Stop Spending Money for One Week

During the weeks of Lent, the Green Cheapskate will be sharing his suggestions for little daily sacrifices that can save you money and help Mother Earth breathe a little easier.

As I've written here before, if you're a typical American you can't honestly embrace the green movement without also accepting that you need to consume less in your own life. We Americans are only five percent of the world's population, but we consume almost thirty percent of the world's resources. Our shopaholic ways are having an enormous impact on the rest of the planet.

I've written before about how to break our collective spending addiction, and there's no better time than Lent to give it a try. In case you missed it, I suggest trying a spending detox, or what I call a fiscal fast: Go for a week or more each year without spending any money. Think of it as forgoing the use of legal tender for the sake of tenderizing your non-monetary soul.

The Golden Rule: NO stockpiling in advance. You also don't want to spend more in the following week in order to "catch up" with bad habits.

What does a fiscal fast look like? Well each is different, so get creative! Here are some things that work:

• Eat up all the food languishing in your house, in the corners of cupboards or in refrigerator drawers you seldom open. What about the back of that freezer?
• Leave your car in the garage, and dust off that bicycle, those running shoes or your transit card.
• Dig around in your closet for the clothes you never wear (unused clothes are ruining your life, anyway).
• Bust out those small shampoo bottles you've been hording from the Holiday Inn.
• Cook all your own meals at home.
• Skip entertainment that costs money, and play board games, shoot some hoops or check out a book or video from the library.

You'll save money, obviously, as well as gain more appreciation for how you spend. Hopefully, you'll be reminded of all the wonderful things in life that have nothing to do with money.

Check out Jeff Yeager, our Green Cheapskate, on CNN!: