I just picked a winner of the Eco-Nomical Baby Guide giveaway using random.org, and it’s Amy, who left a comment saying “Thanks for passing on the diaper/cold water tip – that’s great – and the giveaway!” Congratulations Amy! I’ll email you to get your mailing address and your book will be on the way soon.
Happy Friday everyone!
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that my approach to spending money on baby stuff is minimal, to say the least. Our son is two and a half now (!) and we’ve still spent very little on gear, supplies, etc. for him. Other than his 529 fund and his health insurance, our expenses have not increased noticeably at all since he was born. We’ve only had two major new purchases: an organic crib mattress bought on sale for $230, and a Britax Marathon car seat for $220 (on a clearance sale, reduced from about $270). We comparison shopped for both items, and bought them when they were on sale, with free shipping. We feel that they were both worth the price, and both will continue to be used for quite some time (the crib mattress fits into a second-hand wooden toddler bed that we found on Craigslist, and we plan to use it until our son no longer fits on it).
Other than those two items, the only stuff we’ve purchased new were a few small things – a very basic $12 potty chair, some baby-proofing supplies, organic diaper rash ointment, etc. All of his clothes have either been hand-me-downs from friends, gifts (my mother in law likes to send clothes for Christmas and his birthday), or purchased used at a thrift store. Same with his toys, books, bedding, high chair, furniture, stroller,Moby Wrap, bike trailer, etc. I don’t have any desire for matching nursery furniture, and in general, we’ve just done without a lot of the stuff that many parents feel is essential for babies. His cloth diapers were homemade (by me and my mother) and the fabric to make them came from recycled flannel sheets, t-shirts and fleece sweatshirts. I breastfed him for two years, and we never bought any formula or jarred/boxed baby food (we had a little food grinder that we used to grind up our food for him until he was old enough to chew, and ever since then he’s just eaten the same stuff we do). Other than the college fund and health insurance, I would estimate that we’ve spent about a thousand dollars on our son in the last two and a half years.
But…. I know that not everyone feels the same way. Not all parents are happy with so many hand-me-downs and thrift store items for their little ones. Or mis-matched nursery furniture and minimal baby gear. And a lot of parents just love to shop for their babies. But very few parents have $10,000 sitting around to spend on baby gear in their baby’s first year (yikes!). That’s where Laura Cowan can help. Laura runs the website 29Diapers, devoted to helping parents use cloth diapers. And she’s written a book called Ecofrugal Baby, How to Save 70% Off Baby’s First Year. I was honored when Laura asked me to review the book, and I was amazed at how much information she packed into it. She has definitely done her homework. This book is perfect for parents who want to have all the latest stuff for their babies but don’t want to pay a fortune for it. Laura scored hundreds of dollars worth of free baby gear just by entering giveaway contests and writing product reviews, and her book is packed full of tips and websites that you can visit to do the same thing yourself. It took me quite a while to read the book because I kept having to divert to the various websites she recommended, so that I could enter contests for kid gear… maybe I’ll win something!
Ecofrugal Baby is 155 pages of great information. No pictures, no filler, just advice and guidance on getting baby gear for way less than retail prices. I love that she frequently reminds readers to make use of the CPSC recall database to make sure that items they are acquiring for their babies have not been recalled for safety issues – definitely good advice. Laura provides excellent tips on using Freecycle and Craigslist (by using those sources to both acquire and get rid of clothes, Laura has spent a total of negative 57 cents on her daughter’s wardrobe!) as well as tons of tips for getting discounts on new items for parents who would rather not buy used. The book is available both as an e-book for $5.99 and as a paperback for $19.96. Or you can win a copy here! One of my readers will win a copy of the e-book, and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. Make sure to include your email address in the space for it in the comment section, and I’ll draw a winner randomly on Friday, October 22nd. Good luck!
For quite a while now, I’ve been a fan of Adam Baker’s blog, Man Vs Debt. Adam and his wife Courtney got themselves off the work-spend-work treadmill, paid off $18,000 in consumer debt, and dramatically improved their lives. They’re able to travel the world with their toddler, living out of backpacks with just a few possessions. They no longer have an attachment to material stuff, nor a need to constantly purchase things. I can definitely identify with that.
