Living On Less Challenge - Results

For the month of April in addition to not using any of my credit cards I also did a living on less challenge. Honestly I think I just picked a good month to do the challenge. There were a few factors that made living on less, less of a challenge.

1. April this year had 3 paychecks instead of 2 (normally May has 3 paychecks). So even though I put 5% of my first paycheck for the month and 10% of my second paycheck for the month in to savings I still had that third paycheck.

2. I did a bunch of balance transfers at the end of March/beginning of April. So the combination of moving debt around actually left me with a few extra dollars to spend. I didn't spend the money but I had it just in case. I'm prepping to make larger credit card payments on the cards that I used to consolidate debt.

3. I got my federal and state refunds. I used the federal refund to pay off a credit card and then balance transferred 2 other cards to the 1 card I had paid off. State refund I used for some car repairs. This is all money I hadn't budgeted in to my monthly budget. But the car repair cost was also not something I had budgeted for and was still able to pay while living on less.

The harder question is could I live on less every month? Every month could I put in to savings an additional 5-10% of my gross salary? And sadly I think the answer is no. I think this challenge proved that if I'm forced to live on less I could. But every month I don't have the factors that I had this month to make it easier to live off less. I have some major expenses coming up (Trip to St. Thomas in a few weeks, cruise in October, etc.) that I need pay for so that 5-10% is going towards that. October is the next month I get 3 paychecks so I may do the "living on less" challenge again?

For those who took part in the challenge, how did it go? Would you do it again?