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21
Jun 2010

Can You Make Money With A Blog?

FrugalBabe

Well, yes, you can… there are lots of bloggers who do just that, and some who have even been able to quit their day jobs to focus on blogging full time (or part time!).  But there are many more bloggers who make very little or no money from blogging.  Some prefer it that way, and have no desire to turn their blogs into money-makers.  I’m sure there are many more who want to make money, write some posts, put some AdSense code on their sidebar, and then make 3 cents a month.

I am definitely not an authority on making money from a blog.  I have pretty much focused only on content for my blog, and haven’t done much with marketing or anything else to drive traffic to my site.  I’m on Twitter, but that’s about all I’ve done in terms of social networking for my blog. I do make some money from advertising and affiliate links, but I’ve been blogging for nearly four years, and I usually make between $200 and $300 a month from my blog.  It’s not a lot of money, but I also don’t devote nearly as much time or effort to my blog as the people who turn theirs into a primary income source.  Leo Babauta of Zen Habits is one such blogger, and has a massive readership and several successful e-books (Zen To Done, The Simple Guide To A Minimalist Life, and Zen Habits Handbook for Life).  He also has a great print book, The Power Of Less, that is even carried by our tiny small-town library.

Leo and fellow blogger Mary Jaksch are offering Instant Blog Magic for free until the end of the month (EDIT: the program is actually only being offered for free until midnight on Thursday, June 24th.  Sorry for any confusion, I think I misread the initial offer).  They’re giving free blog set-up and $20 off the first year’s hosting fee, along with several other goodies.  If you’ve been wanting to set up a blog and don’t know where to begin, you might want to check out their program.

For those who are curious about the specifics of my own blog income, here’s a rough breakdown of where it comes from:

  • BlogHer Ads… usually between $25 and $50/month.  BlogHer Ad revenue is based on the amount of traffic to your site rather than on how many people click on the ads.
  • Linkworth… usually about $75/month.  Linkworth ads are paid on a set fee-per-link basis, and the amount of traffic or number of clicks doesn’t impact how much you earn (although the more traffic you get, the more likely advertisers are to request a link on your site)
  • Private ads… I currently make $100/month from text link ads that were set up via direct contact from the advertiser.  I get to keep 100% of the revenue (unlike BlogHer and Linkworth, where they take half the revenue in trade for sending the business my way).  I charge $30/month for ads, but advertisers get a discount for buying multiple months up front.
  • Affiliate sales of e-books.  I just started learning about this recently, and have only begun to test it out.  I had some good success last week with Everett Bogue’s Minimalist Business, but as with any sort of blog revenue, being an affiliate will only make money if you have a relatively large readership.  Of all the ways to generate revenue on a blog, this is one of my favorites, although I’m still pretty new at it.  It’s nice to be able to promote e-books that have been written by other bloggers I really admire.

I have also tried AdSense and Chitika, but made very little money from them and eventually took them down.  We’ve had quite a bit of success with AdSense on our work website, but most of the visitors who come to that site do so with the intention of researching and shopping, whereas most of my readers here at Frugal Babe are looking for ideas, entertainment, and (hopefully!) a little inspiration.  Programs like AdSense and Chitika generate revenue for a blogger when readers click on the ads, as opposed to the types of programs I mentioned above that pay based on the amount of traffic to the blog or on a flat fee per month.  My personal preference is for the ones I mentioned above, but this varies quite a bit from one blogger to another.

I have had plenty of questions over the years from readers interested in how blogging can make money.  As I said, I’m definitely not an expert at that, and I don’t make a whole lot of money from it (my blog still falls pretty squarely in the “just for fun” category).  But I thought maybe sharing my own experiences would be useful to some of you, and perhaps you can also benefit from Leo and Mary’s Instant Blog Magic program.  Even though my blog only makes a couple hundred dollars a month, that’s enough to fund our son’s 529 plan ($100/month) and our car replacement fund ($100/month) and pay taxes on the earnings.  It might not be a lot of money, but something is better than nothing, and diversified income is a good thing, even if it’s just a trickle.