I started purging our stuff back in the spring, although I would say the biggest change I made was to stop shopping, pretty much entirely, for anything other than food. We do still buy other stuff… right now we’re building a small fence in our backyard to separate our utility area from the rest of the yard, so we needed things like wood and concrete. We realize that we’ll need to continue acquiring things like garden supplies, and clothes and shoes for our son as he grows. But until about five months ago, shopping at the thrift store was one of my favorite things to do, and I went nearly every week. I bought kitchen stuff, clothes for myself and our son, and random things that I liked but that we didn’t really need. I never spent a lot of money – usually $10 or $20 per trip – but we did end up with a lot of clutter.
I stopped going to the thrift store (other than to drop off donations) sometime in April. I haven’t purchased any clothes since then, or much of anything else besides food. I did buy some canning supplies last month, which I consider well worth the small space they take up. I’ve gotten rid of about half my clothes, sold a dresser that we didn’t need once we got rid of so many clothes, given away tons of stuff on craigslist’s free section (including a desk that was taking up a lot of space in the basement), and we even sold some higher value items like a snowboard and a unicycle. But the vast majority of our stuff was simply donated to the thrift stores where I used to love to shop. I felt that getting rid of the stuff was more important than getting money for it, and donating it was the easiest, fastest way to accomplish that. Plus, most of the stuff had been used and inexpensive when we got it, so there wasn’t really any financial pain associated with letting it go.
But I realize that is not the case for everyone. Some people have large amounts of consumer debt associated with their clutter. Others might not have debt, but they remember spending a lot of money to buy the stuff in the first place. And some people – especially in our current economic climate – truly need whatever money they can get from their stuff in order to be able to pay for food and rent. For a lot of people, selling their stuff makes far more sense than donating it.
And that’s where Adam Baker comes in. He’s recently launched Sell Your Crap, and it’s an excellent guide to getting as much money as possible in exchange for getting rid of the clutter that’s holding you down. The book explains the Bakers’ personal journey to minimalism and a non-consumer life, and details the reasons why our junk is holding us back – and how to get rid of it. He’s got two versions available: Sell Your Crap – Barebones Edition has the Sell Your Crap e-book plus a comprehensive, 171 page guide to selling stuff on eBay. Sell Your Crap – Clutter Crusher Edition also includes detailed guides to selling stuff on craigslist and Amazon, plus ten video interviews with bloggers and authors who are anti-clutter experts, and 30 days of email support from Adam. Both versions also have a $100 effectiveness guarantee: If you don’t make at least $100 selling your clutter, just email Adam and he’ll refund your money.
If you want to get rid of your stuff but also want to make sure that you get the most money possible for it, Adam’s guide is an excellent place to start. eBay, Amazon and craigslist are overwhelming to a lot of people, and that can mean that people either donate stuff that they could easily be selling, or else the stuff just collects dust in a corner somewhere. And with his $100 effectiveness guarantee, you’re sure to make significantly more getting rid of your stuff than you’ll spend on the guide. For anyone who wants a kick start to getting rid of clutter and making some money in the process, Sell Your Crap is a great resource. Enjoy!
Tammy Strobel was featured recently in a NY Times article about how stuff doesn’t make us happy. The article went on to explain that Tammy and her husband live very well (and are even able to contribute to family members’ college savings accounts) on $24,000/year. I find that particularly inspiring. There are lots of websites out there that talk about how the key to success and happiness is to increase your income in order to have more money available. While that works for some people (and I can attest to the fact that we do enjoy our increased income now that we’re more than seven years into our self-employed journey), I believe that it’s a lot easier to cut your expenses than it is to grow your income. And the end result is the same: you have more money available for what really matters to you if you’re spending less on the stuff that doesn’t really matter. For people who are interested in starting their own business, I would say that the absolute most important first step is to minimize your expenses (in both your life and your future business) as much as possible, so that your business has the best possible chance of being able to support you.
