Where I want to go is on a journey to frugality. My fantasy is that my family learn to live simply and frugally...that we challenge ourselves with saving money in every way possible, making an adventure out of it! No one is interested in this journey besides myself, however...and I just can't do it alone! I am always stressed out about money and my way of dealing with it is NOT dealing with it. I am an avoider. I get a panic attack when I check my online banking. I try hard to forget about it. I'm tired, tired, TIRED of living on the edge...always being a day late and a dollar short. People DO this! People live frugally and ENJOY it and I want someone to be on board with me. But no one is interested in working for it. And by no one, I mean my spouse, because if we are both doing it the kids don't have a choice!
I got cable out of this house once and I was grateful for that, but lo and behold it found it's way back in and Brian has dug in his heels and won't give it up. For goodness sakes, t.v. has done us no favors. It steals our time, our creativity and our lives!
We can save electricity! Keep the radio off 24/7! Keep the scanners off when no one is home, and for Heaven's sake, keep the stupid airconditioner off unless it's greater than 95 degrees! Summer time money saving tip: Keep the windows open at night and in the morning close them up and close the blinds and it stays remarkably cool all day! If my husband could control his overwhelming compulsion to keep all the windows and doors open all day long, we might get somewhere!
I want to go to the store once a week and plan all the meals and don't make in-between trips to the store; currently that's one of our biggest money suckers! Shopping meal to meal!
Something has got to give and I would prefer to be proactive rather than reactive. Somebody help me!!
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You are speaking my language. People think we are weird as almost no matter how hot it is, we do the open window/fan type thing. Even when we lived in the desert. I know how our Grandma Ida lived--and I spent about a year as an 18-year-old living with her--that was frugality. She worked her butt off to live that frugal, by the way. So I sincerely do appreciate everything I have--and feel guilty having it so easy when I only had one kid to raise instead of eight like she did. Also, our old ancestors who had so little and lived in the poor house, God bless them--makes me conscious of my habits, but still have a long way to go.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite frugal tips . . . I try not to even spend a nickel on something that is obviously not going to have a lot of long-term benefit. Yard sales, auctions, and ebay are places I look for deals. I love to buy books off Amazon--but learned to look at the options from the Amazon marketplace before buying to get a maybe new item there for much, much less.
What do you think of Dave Ramsey? He's on the radio and the cable--has some Christian viewpoints to the whole getting debt free type lifestyle. I don't get to hear him enough, but love to hear his advice.
I agree! We all have it so easy! We could feed every person on this planet if it weren't for all the self-indulgence we are so accustomed to-we don't even recognize that's what it is! I only have myself to blame though because I've taught my children their habits and now I'm going to try to reverse them!
ReplyDeleteFunny, I was just pondering this whole subject myself!
ReplyDeleteMy husband drives me crazy with the heat/airconditioning thing, too-put more clothes on or take some off for crying out loud!
We're trying and it's hard! We didn't have cable in La Grande, and that was good. But we got it when we moved here. I gotta say, I love it! We're trying to scale back how much we watch, but we still watch it. We do pretty good with the A/C, etc. Our downfall is coffee shops, and for me drive thru coffee shops. We like Dave Ramsey's stuff too. For our drive thru coffee addiction, we tracked how much we spent in a month (OH MY HECK IT WAS A LOT!!!), so we now are only each buying a $20 coffee card (I don't even drink coffee, mine is tea...easy to have at home), and when it's gone for the month it's gone. It's my sanity saver though. Good luck!
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