Category: other bloggers, work  7 Comments
16
Jun 2010

Reducing Our Dependence On Cars

FrugalBabe

People are often amazed that my husband and I have cars that are 20 years old and still going strong. Yes we’ve been lucky to have reliable vehicles, and we’ve also stayed on top of basic maintenance. But the real key is that we don’t drive much. We bought my car from its original owner in 2003. In the last seven years, I’ve driven it 38,000 miles, with most of those miles in the first three years I owned the car (before we had our business set up to be completely from home). These days, I put about 3000 miles on my car each year – so of course it’s lasting longer than it would if I were driving it 10,000 miles a year.  Our cars are old, so the registration fee is very low, as is our liability-only insurance.  And of course we don’t have car payments.

When we chose to move last year, we knew that there were some things we were giving up by moving to a small town.  The most notable of these (and the only one we even notice) is the lack of public transportation and the distance we have to travel to get to a good grocery store.  We don’t really care about other shopping – we don’t do much of it anyway.  But groceries are a must, and the small-town grocery store near our house just doesn’t carry most of the food we want to buy.  I support them whenever I can, and buy small packets of organic frozen veggies there, along with a few other things.  But they don’t have a single organic item in the fresh produce department, which is where I spend most of my grocery dollars.  Our garden is starting to produce stuff now, so my grocery needs are steadily declining, but I do still need to buy a lot of our food.

So about once a week, I load up my reusable grocery bags and head into the big town ten miles down the road to shop at the co-op or the health food store.  Lately I’ve been taking advantage of the trip to also drop off stuff at one of the big thrift stores in town.  If there are any other errands that I need to run, I make sure that I coordinate them so that I do them all in the same trip.

Other than my weekly trip to town, I’m able to do everything I need right here in our little town.  And my rule is that I never drive my car unless I’m leaving our town.  Nothing is more than about three miles away, and I can easily get to everything in town either walking (pulling our son in his wagon) or by bike.  The library, post office, credit union, hardware store, liquor store, even a grocery store that will do in a pinch… all are within easy walking or biking distance.  I told myself when we moved here that I wouldn’t drive if I needed to go somewhere within our town, so getting around by bike or on foot has just become second nature.

Working from home also makes a huge difference, as neither of us has to go anywhere for work.  We’re working hard to create a life that we love, and to be honest, we’re both happiest when we’re at home, working, working in our garden, hanging out with our son… just doing the things we do on a daily basis.  And that means that most of the time, our cars are just hanging out in the garage.

Tammy Strobel has written an e-book called Simply Car-Free for people who are looking to minimize their dependence on cars.  Check it out if you’re looking for ideas and inspiration.  We aren’t car-free (yet… maybe once our town grows a bit we could be someday), but I suppose you could call us car-minimal.  The disaster in the Gulf should be a big motivator for all of us to look for ways we can consume less oil, and driving less is a good start.  Do you have a self-imposed rule about not driving your car to go short distances, or on certain days?  Do you make an effort to combine trips to limit your total driving?  Do you prefer public transportation, bikes, or walking?

If you haven’t given much thought to the idea of being car-minimal or car-free, maybe today’s a good day to start.  A good first step is to tell yourself that you won’t drive if you’re going less than two miles (or whatever distance works for you) and then gradually increase that distance as you get more comfortable walking, running, or biking.  And enjoy the added benefit that comes with getting a workout while you do your errands!

Category: just my life, the simple life, ways we save money, work  Tags: ,  14 Comments
26
Aug 2009

Bye Bye Wells Fargo!

FrugalBabe

Back in January, we decided that we needed a new bank.  We have finally checked that task off of our to-do list – better late than never I suppose.  Around the time we became frustrated with Wells Fargo, we also decided to sell our house, which meant several months of sprucing things up and going through the sale process.  Once we moved into our new place, we were just as busy, and it felt like a three ring circus around here for the last couple months.

But while Wells Fargo was relatively convenient at our old house (about a 20 minute bike ride), it is much less convenient here.  The closest branch is about 13 miles from here – not a quick bike trip that I can squeeze in between all my other tasks during the day.  That sealed the deal, and convinced us to go ahead with a change.

We are now the proud owners of business and personal accounts at our local credit union.  So far, we are thrilled.  The personal account pays 5.01% interest on all funds up to $25,000.  That is more than three times what ING is paying us right now, and was a huge selling point for us.  In addition, the credit union rebates ATM fees that other banks charge (automatically, no need to keep receipts), offers free bill pay (which our WF account did not), and delivers exceptional customer service – we’ve been blown away by the level of service we’ve received during our account set up process.