There are people who are perfectly content with their 9 – 5 jobs and find great fulfillment in them. If that’s you – keep on doing what you’re doing! But for people who long for more independence and flexibility, and would like to start working for themselves but don’t know where to begin, today Tammy released a new e-book called Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself. I just finished reading the book, and it’s an excellent resource for anyone trying to launch their own little business. It includes lots of practical tips, ideas, and resources, along with personal stories and advice from numerous successful small business owners (I’m a big fan of real life stories, so I really appreciated that part of the book). One of the overwhelmingly consistent ideas from just about all of them was that reducing your expenses is one of the keys to success. Of course that really resonates with me, and it makes perfect sense: if you set our to start your own little business and your lifestyle eats up $5000/month, your business is going to have to be pretty darn successful right out of the gate. But if you only need to earn $1500/month to cover your expenses, you’re giving yourself a much greater chance of success, and reducing the chances that you’ll end up working 80 hours a week to make ends meet.
I’m a big fan of small business and self employment. My husband and I started our little insurance agency in 2003, and it has supported us ever since. We have used technology to our advantage, slowly making our business entirely an on-line entity by about 2007. We do not ever have to leave the house for work anymore, and that means that we can work from anywhere we choose. We would not have been able to pursue our dream of growing our own food if we had been tied to our former location by our jobs. The fact that we can work from anywhere meant that we were able to find a home that met our needs without worrying about where that home was located.
Of course, not everyone is interested in growing their own food. Some people have a dream of traveling the world, or volunteering full time, or starting a family, or living on a boat. Your dream doesn’t have to be the same as anyone else’s, but it’s still worth pursuing. And if you can lower your expenses, diversify your income, create flexibility in your schedule, avoid becoming a workaholic, and earn enough money to support yourself, you’ll be a lot closer to shaping your future around what you really want.
I could tell from reading Tammy’s blog, Rowdy Kittens, that she and I see a lot of things the same way. I thought that my readers would be especially interested in knowing some of the details about Tammy’s happy, frugal life, and she agreed to an interview.
Tammy, thanks for being here with us today, and congratulations on the release of your new book, Smalltopia.
FB: When you quit your job to become self employed, how much of a savings cushion did you have?
Tammy: Before I left my job, we saved a year’s worth of our expenses (about $25,000). For anyone who is thinking of leaving a “traditional” day job, make sure you evaluate what your expenses are and what you really need. I also recommend reading, Your Money or Your Life and Unautomate Your Finances.FB: How long did it take for your own little business to be able to support you?
Tammy: It took about a month for my little business to start making money. During the first month, I didn’t make a profit. But after I launched my first ebook, Simply Car-free, I was able to pay my bills. And slowly but surely I acquired more freelance writing and web design work.
FB: People who are considering leaving their jobs to seek out something new are often very concerned about health insurance. Was that an issue for you, and what did you do about it?
Tammy: Prior to leaving my day job, we thought a lot about health insurance. I knew it would be risky to leave an organization that had such good benefits, but it was a risk I was willing to take. In my opinion, it’s just as risky to stay at a job you dislike.Health insurance is a very complex topic and the type of plan you chose will depend upon your health and the risk you want to carry. I’m not an expert on this topic and strongly encourage folks to talk to a health care broker and examine a variety of health care plans before making any big decisions.
FB: You’ve made a lot of downsizing steps over the last few years. What changes would you say had the most impact on your ability to live so well on a reduced income?
Tammy: By selling both my cars, I save about $12,000 per year. By going car-free we were able to pay off our debt and save a lot of extra money. And that gave me the freedom to leave my day job and pursue an unconventional career path. If I still owned a car, I would be saddled with debt, and stress.FB: If your income were to double overnight, would you make any major changes to the way you live now?
Tammy: First, I would donate more of my income to charity. Second, I’d build a tiny house. Other than that, nothing would change.
FB: What’s your favorite form of low-cost entertainment?
Tammy: Having fun doesn’t require spending a lot of money or heading to the mall. Instead, I focus on doing things that make me incredibly happy. For instance, I love taking long walks in the park, going for bike rides, and doing yoga at home.
