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Anyone who's ever seen me in profile knows that I'm not one for fasting - I look like a lower case b with legs.

And if I have a weakness greater than that for doughnuts and potato chips, it most certainly is a weakness for making impulse purchases.

Often, these two weaknesses will afflict me simultaneously. My wife and I will be in Canadian Tire when all of a sudden I will yell out, "Look, honey, Doritos!" and traipse off like a toddler who just saw a balloon floating away.

So I approached the idea of going on a fiscal fast with not a little trepidation.

The concept of not spending any money for a specified period of time has been gaining in popularity for a while now, as bloggers such as the Shopping Sherpa and online forums such as the Dollar Stretcher Community promote it as the equivalent of a purge. The idea: Going a full week without spending a single penny will help rid you of the notion that money and consumption are needed to make a person happy.

At the very least, Tom Reid, director of consumer solutions at TransUnion.ca, a credit-management company, told me, "You're going to learn to begin to identify the difference between your wants versus your needs."

Well, going a week without spending money was a lot like any week I've tried to quit smoking: At first, it's relatively easy, but by Day 3 you're irritable and bitching. Soon, you're so emotionally fragile and desperate you would punch a stranger in the face for so much as a single drag.

The first Monday of my fiscal fast, it was pretty clear the Tim Hortons coffee I usually go buy in the morning was a want, not a need. But I jonesed for it all the same. My wife, who had joined me on the fast, brewed a pot at home.

After getting over that initial urge, the first day went smoothly. So did the second day. This is easy, I thought to myself. Then we began to crack. The wife was the first to buckle.

She went out and bought two mangos. "I need fruit," she said. Fair enough. After all, we didn't cheat and load up with a Y2K bunker's worth of food, drinks and entertainment before fasting. (Though I did buy a copy of the book Alive to remind myself that no matter how dire my privation may seem, it's not as if I was lost in the Andes and forced to eat dudes I play rugby with.)

That said, did she need the flip-flops she bought on Thursday? Probably not.

Then again, I probably didn't need magazines, either. But I went to a store that sells them, all the same. I left empty-handed and kind of depressed. I felt like all the books and magazines I had at home sucked and that only new magazines were worth reading.

Then, one night during my fast, a friend who was passing through town invited me out to a bar where a few people would be toasting his visit. Since I knew I would cave and buy a beer, I opted not to go. My friend said he'd drop by after the bar. He never did. A fiscal fast can be a real downer.

Thankfully, every meal my wife and I made lightened the mood. On the fourth night of our fast, we made what we lovingly called kitchen sink pasta, in honour of the number and randomness of its ingredients: corn, sausage, red pepper, chèvre, two kinds of pasta and a few dashes from various sauce bottles that have collected in our fridge. It tasted pretty good.

Still, by Day 5 there were so many things I wanted to buy, I felt like a drunk on the verge of a bender: used books, magazines, potting soil, the black T-shirt I saw at H&M, a copy of All-Star Superman, Volume 1, a baseball. I knew that I didn't need these things, but sweet Lord, did I want them.

In resisting that urge, however, I began to get a sense of how much I would have spent on them. And that is where financial wisdom begins.

At least that's what financial people tell me.

"In terms of common-sense financial management, No. 1 is know what you're spending," says Kurt Rosentreter, a certified financial planner in Toronto.

That said, Mr. Rosentreter isn't a big believer in the long-term value of fiscal fasting.

"I liken this idea to a fad diet," he says. "A week isn't going to fix anything."

I disagree. After the seven days of my fiscal fast were up I didn't race out to buy everything I had craved. I realized how I could be just as happy without being a slave to my fleeting desires. I also saved a good chunk of change.

And once you can no longer go chasing after ever-fleeting desires for new stuff, you learn to put the things you already own or can do free to good use, whether it's finally cracking open that book you bought a year ago, playing a game of Scrabble instead of going to the movies or spending an afternoon in the park.

Yes, it's true that if you open a box of doughnuts in my vicinity, I will still come sauntering over. But I've also come to learn that kitchen sink pasta can taste just as sweet.