The credit union is about a mile from our house.  It’s in the local grocery store, which we can see in the distance if we look out our back door.  It takes just a few minutes to bike over there, and is also a nice walk with the dog.

Now I’m plowing through the switching process, which is not much fun.  That is the main reason I waited so long to do this – I knew it wouldn’t be fun.  I’ve started making a list of all the places I need to notify about the change, and there are 23 items on the list so far.  Plus bill pay setups, which I haven’t gotten to yet.  We had been with Wells Fargo for a long time, and our entire financial life is linked to them in one way or another.  It will take me a while to untangle all of that, but I know that this is worth the effort.  It will be nice to be earning such a good rate on our money, and it’s nice to feel like a valued customer.

Some of my readers had mentioned credit unions back in January when I detailed our troubles with Wells Fargo, and that was part of what inspired me to look into the idea – thank you!

Category: savings, work  8 Comments
04
May 2009

Don’t Fake It Till You Make It

FrugalBabe

We were cleaning last night, getting the house ready for a meeting with our new Realtor this morning (it went great, she’s great, life is great).  When I was cleaning the floor in my husband’s office, it struck me that he still works at the same small desk he had when I met him, eight years ago.  It’s actually the same desk he got when he was in college, so he’s had it since the mid-90s.  The office chair he uses was dumpster-dived not long after we met each other.

When I first met my husband, we were both working for a big company, and his desk was just part of his bedroom furniture.  Once he became self employed in early 2002, he started spending much more of his time at that desk.  He was thrilled to replace his very ragged office chair with our dumpster find, and has been working there ever since.  Seven years later, we’re still happily self-employed, and doing quite a bit better financially than we were in those early years.  But it would never occur to my husband to replace his desk or his chair, since they’re both still perfectly functional.

I sometimes get emails from readers asking for tips about how to become self-employed.  Of course there are lots of issues to address, but one that always comes to mind is don’t fake it till you make it.  I’ve seen people who became self employed and immediately sank several thousand dollars into new office furniture, even if they don’t meet with clients in their office (we don’t – everything we do is online and over the phone, so all that is required is a quiet office space with high speed internet and a good phone service).  There’s an endless amount of money that can be spent to get a business off the ground.  Some of it is necessary, and will have an impact on how your business performs.  But some of it is not, and will just extend the time until your business becomes profitable.  And since a good number of small businesses never become profitable, that initial expenditure might just end up being debt that you have to pay off once you secure another job.

If you’re looking to start a business or even just become self-employed part time, make sure that you apply the same frugal eye to business purchases that you do to all your other purchases.  Ask yourself if you need it, what sort of return on investment you’ll get, and whether there’s a less expensive option out there.  Don’t be fooled by the idea that business expenses are a tax write-off.  Yes, you can deduct business expenses, but it’s better to keep $100 in your pocket and pay $25 in taxes (just an example) than to spend that $100 on a business expense and save yourself the $25 in taxes.  You come out $75 ahead in the first scenario.  So unless you really need to spend the money, don’t let yourself be lulled into the idea that spending it is a good idea because of the tax write-off.

Starting a business is tough, no doubt about it.  And it’s likely that you won’t earn a whole lot of money in the beginning, no matter how hard you work.  By spending a bunch of money upfront without carefully considering whether the money really has to be spent, some people set themselves up for a stressful start to self-employment.

Category: taxes, work  9 Comments
01
May 2009

How To Lose A Sale

FrugalBabe

In 2002, when my husband and I went house shopping the first time around, we used a Realtor who was recommended by the mortgage broker we were using.  He had impressive credentials.  He had been in the business since 1986, was Realtor of the year in this area at least once, was in the ‘hall of fame’ and ‘platinum club’ for ReMax, and obviously sells a lot of property.

Since then, he’s called us several times a year – birthdays, anniversary, house anniversary.  He sends us all sorts of marketing stuff, and it made sense that when we were ready to put this house on the market, we called him earlier this week.  He came out to meet with us last night.  When he walked in the door, we were 100% sure that we would be listing our house with him.  We weren’t interviewing him or considering other options – he was our choice.  The deal was his to lose, and he did so in grand style.

