Napoleon’s jewelry stolen The robbers accessed the museum using a basket lift and fled on scooters after the seven-minute operation. Thieves stole nine pieces of jewelry from Napoleon’s and Empress Josephine’s collection during a daylight heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris on October 19, 2025. Key details of the robbery: Targeted area: The thieves broke into display cases in the Apollo Gallery, which houses part of the French Crown Jewels. Items stolen: Nine jewels were taken, including a necklace, a brooch, and a tiara. Suspects: Three masked individuals carried out the heist. While two entered the gallery, a third kept watch. They remain at large. Damaged piece: A crown belonging to Empress Eugénie was later found broken outside the museum. Unstolen items: Larger, priceless diamonds like the 140-carat Regent diamond were not taken. Alarm failure: According to police sources, the gallery’s alarm and video surveillance systems had been out of service for weeks following a cyber attack in July. Investigation: French police have opened an investigation into “organised theft and criminal conspiracy”. Museum response: The Louvre was closed for the rest of the day and confirmed the robbery on social media, citing “exceptional reasons”. share.google/aimode/Vvr7l2qy…
Napoleon’s jewelry stolen The robbers accessed the museum using a basket lift and fled on scooters after the seven-minute operation. Thieves stole nine pieces of jewelry from Napoleon’s and Empress Josephine’s collection during a daylight heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris on October 19, 2025. Key details of the robbery: Targeted area: The thieves broke into display cases in the Apollo Gallery, which houses part of the French Crown Jewels. Items stolen: Nine jewels were taken, including a necklace, a brooch, and a tiara. Suspects: Three masked individuals carried out the heist. While two entered the gallery, a third kept watch. They remain at large. Damaged piece: A crown belonging to Empress Eugénie was later found broken outside the museum. Unstolen items: Larger, priceless diamonds like the 140-carat Regent diamond were not taken. Alarm failure: According to police sources, the gallery’s alarm and video surveillance systems had been out of service for weeks following a cyber attack in July. Investigation: French police have opened an investigation into “organised theft and criminal conspiracy”. Museum response: The Louvre was closed for the rest of the day and confirmed the robbery on social media, citing “exceptional reasons”. share.google/aimode/Vvr7l2qy…
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The author stops spending money for a week to save.
Daniel Balakov/Getty Images
When my family of seven runs into unexpected costs, we start no-spend weeks.
During those weeks, we limit spending, use everything in the pantry, and look for free activities.
I found that no-spend weeks help us stay connected and intentional.
When my partner and I just finished a massive laundry room remodel that stretched our budget a bit, the worst happened. The contractor was putting the finishing touches on the floorboard. He pulled up a piece of wood and found black mold near the fridge from a leak, and kept finding more and more, down through the floorboards to the basement.
We didn’t know that our home remodel “part two” had just commenced, costing us thousands.
This scenario and others are just part of daily life in a family of 7: a pediatric dermatology bill, emergency baseball gear, and bodywork repair when a teen threw a rock at my van.
When life happens, we pull out our go-to strategy, which we’ve gamified for our kids — the no-spend week challenge.
How it works
When our budget gets tight, the whole family takes a step back from spending for a certain amount of time. It can last a week or just a few days. Sometimes, we refer to it as “holding the line” — the line being the credit card balance.
It works best with a clear goal and an end in sight, such as a few days from the end of a credit card cycle, when we are happy with how much we’ve spent.
Of course, we spend what we really need to — like food — but no extras.
Who knows how much longer our five little kids will still think this is fun, but for now, it’s a lifesaving strategy when a fridge leak or a medical bill threatens our financial peace.
We start making easy cuts to our budget
My favorite afternoon splurge is a stop at the best coffee store in town, which is not a chain and thus has some higher prices to stay afloat. This is the first weekly splurge to go, or at least to move to next week.
The author’s kids love playing outside, which saves her money.
Courtesy of Alexandra Frost
Amazon is always a source of serious spending in our house — from detergents to underwear, toilet paper, and paper towels to staplers. Many things in our home that fall into the pretty essential category have come from Amazon. Yet, anytime I go on the app, it seems to quickly add up to $75.
But during no-spend days or weeks, I try to avoid Prime completely and just include true essentials with our weekly grocery order instead. Nobody really needed that new Apple watch band or extra pair of leggings anyway.
We focus on intentionality
If you look in my fridge right now, there are three cauliflower heads. That’s not because we love cauliflower that much; it’s because I often order the same things on repeat for our weekly grocery bill, whether we really need them or not. But during no-spend weeks, I pare down the groceries to things we truly need.
I also take better stock of the pantry and cabinet to see what we truly need. The side effect of this is that we are finally able to get to the bottom of the pasta box in the pantry or use up the least favorite kind of chips the kids haven’t eaten.
I also find myself getting more creative during no-spend days. We wrapped a birthday present with a funny Christmas gift bag because, well, who cares. We made smoothies with fruit that’s going bad instead of buying some. There’s something immensely gratifying about using up things you already have.
The kids even jumped in, trying to think of creative ways to do things for free those weeks. They recently loved running up the huge hill by the park and watching the sunset. All of it was free.
No-spend weeks help us save money and bring us closer
I make sure my family is never deprived during no-spend periods. If someone needs an emergency pair of shoes, I’ll find myself saying, “Sure, let’s talk about it next week after I get paid a bit more.” And then, we do, and they are one step closer to adults who can handle delayed gratification.
In limiting our spending, we are all working together to make our lives more comfortable in the long run. It isn’t always easy, but we always make it out the other side.
No-spend days and weeks unexpectedly show us what’s really important and what we really do need — connection and intention.
U.S. federal government shutdown enters day 19, with no end in sight. `The Israeli military conducted strikes against Hamas in Gaza after accusing the terror…
@RichSementa But the longer we let Putin postpone sanctions and the delivery of key weapons to Ukraine the better it is for Russia. The fastest way to end the war is supporting Ukraine and cutting off Russia’s financial backers. It’s a similar approach to the Gaza war.
@OstapYarysh If “The U.S. is growing tired of this war,” no one is forcing them to reiterate their futile “diplomatic efforts”: the important thing is intelligence sharing and supplying Ukraine with weapons paid for by European countries. The rest doesn’t matter to us.
The thieves stole nine items from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress.
The perpetrators used a lift truck to access the museum, entering the Apollo Gallery through a section of the building under renovation. Police have so far been unable to locate them.
One of the stolen items, the broken crown of Napoleon III’s wife, was later found near the museum.
Interestingly, the thieves left behind the largest gem in the emperor’s collection — a 140-carat diamond.
The total value of the stolen items has not yet been disclosed.
