My No Spend Year: The Story Behind Mrs Hawkins House
Before The No Spend Year
People often assume I became interested in budgeting because I got into debt. The truth is, I’d always been interested in running a home well. I was the mum making soup from leftovers, cooking from scratch, comparing supermarket prices and wondering whether I could make something instead of buying it. Saving money on groceries genuinely interested me. Meal planning interested me. Organising the house interested me. Those things came naturally to me long before Mrs Hawkins House existed. What I didn’t understand was how to financially plan for a household over the course of a year. Like many people, I managed one month at a time. If the bills were paid and there was food in the fridge, I thought I was doing alright. I wasn’t reckless with money and I wasn’t living extravagantly. The simple fact was I busy, trying to build a future for my little family and doing my very best. Through no fault of anyone’s really, I had never learned how to connect this reality to a bigger financial picture.
The Debts Started To Accumulate
Following the breakdown of my marriage, a series of ordinary events gradually pushed me into debt. I left work for a period to care for a family member and tried to build a business that would allow me to work from home around my caring responsibilities. I borrowed to train, invested in equipment and hoped it would become our future. It didn’t work out. Savings disappeared, debts slowly grew and I kept telling myself that when things settled down, I’d sort everything out. The turning point came years later when my solicitor asked me to complete a Statement of Means before my divorce. I had to write down every debt, every bill and every financial commitment. Seeing it all on one piece of paper was sobering. I realised I owed almost €10,000. It hadn’t happened because of one disastrous decision. It had happened because I’d spent years reacting to life instead of planning ahead for it. That afternoon forced me to stop looking away, and although it was uncomfortable, I’m grateful for it now because it changed the direction of my life.
How I Organised My No Spend Year
I decided that if I couldn’t earn my way out of debt quickly, I would organise my way out of it instead. I committed to what became my no spend year. We still bought food, paid our bills and carried on with ordinary family life, but every purchase had to have a reason. I planned our meals properly, shopped with a list, sold things we no longer used, baked bread, dried clothes on airers, batch cooked and combined journeys to save fuel. “No” became one of the most useful words in my vocabulary. It wasn’t glamorous and there were plenty of days when it felt repetitive, but little by little the debt came down. Just under twelve months later it was gone. Years afterwards I mentioned our no spend year to one of my children, who had been nine at the time. He looked completely puzzled and said, “We did a no spend year?” He genuinely hadn’t noticed. That conversation has stayed with me because it reminded me that children experience home very differently from adults. They remember feeling safe, having your attention and eating together around the table far more than they remember where the food came from or how much it cost.
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Mrs Hawkins House Blog Was Born
Clearing the debt gave me something I’d been missing for years: breathing space. It also changed the way I thought about running a household. I stopped seeing meal planning as a way of saving money and started appreciating everything else it did. It meant there was less stress at five o’clock because dinner was already planned. A well-stocked freezer meant there was always another option if plans changed. Putting money aside for Christmas throughout the year meant December became something to look forward to rather than something to survive. None of these habits was particularly remarkable on its own, but together they made everyday life feel calmer and far more organised. As I began talking to other people, it struck me that hardly anyone was having these conversations. We seem perfectly comfortable discussing mortgages, pensions and house prices, yet many people feel awkward admitting they’re worried about the weekly food shop or how they’re going to pay for school uniforms. That has never made much sense to me because those are the financial decisions most families are making every single week. They deserve far more attention than they often receive.
What Audiences Want
Mrs Hawkins House grew naturally from those experiences. I didn’t set out to become a budgeting expert. I simply started sharing the systems that had helped me regain control of my own household. Today I write and speak about practical household management because that’s where I believe financial wellbeing begins. Meal planning, grocery shopping, preparing for Christmas, organising a home, planning for university, reducing waste and building simple routines all play their part. They aren’t separate subjects to me. They’re different pieces of the same puzzle. Over the years I’ve had the privilege of speaking to a number of audiences professionally. Wherever I speak, the response is remarkably similar. People don’t want to be lectured. They don’t want to be made to feel guilty. They want practical ideas from someone who understands what ordinary family life entails. That’s what I hope people find here. Mrs Hawkins House has never been about perfection or deprivation. It’s about helping people feel more organised, more confident and more at peace with the life they’re already living, one practical step at a time.
Further Information
- Contact me for speaking engagements here
- Or email me directly on hello@mrshawkinshouse.com
- For further reading on how to do a no spend year, start here.