First of all, he started telling us about another business that he’s running, and how he’s got a big presentation for it next week.  He was obviously excited about it, and more power to him.  But when you’re meeting with a client, it’s probably best to make sure that you focus completely on what you’re supposed to be doing for the client.  It’s not a good idea to create doubts in a potential client’s mind about your focus and dedication to the task at hand.  That was mistake number one.

Then he sat down with a huge sheaf of papers and started talking about the statistics of the local real estate market over the last few years.  This went on for about half an hour.  Frankly, we didn’t give a damn.  We’re selling our house.  We know the market isn’t as good as it has been in recent years, but we’ve made our decision and we’re moving forward with it.  We’re not on the fence and needing to be convinced to put our house out there on the market.  It struck me as odd that he would spend so much time on something that didn’t really apply in our situation.  He didn’t ask if we wanted to discuss any of that stuff, he just did it.  That was mistake number two:  when you’re in sales, you should keep your mouth shut as much as possible, ask open-ended questions, and let the clients lead the conversation.  Once you know where they are and what they want, you can much better address their actual needs.

After 30 minutes of telling us about the real estate market, he started bringing up the politics behind the economic situation.  He said that the mortgage crisis happened because congress forced banks to write 55% of their loans for people who “couldn’t afford loans”.  Hmmm.  Congress forcing anything requires legislation, which has to be written down somewhere.  When my husband called him on this, he said that you won’t find this little gem written anywhere.  So I guess it’s imaginary legislation.  But anyway, we moved on.

I went upstairs to change a diaper, and as I was coming back down I heard him telling my husband that he and his family went to a Tea Party last month.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Did you seriously just come into our home for the purpose of doing business with us, and then bring up such a politically charged topic without knowing where we stand on the issue?  Aren’t you a marketing professional?  Are you going to do this with potential buyers who might otherwise be interested in our house?  It’s one thing to bring up politics with friends or family, where business deals aren’t on the line.  Or when business deals are on the line and you’re sure that the clients are of the same mindset you are.  But telling potential clients that you want to a Tea Party without knowing their political views strikes me as particularly un-savvy.

After he left, my husband and I decided that we didn’t want to work with him.  He may be a great Realtor, but there were just too many red flags, and we were left with a very uncomfortable feeling about the whole thing.  My husband started researching online, and found another Realtor who sounded quite impressive.  He called to leave a message (it was 10:30pm) and she answered the phone.

The first Realtor spent so much time talking politics and economics that he never really got around to discussing what he would do to actually sell our house.  The lady we spoke with last night got right down to business.  She will come to meet with us on Monday morning, to look at our house.  Then she will take us with her to go look at several houses in our neighborhood that are for sale, to get a good idea of what else is available, how they compare to our house, and how they’re priced.  Then she will have a professional stager come in to consult with us and give us ideas (yay! – we’ve been doing it on our own, and some professional tips would be great!).  Then she will send in a professional photographer to take pictures of the house (there’s no additional fee for these services – they’re included in her fee).  Already, in a 15 minute phone call, she had gotten far more into what we were actually interested in – the business of selling our home – than the other guy did in an hour and a half.

And she charges 5%.

We are thrilled to be working with her.  My husband called the other guy this morning and let him know that we were using a different Realtor, and explained why.  The guy tried to defend his arguments, which just seems silly.  This is business, not a dinner party (or a tea party!)  By not asking questions, by sticking to a tired routine, by going on about another business venture, and by bringing up politics, the first Realtor lost himself a commission that would likely have been around $12,000.

Category: home improvement, just my life, lessons learned, work  21 Comments
03
Feb 2009

How We’re Paying Our Business Expenses Post-Wells Fargo

FrugalBabe

Good to know that Wells Fargo is making good use of their bailout money afterall.  I suppose it is more important to take the employees on a Vegas vacation than to keep credit available for small businesses with spotless credit.

For now, we’re using the credit card that I got back in 1997 for our business needs.  We only have five or six charges per month, and all of them are automatically charged.  We switched two of them today, and I’ll do the others tomorrow.  My first card was from CitiBank, and ironically it’s still active even though I haven’t used it in years.  I blew the dust off the card I had, noticed that it had not expired (they’ve been sending me new cards every few years, even though I wasn’t using the account), and called them to have them issue a second card in my husband’s name.

