Frugal Living: Cutting Expenses for Depression Era Times

I'm a single mom with a teenager active in competitive hockey and chess. This means we do a lot of traveling, and it also means that we need a lot of food in the house! We live on about $1000 a month. If it weren't for the new truck we had to buy to fit our life-style, we'd be living rich! So until the truck is paid off, we're counting pennies just to get the hockey fees and travel expenses paid. But if it weren't for how frugally we live, my son would have to give up his dream of some day trying for the NHL.

So living cheaply on nothing CAN be done!

Cutting out bills that come in is not something I think about much any more. I am already at the point where I have hardly any bills, so I tend to forget about this until I talk to friends that complain about all their bills! Yes, it's nice to be at this place...

Of course, most people will have a mortgage or rent. I can't stress enough to renters to buy your own place! To me, rent is like flushing money down the toilet. It's ongoing, and never stops. A mortgage, on the other hand, eventually gets paid off, leaving only yearly property taxes to pay. So having your mortgage paid off is probably the biggest goal to work toward.

I started off by buying property in a place where the land was really cheap, then improved it by putting a mobile home on it. That gave me my first home, which I later sold, which gave me enough money to put down on a place where I wanted to live. I put all my money into it to get it paid off, working extra jobs to do so. I've known people who bought and sold about three times in about less than ten years to finally be able to buy the place they wanted, and then paid off any small balance, if any, that they owed. To want to have exactly what you want when you first start out is not a wise move. Start lower, then build up. Otherwise, you can become a slave to your mortgage for almost the rest of your life!

Car payments are another item to get rid of. I am currently strapped with a new truck payment that I couldn't see any other way to get out of besides working it off. So I made the commitment to get a job to pay for the payment. There was no other vehicle that would serve our purpose, so I made that commitment. The ideal way to buy a new vehicle would be to pay yourself that payment, and then pay cash for the vehicle. That way you would earn some interest on the money you set aside (instead of making a payment that includes interest you pay out). But after a vehicle is paid for, there are still insurance payments. I keep my insurance to include comprehensive insurance after the vehicle is paid off. The reason? If your vehicle is ever totaled, you have no money to replace that vehicle and you're stuck with no transportation! I have known two people in this situation, and I can't tell you how sad this was for them!

Aside from those two big items, we have what I call "frivolous" bills. These would include credit cards, satellite/cable TV, extras on the phone, club memberships, radio subscriptions, magazine and newspaper subscriptions, etc. None of these are necessities unless they are mandatory for your work. Although some people would find it hard to live without these things because they are so used to them, it really can be done! Cut them ALL out! It can save hundreds of dollars a month!

Then there are services we pay for like the gardener, pool service, and housekeeping services, and I like to also include the car wash. These are things we really can do ourselves. We just have to reprogram and reschedule ourselves to do these things.

If we can get our monthly bills down to property taxes, vehicle insurance, bare-bones phone, and utilities, we will be well on our way to address our other expenses and save lots of money! But this may include a big mindset change on the part of many people. To quit shopping when you don't need to, to wash your own car, to buy what one only NEEDS (and some people have a hard time defining "needs" versus "wants"!), can be very difficult for many people! Coming home from work and flopping in front of the TV with 150 channels is also another hard change for so many people. But rethink these things; these can add up to hundreds of dollars a month!

After getting your monthly bills down or cut out, the next thing to do is work on your expenses. The first thing I do is create a list of everything I use and how much of each item. You know the old budget list? Well this is a "consumable list". I go from room to room and list items I buy on a regular basis.

For example, the kitchen. Of course we have food, but most homes also have items like paper towels, baggies, cleaners, etc. List them all and their approximate prices, and the approximate amounts used each month. I like to keep the food list separate from the other items as I feel food is a category in itself. Do this for each room.

Then go down the lists and see what you can do without. Are there brand names on this list? Are there things you can do without? Are there things easily made? I think about what my grandparents used.

As time goes on, I find more ways to "convert" store-bought items into "home made" items. It is so much cheaper!

The next step is to look at your trash. How much stuff do you throw away on a daily basis? Are there items in the trash you could re-use? Or items you could quit buying so you don't have so much trash? Remember, one man's trash is another person's treasure. What in your trash could be a treasure?

Of course, this might be too much to digest at the moment, so we'll take this step-by-step!

Let's start with trash.

What do you find in there? Packages and boxes, cans, jars, paper towels, milk jugs, egg cartons, used baggies, newspapers -- and probably more.

For me, I would find jars a "treasure". I don't throw out jars. Actually, I only buy glass jars because I can reuse them. I not only can my garden harvest, I also use the jars to store leftover food in (or whatever else I need to store).

Egg cartons and milk jugs are also a treasure for me, as I save the egg cartons for my own eggs from my chickens. Milk jugs I reuse for things like vinegar.

I wash out my baggies and reuse them. After all, they're plastic - should last a good while, so why are we throwing them away? What a waste of money!

Do you see where I'm going with this? Take a good hard look at your trash. What can you reuse? What can you cut down on so you don't have trash?

Do you have a lot of paper in the trash? Why? I found just eliminating just paper towels saved not only a lot of money, but a lot of room in the trash can! So I use rags instead of paper towels. They're too easy to wash clean, and I usually have lots of rags around from all the clothes that are too poor to wear any more. Take those buttons and zippers off and save them before ripping the clothes into rags! ...that's for those sewers out there...

And I save my newspapers, too. I use newspapers to wipe out the grease out of frying pans (instead of paper towels). I also use newspapers for the bottom of bird cages and to put on the floor when I'm doing a particularly dirty project. The newspapers after use go into my compost pile (unless there's paint on them; then I do throw them away).

You can save your grease in a can (washed out dog food can) setting on the stove. People used to save grease to reuse or make soap. Dog food and cat food cans also make great scoops, water containers for painting, pen and pencil holders - whatever. Use your imagination!

Here's another tip I picked up from my grandfather. He used to walk his dog every day and pick up everything on the ground he found: good rubber bands, pencils and working pens, money (!), nails, screws, a nice piece of wire... you get the picture. You'd be surprised what you'll find and how fast it adds up! And, of course, these things can be sorted in the jars you save.