A few years ago I would have spent the day at the mall shopping, searching for happiness. Buying extra stuff didn’t make me happy and consuming more hasn’t done much for the planet or overall state of “happiness” in the U.S. Thanks to the ideas promoted by simple living movement I’m able to take advantage of beauty in everyday life. I’m satisfied with my possessions and I feel like I have enough.
FB: What does an average day’s menu look like at your house?
Tammy: Most of the time, we eat a lot of fruit, vegetables, grains, and bread. Lately, we’ve been making a lot of quinoa. It’s my new obsession.
FB: Do you have any expenses that you consider splurges or luxuries, or do you focus entirely on the basics?
Tammy: Sure. I think everyone loves to splurge once in a while. I love drinking coffee and eating out occasionally. We don’t eat out often, but I do spend a lot of time in coffee shops. So my monthly coffee budget is fairly large and I’m okay with that.
Thanks Tammy! We definitely see eye to eye on a lot of things. I’ve found that simple pleasures make me happier than any material possession ever has, and I can’t remember the last time I went to a mall. You’re an inspiration, and I wish you all the best with your little business!
I just came across the story of the house that two incomes built, and although it’s a couple years old, it’s still well worth sharing. It continues with part 2, and the photographs are what make it particularly interesting, along with the description of the personal struggle involved with deciding whether to go back to work after the birth of a child.
Some parents would rather go back to work, and they feel more fulfilled with both a career and a child than they would staying home full time. And the opposite side of that is the parents who know that they want to stay home and have planned for it long before their first child arrives. In the middle are the parents who aren’t sure. And the ones who would stay home with their kids if money were no object.
The money issue is tricky. If you’re used to living on two incomes and have expanded your lifestyle to use up all or most of those two incomes, the option to have a parent stay home with a child will require more than just a letter of resignation. It might mean getting rid of a car, cutting back on shopping trips and vacations, or even moving to a less expensive home.
I’m very fortunate to be in a situation where my husband and I both work from home. We spent five years growing our business before we had our son, and purposely structured it so that we are both home most of the time. The most important thing we’ve done though is to not inflate our lifestyle as our income grew over the years. As a result, a good chunk of our income goes into savings and extra mortgage payments. The future is never certain, but if our business were to stop making money, we could continue our current lifestyle on less than an average single income (obviously we wouldn’t be able to continue saving and paying off the mortgage at our current rate, but we’d be able to get by). We could have bought a more expensive house or upgraded our cars, but that would have increased our monthly expenses and put us in a more precarious situation in terms of needing a higher income just to get by.
This isn’t about whether parents should stay home with their kids. That’s a decision that has to be made by each family, and is a highly personal one. But if you focus on keeping your expenses (especially for the biggies – housing and transportation) as low as possible, you give yourself more options than you have if you spend everything each month.
I wanted to share the story of the house that two incomes built because I find it inspiring to see people making drastic changes in their lives in order to focus on what they want most. Obviously this sort of thing is not limited to staying home with children. It could be about starting your own business or retiring early or setting out to travel the world. What matters is that we actively choose our path and make decisions with our goals in mind, rather than falling victim to advertising and debt.
Would you move to a much less expensive home/area in order to be able to work part time, stay home with a child, focus on volunteering, travel, etc?
Even though it’s only been a year since we bought our house, we had been hearing so much about how low interest rates are right now that we decided to look into the possibility of refinancing. We spoke with a close family friend who works at a bank in the mortgage department. Our current rate is 4.625, and she told us that she could get us down to 3.75%. She said we could roll the closing costs into the loan and still end up with payments that would be about $200/month lower than what we pay now. Sounds great, right?
We decided to sit down and crunch some numbers to see if this would really be a good idea. We loved the thought of a 3.75% interest rate, but would refinancing really save us money in the long run?
You’ve probably seen personal finance websites that caution against looking just at the monthly payments when financing a car. Instead, they advise that you look at the total purchase price plus total interest and consider the total cost of the vehicle rather than whether you can afford the monthly payments. We do the same thing with our house.