We’ll use the Citi card for our business needs for the time being.  It’s only a few hundred dollars a month, and we can pay the bill from our corporate checking account (I keep meticulous records, and the card won’t be used for anything non-business).  The other option was to use our regular personal credit card and reimburse ourselves, but that’s one more layer of record-keeping that I’d have to do, and I perfer to keep things as simple as possible.

We are still considering switching to a credit union (reader comments have been encouraging in that regard), but we want to figure out where we’re going to be living before we go through that process.  Anyway, for now I’m just so happy for the good executives at Wells Fargo.  It’s great to know that they get to take a sweet vacation using tax dollars.

Category: just my life, work  2 Comments
01
Feb 2009

Helpful Advice From Wells Fargo

FrugalBabe

Yesterday we finally got our letters in the mail from Wells Fargo, officially letting us know that they had closed our business credit card accounts.  The letter is ridiculous, and I thought I’d share it with you all.  It’s good for a laugh anyway.  They mention that they closed the accounts and that they understand that we will have questions about why this happened and what steps we can take now.  The letter goes on to say “to save you time and give you the most direct path to the answers you need, we have included “The Guide” on the reverse side of this letter.  It provides you with the information that we believe you will find most important and useful”.

So I turn over the letter, wondering what brilliant insights “The Guide” will offer.  First, it mentions the supposed reasons why the accounts were closed (as I described in my last post, their reasons don’t make much sense, but it’s convenient for them that the reasons are purely subjective, proprietary, and impossible to fight).  Then, they included some advide that they say will increase the likelihood that they will someday be able to reinstate our account (thanks, but I think we’ll pass on that).  Here are their words of wisdom:

  • Ensure all accounts are handled satisfactory.  Unsatisfactory performance may include untimely payments, items returned for insufficient funds, involuntary closures or overdraft occurances (um, excuse me, but does what you just did count as an involuntary closure?  Just curious)
  • Work to preserve your credit and avoid building excessive additional credit balances.
  • Make sure there are no late payments on any of your accounts.

I minored in math in college.  That advice from the helpful folks at Wells Fargo would be like someone telling me that I really ought to brush up on algebra.  Thanks guys – we’ll be sure to work on that.  In the 12 – 15 years that we’ve had credit, neither of us have ever had a bounced check, overdraft, late payment, etc.  We pay off our credit card every month, and have always done so other than the couple years after we started our business (late 2003 – 2006, during which time we carried balances but always paid far more than the minimum payment, and were always on time).

We’re a week out from finding out that our accounts were closed, and at this point I see a lot of humor in their letter.  If we had received it a week ago, it would have just made me angry, but staying angry doesn’t do anyone any good.  We are going to look at other bank options, but we’re not going to rush into a decision.  I like the idea of a credit union, but we want to make sure that we get one that has a local branch in the town where we’re hoping to move.  So we’ll see what our options are and weigh the pros and cons.  Switching banks will be a very time consuming process because of all the direct deposits we have to our business account and all of the automatic payments we have coming out of our accounts.  It’s not something I want to do without comparing a lot of options, but it is something that I’m motivated to do thanks to this little episode.

Category: just my life, savings, work  4 Comments
30
Jan 2009

Very Disappointed In Wells Fargo

FrugalBabe

An open letter to Wells Fargo and anyone else who cares:

Dear Wells Fargo,

I have been banking with you for six years.  My husband has been with you since the mid-90s.  When we bought our house and consolidated our finances, we decided to merge my bank accounts with his and move everything to your bank (in hindsight, I wish we had moved him to my bank instead, but you know what they say about hindsight).  We added my name to his checking account, and opened a joint credit card through Wells Fargo.  Our Heloc is also through your bank, and has been ever since we bought our house.  Three years ago, we incorporated our business and opened a business checking account, along with a corporate credit card for each of us.  Last month we opened a corporate money market savings account.

Our high-yield savings account is not with Wells Fargo, because as far as I know you do not offer one.  And our HSA and IRAs are with investment brokerage firms.  But all of our other banking is done with your bank, and has been for a long time.  We have a perfect record with you and with every other bank/lender/financial institution we’ve ever done business with.

