Satisfaction From a Dollar Well-Unspent

Va. Family Experiments With Forced Frugality

On day two of Austin and Katy Wheelock's two-week experiment to not spend any money, they bartered kale and collard greens for apples. On day nine, with one car on empty, they considered raiding the lawn mower for gas. On day 10, the sugar ran out. And by day 13, Katy, longing for Pizza Hut, briefly considered making her own pizza, until she checked what was left in the fridge: half a can of tomato paste, a hunk of cheddar cheese and black radishes.

"Not too appealing," she said.

For two weeks in November, the couple paid their bills and mortgage. But that was it. No eating out. No double espressos at the corner cafe. No pedicures. No iTunes downloads. No groceries, even. Austin went to Best Buy twice, just to wistfully look around.

But as the Wheelocks came to the end of their forced frugality, they felt giddy instead of deprived. Katy found herself humming "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. They checked their money-tracking software and figured they had "saved" more than $2,000 during those two weeks just by not spending it.

"It's embarrassing how much money we saved," Katy Wheelock said. "We had literally been eating our money."

Perhaps most striking about the Wheelocks' experiment is not how much they saved but that they did it at all. Both have good jobs as government contractors. They own their house in Alexandria in a neighborhood where home prices have held steady. Their cars are paid for. And for the past year, they have been able to pay their credit card balances in full every month.

It's just that with so much gloom about the economic meltdown and job losses, Katy Wheelock said, it's hard not to feel scared.

"It bothers me that we don't have that three- to six-month cushion for disasters or someone losing a job," she said. "The economic situation hasn't affected us as greatly as others, but there's the potential that it could. Or maybe it's more a fear that it could. We're so lucky that this was a fun experiment. What if one of us lost a job?"

The Wheelocks' actions might seem extreme, but economic indicators show they are behaving like many U.S. consumers. Last month, consumers delivered retailers the worst sales in 30 years. Consumer confidence continues to fall. And the sharp drop in consumer spending in recent months is "without precedent in the modern era," one economist wrote.

Consumer spending fuels more than 70 percent of the U.S. economy and is the only thing that has pulled the country out of past recessions, economists say.

The Wheelocks, it seems, are U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's worst nightmare.

Or are they?