The total cost of the house (principle amount plus total interest over the life of the loan) is more important to us than the monthly payment amount. We plan to stay here forever (I know, we said that before… but this time we mean it!) or at least for a very long time, and paying off the loan is one of our top priorities.
We used a mortgage calculator from Bankrate, which I like because it allows you to enter odd numbers for the total length of the loan. Here’s the nitty gritty: We currently owe about $152,000 on our house. Our interest rate is 4.625%, and we have about 12.5 years left on our 15 year loan (we’ve been in the house a year but we’ve been making extra payments ever since we moved in).
We can refinance at 3.75%, but it would start our loan over again at 15 years, and it would add about $4500 to the outstanding balance (refinancing would cost between 2 and 3 percent, and I’m going with the higher end to err on the conservative side). So we would then owe about $156,500 on the new loan.
We pay extra on our loan every month, but there’s no way to be sure that we’ll always be able to do that. So I wanted to look at both an early payoff scenario as well as the total interest we’d pay if we kept our mortgage for its full term.
In our current loan, if we stop paying extra and take the full 12.5 years to pay it off, we’ll pay about $48,400 in interest between now and the time we pay it off. If we have the loan paid off five years from now (our goal), we’ll only pay $18,600 in interest between now and the time we pay off the house.
If we refinance and don’t make extra payments, we’ll have a payment about $200/month lower than what we have now, but it will be for 15 years rather than 12.5 years. And over the course of that time, we’ll pay $48,400 in interest. Yep – the same amount (I rounded my numbers, but the actual values were within $70 of each other). If we refinance and then add the same amount of additional payment that would allow us to pay off our current loan in five years, it would take 5.5 years to pay off the new loan (because of the extra $4500 tacked on for closing costs). And the total amount of interest paid would be about $16,900. That is less than we’ll pay over the next five years with our current loan, but only by about $1700. That is far less than the closing cost of the refinance, even if we were able to get a new loan with a 2% closing cost.
So basically, even though the monthly payment would be $200 lower, we’d still be paying the same amount of interest if we kept our loan for the full term, and we’d be paying for the closing costs of the loan too. If we continue to pay extra each month in order to pay off the house quickly, we’d save about $1700 in interest with the new loan, but that doesn’t make up for the closing costs that would be tacked onto our loan in order to refinance.
So… we aren’t going to refinance. Sure, it would give us a lower monthly payment, but that payment would be set for the next 15 years rather than the 12.5 years on our current loan. And refinancing won’t really save us any money in the long run.
I know that it’s a great time to refinance if you’ve got a higher interest rate, but since our rate is already pretty low, the math just doesn’t work out. Are any of you considering a refinance right now? What’s more important to you – the monthly payment, or the total cost of the house?
Being healthy and fit are very high on my list of priorities. I’ve mentioned many times how important our diet is to me, and exercise is just as important. I thought I’d share some of my favorite ways to stay in shape that don’t require much in the way of money, special equipment, or specific locations.
1. My all-time favorite exercise is push ups. They rock. They are challenging for everyone, no matter how strong you are… a beginner might struggle to do five, while a person with great upper body strength might have to do 50 or 100 to reach exhaustion. But trust me, exhaustion does come for everyone relatively quickly with push ups. If you’re maintaining proper form, push ups are great for the whole upper body and torso. You can do them anywhere, and they don’t require any equipment at all. No planning needed either… just drop down and do a set of push ups, and then carry on with your day! (You can start on your knees and work your way up to doing them on your toes).
2. Bicycle crunches. I do a variety of core exercises, but these work a lot of muscles all at the same time. Again, no equipment required.
3. Planks and walking planks. These are great if you just have a couple of minutes and want to work on core strength. You can also incorporate some push ups in with your walking planks for a little variety.
4. Tricep dips. These do require a chair or other stable surface about the same height, but that’s relatively easy to come by.