Last Sunday, we got an email from a vendor we use for our business, letting us know that an automatic payment had been declined.   I called the 24 hour number on the back of my corporate credit card to find out what was up.  I was informed by a very nice employee that our credit cards had been closed as of January 20th.  Well that’s lovely – any particular reason why?  The gentleman told me that they were closed because of a report from Experian.  But I would have to call back the next morning to talk to someone during normal business hours to get more information.   That doesn’t make for a particularly good evening.

We called the next morning and talked to another rep who told us that the reason the cards were closed was because of low usage on the accounts.  To back up a bit, when we opened the credit cards, we told the business banking rep at our local Wells Fargo that we would only be spending about $300 – $500/month on our cards.  But we were given accounts with $10,000 credit limits.  True to our word, we’ve put approximately $400/month on the cards over the last three years.  We always pay the balance in full, and have never paid any fees or interest on our corporate credit cards.  But the cards are essential to our business.  All of the charges are automatic, recurring bills from vendors for services that we cannot operate without.

So on Monday morning we were told that our cards were closed because of low usage.  We asked to speak to a supervisor and were told that one would call us back.  But that never happened.  The next day, I called back to try to get a supervisor on the phone.  The person I spoke with on Tuesday told me that our cards were closed because of BOTH low usage and a report from Experian that indicated (according to Wells Fargo) that the balances on our personal credit cards were too high and that the amount of time our credit had been active was too short.

I spent 45 minutes on the phone with two people on Tuesday morning trying to figure out what was going on.  Conveniently enough, I had copies of our credit reports and credit scores from Experian and TransUnion from the same week that Wells Fargo had apparently gotten their report from Experian.  According to the credit scores I paid for when I got our credit reports, my husband’s credit is better than 93% of Americans, and mine is better than 78%.  So it would seem that you must be closing an awful lot of accounts. There’s not much we can do about the length of time our credit has been active (we haven’t closed any accounts recently), and it’s been active now for three years longer than it had been when you gave us $20,000 in credit (even though we told you we only needed about $500).  I discussed with the rep the fact that we don’t carry balances on any credit cards (confirmed by the credit reports), and that we charge a small fraction of the limit on our personal Wells Fargo card and AmEx each month, and pay off the balances in full.  She didn’t know what to say other than that she was sorry.  As for the low usage factor, no one at Wells Fargo was able to tell me what your requirement is for usage.  That sure does make it hard to adhere to, now doesn’t it?

The reps we spoke with earlier this week told us that notification was sent to us on January 20th, informing us about the accounts being closed.  Today is the 29th, and we haven’t received anything yet.  Did you send the letters on one of your horse-drawn wagons?  Just curious.

So, you want to know what I think?  About three weeks ago, I called to see if we could have our cards set up with automatic payment from our Wells Fargo corporate checking account.  Since we always pay the balance in full anyway, I figured it would make my life easier if I didn’t have to write checks from the account each month, and could just have the balances paid on the due dates.  Ironically, we got our credit card bills on Tuesday, and notification was included with the statements telling us that the balance would be deducted from our corporate checking account on the due date.  So now Wells Fargo is well aware that we will never be interest-paying clients.  We never have been, although I suppose the possibility was always there.  Until we set our accounts to be automatically paid in full each month.

Once you knew that we would never be interest-paying or fee-paying clients, you decided to get rid of us.  But you did it in a way that we can never fight.  Your minimum usage requirement is supposedly a corporate secret.  And while the information contained in credit reports is objective and can be contested (ours is all accurate), a company’s use of that data is subjective, and we can’t argue with how you interpret a credit report.

I truly felt sorry for the Wells Fargo reps I spoke with earlier this week.  They seemed resigned to having a pretty rough time of it right now.  I asked them if this was happening to a lot of clients, and they both said yes.  I was very upset, but I was restrained and apologized to the reps for being upset.  I’m guessing that a lot of your clients weren’t so polite.

The most frustrating part of all this is the $25 billion in tax dollars that Wells Fargo received in the banking bailout.  You’re welcome.

