measures to change your behaviors or do something positive for your future self. Use those savings for the betterment of your family.
Alright! Grab your printable tracker if you haven’t already, and go print it out and stick it on the fridge! Let’s do this!
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I think Amazon may have gotten rid of the option to download order reports. I checked today and it’s either moved or gone. Has anyone been able to find it recently?
It did! 😭 I tried to pull up ours from this year and couldn’t so I reached out to Amazon and they took the option away. I asked them to bring back as it’s such a helpful tool so hopefully they’ll bring it back in the future. 🤞