5. Calf raises. Basically just rise up on your tiptoes and then lower down again. Go fast or slow, and point your toes inward or outward to vary the exercise. Like all the others, you can do these anywhere, and they don’t require any equipment.
6. Yoga. I took classes for several years thanks to the free gym membership I got when I worked at the library, and now I do it on my own at home. All that you need for yoga is a mat and comfy clothes. I do have several DVDs of yoga classes that I use quite often. I got them at a thrift store for about two dollars each, and I’ve done them all so many times that I have them memorized. But I still find it helpful to have the voice of an instructor to help me stay focused. If you’re looking for any sort of workout DVD, thrift stores usually have tons of them. We no longer have a TV or DVD player, but my laptop is a great substitute, and I can take it anywhere I want for an instant yoga session.
7. Walking. As a long-time runner, I never though walking would be on a list of my favorite exercises. I ran for about 15 years, both competitively and for fun. But last fall I decided to try walking instead. I was starting to realize that my knees and hips might not appreciate the constant pounding, and I was also trying to gain some weight. I used to run for about an hour, three or four days a week. So I switched to walking for an hour instead. I go about four miles, and since it’s a lot easier on my joints, I’m able to go every day. Walking is much lower impact than running, so I don’t worry much about my shoes anymore. In fact, unless you’re wearing a pencil skirt and stilettos, you can probably head out for a walk in whatever you’ve got on right now. So again, very little gear required. A hat, some sunglasses, comfy shoes and clothes, and you’re set. As a bonus, you can take dogs and kids along too. Our dog twitches with excitement when she sees me putting my shoes on, and our son rides along in his hand-me-down jogging stroller or in the wagon that my parents found at a thrift store and refurbished for us.
8. Biking. I use my bike to run errands in town. It never feels like exercise to be cruising around on my bike, but I know it is. We also go on long family rides every once in a while. Those do feel like exercise because my rear end is sore when we get home! We got our bikes used. If you’re looking for a bike, check Craigs list or a used sporting good store, and you’ll find tons of options. Don’t forget a helmet!
The first five exercises I mentioned can be done anywhere, anytime, and take only a few minutes each. Have 60 seconds to spare? Get down and see how many push ups you can do in a minute. I do them all throughout the day, a minute or two here and there is all I need. It doesn’t require planning a trip to the gym or scheduling anything – you can just mix them in with your day as you go.
Biking, walking, and yoga all require a bit more of a time commitment than the other exercises, but they’re all fun! And you don’t have to go anywhere specific to do them. As long as you live in a relatively safe area, you can walk or bike right from your home. And you can do yoga anywhere too.
I hope this gives you some ideas for ways you can incorporate fitness into your life without spending money or making it a stressful experience. And if you have other favorite low cost, low maintenance exercise ideas, please share them in the comments!
Remember that wood that I fished out of a dumpster a couple months ago? Now it’s a pantry. Our laundry room is just off the kitchen, and it had a closet in it. There was one high shelf and a hanging rail, but other than that, it wasn’t a very useful space. We didn’t need it as a closet, but we did need a pantry. So we transformed it. We used the wood that I diverted from a landfill to make shelves, and I scrubbed them with vinegar before we put them in. My husband took out the hanging rail and mounted it under a set of cupboards in the laundry room – right where a dryer would go if we had one. Now I have a place to hang things like shirts as soon as I take them out of the washing machine, and everything else can go out on the clothesline or onto my drying racks. Here’s the pantry, which will be a lot more crowded after I pick up our first bulk food order this evening:
Dawn at Frugal For Life has written an article about overcoming frugal fatigue. Given the economic problems of the last couple years, chances are a lot of people have been frugal by necessity for a while now, and Dawn’s article is aptly timed. Ever since I was a child, opening my first savings account, I’ve gotten more of a thrill from saving than from spending, so I’ve never had a problem with frugal fatigue. But I do remember the early years of our self-employment, when we were deeply in debt from starting our business (a combination of business debts and debts incurred to buy things like groceries while we were earning diddly squat for income). I had huge amounts of debt fatigue. I had all of our debt amounts listed on a yellow legal pad, and I would sometimes just stare at them for ten minutes, wishing that I could get the numbers to go down faster. Each month was like a puzzle, and I would figure out how much we could put towards each debt, and where it would make the most sense to put extra cash. We were completely focused on paying off our debts, preferably without needing a cash advance, and it absolutely resulted in fatigue. I would imagine how amazing it would feel to see zeros all across my legal pad, and mentally fast forward ahead a few months to picture reduced debt. On one hand, being so focused was what got us out of debt relatively quickly (we paid it all off in about three years), but it sure was mentally tiring.