Category: lessons learned, savings, work  35 Comments
26
Jan 2009

Crazy Jobs

FrugalBabe

J. Money over at Budgets Are Sexy has put together a great list of crazy jobs that we frugal folk have held over the years.  My days as a dishroom girl in a dorm cafeteria are chronicled, along with plenty of other good jobs that will either make you grateful for your 9 – 5 or make you want to think outside the box and find creative employment.  One of my friends had a job a few years ago that involved finding dead sheep for the Division of Wildlife.  She lives in a rural mountain area, and when bears kill sheep, the ranchers are entitled to a payment from the DOW.  But they were having problems with excessive claims, so they hired my friend to verify that bears had killed the sheep in question.  Ranchers would find the dead sheep, report them to the DOW with GPS coordinates.  Then my friend would head out with her GPS, trekking over the mountains to find the dead sheep and verify that they had been killed by bears (yes, she had to go through a class to learn how to determine if a sheep had been killed by a bear).  I think she got $150 per sheep, and basically got paid to go hiking, although there was quite a bit of bushwacking involved.  Apparently bears don’t stick to the hiking trails.

Category: work  7 Comments
11
Dec 2008

Frugal Because We Want To Be

FrugalBabe

I got a comment today on my post about our financial goals that I thought was worth further discussion.  Dave wrote:

“I don’t know much about you but it seems like you folks have plenty of money. Anyone know of a blog directed toward the working poor? Somebody making / surviving on $30K a year?”

Dave, you make a very good point, and one that I’ve thought about a lot as I write a blog focused on frugal living.  But as as recently as 2004 we were indeed living on about $30K.  That year, our savings amounted to $100/month into our IRAs and that was it.  We were frugal out of necessity.  When we found out that my husband would need $5000 worth of dental work that year, I took a second job at the library, shelving books for $8/hour to pay off the dental bill.

When I started this blog in 2006, we were still in debt and although our income had increased a little beyond $30K, it still wasn’t huge.  Over the last couple years our income has increased further, but our lifestyle has stayed about the same.  Yes, we could spend more money now.  But we choose not to, because we’d rather save for the future than spend everything we have right now.

We’re actually earning a pretty typical income for two college-educated professionals in our 30s.  But we’re still in the same modest house we bought six years ago (we plan to stay, and are paying off the mortgage as quickly as possible).  We still drive cars that were made when nobody outside of Arkansas had ever heard of Bill Clinton.  We buy all of our clothing in thrift stores (and rarely shop at all, even at thrift stores).  I think the last time we went out to eat was in September when my in-laws were visiting.  Yes, we have options – we could choose to drive new cars, upgrade our house, shop at the mall, and go to Starbucks.  But instead we’d rather pretend that we still earn $30K and save the rest.

In order to make our goals happen next year, our family of three will have to keep our monthly expenses to about $2500, including the mortgage and health insurance, which amount to about $1500 together.  I feel confident that we can do it, because we’re used to living frugally.  Being forced to make do on very little money in the past taught us that we really don’t need a lot of money at all.  Now that we have more money, we’re able to give to causes that matter to us and save for the future, since we’re still perfectly happy with our frugal life.

I remember when I started blogging, I read NCN’s blog and was amazed at how much money his yearly savings amounted to.  I remember thinking that he was saving nearly as much as we were earning in a year.  And that served as a huge motivator for me.   The nice thing about being committed to living frugally is that if you work hard and focus on increasing your salary, chances are it will go up as the years go by.  But although the cost of living will increase too, frugal habits will mean that your expenses won’t increase as much as those of the people around you.  I’m sure that people see me pulling out of the thrift store parking lot in my 91 Civic and assume that I’m poor.  And that’s fine with me.

I’ll open the rest of Dave’s comment up to my readers:  what are your favorite blogs written by people who are working to stretch small incomes?  And what about your own experiences – have you found that frugal habits you developed years ago have stayed with you even though your income might have grown to the point where you don’t have to be frugal anymore?  Anyone finding that well-ingrained frugal habits are helping them weather the current recession?  I think this is a great topic for discussion – are you frugal because you want to be, or because you have to be?  For us it started out as a necessity, and then just became a way of life.  My guess is that a lot of other people find the same thing – once they get used to living frugally, they notice that big TVs and shopping at the mall and cars and fancy houses no longer hold much appeal.

Category: savings, ways we save money, work  31 Comments
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