These days, our only debt is our mortgage. While it’s a much larger debt than our business debt was, it doesn’t feel as oppressive – although we still want to be rid of it, and are working to pay it down as fast as we can. But the mortgage is just one aspect of our long term financial goals now; the rest is focused on retirement savings, cash savings, college savings, etc. We’re just as focused on saving now as we were on paying of debt several years ago, but saving feels like fun. There’s no fatigue from working to grow our nest egg, the way there was when we were digging out of a hole. Both are satisfying, and both have the effect of increasing our net worth, but what we’re doing now feels a lot less stressful.
If you’re feeling fatigued by frugality – especially if you’re focusing on paying off debts – maybe it would help to divert a little bit of your extra money away from debt repayment and into a savings account. For the first year that we were paying off debt, we didn’t save a dime – no emergency fund, no IRA contribution – everything went towards debt. I wonder if maybe it would have been less exhausting if we had opened a savings account and put a little money into savings at the same time. In the end, it all evens out, but if you’re considering giving up on frugality because you’re tired of it, taking a mini break now and then might do the trick to keep you on track long term. Same goes for debt repayment: As long as we keep the long term goals in sight, a little deviation now and then might be just what we need.
Apparently I’m a bit behind on reading personal finance blogs, because I just came across a couple of articles from February of last year. They’re old, but make some great points and are very interesting reads. Trent at The Simple Dollar wrote an article about how a media interviewer called him a cheapskate. And then Him from Make Love Not Debt wrote about his thoughts on the topic. I found both articles very interesting, along with the comments from readers. It seems like everyone has an opinion, and two people can see another person’s frugality in very different ways. My personal opinion – and we’re all entitled to one – is that I’d much rather hang out with Trent than Him. I think Trent’s values are a lot more in line with my own, and from the articles I’ve read on his blog, he seems very happy with his life and choices.
But the articles brought up a deeper point than just the choices we make in our own lives and whom we choose as friends. There was a lot of talk about judging others and self-righteousness – from both sides of the frugal – spendy spectrum. I think that it’s somewhat natural to tend to think highly of others who are most like ourselves. Most people tend to choose friends with whom they have a lot in common. I would say that I’m probably the most frugal of my friends, but they’re all pretty focused on saving for a rainy day and for retirement, and none of them think less of me for shopping in thrift stores and driving an old car.
I do think of myself as frugal. And I am happy almost 100% of the time. For me, the connection between those two things is strong, and I believe that the simple life my husband and I have created for our family plays a large role in our happiness. But I don’t think less of people who make different choices in terms of how they spend their money. As long as those choices don’t impact the rest of us. If a person chooses to spend all of their income each month (and I’m not talking about someone working for minimum wage who barely has enough for rent and food), that is none of my business. But when I started hearing about mortgage bailouts after ARMs began to reset a couple years ago, I’ll admit to being irritated – especially when I read article after article about people who purchased houses that they could barely afford, even at the low introductory interest rate. Bankruptcy is another example of something that drives up costs for everyone else, and it’s frustrataing when the bankruptcy is caused because a person consistently made choices to spend instead of save. Yes, there are lots of cases where bankruptcy is caused because a person became too ill to work or suffered some sort of catastrophic circumstances, but there are also plenty of people who live paycheck to paycheck (despite having a good income) and are thus putting themselves in a situation where they have no ability to weather even the slightest financial storm.
What do you think? Do you agree more with Trent or with Him? Do you care about how other people choose to spend their money? Are you more or less frugal than your friends? Do you friends care?
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