I was reading MadameX’s post at My Open Wallet on the fact that she’s resorted to eating stale crackers with hummus in an attempt to get her food budget back in line. As I read that, it occurred to me that she’s probably not the only one doing this. I know that we are also cracking down on our food budget, and now that I’m using Mint to track our budget vs actuals on many things I’m more easily seeing where we need to crack down. We have pretty much killed off the habit of eating out which is paying us dividends. We are also being more careful to eat all of our leftovers and are definitely using coupons like we have never done before.
What is interesting about this is that, relative to most people, I think it’s safe to assume that neither MadameX, nor my family is destitute. We are all still employed and making more than many other people in the country. The fact that we are practicing these forms of frugality is really more of a frame of mind than it is being done out of necessity. I’m sure that we all have similar goals in that we’d like to increase our cash on hand. By forcing ourselves to commit to budgets/goals and then following through on those goals, even when it means eating stale crackers or cans of soup, we are making sure we are in control of the things that we CAN control. I can’t change the current fiscal issues in the country, but I can drastically effect my own finances, just like MadameX knows she can.
This might not be much of a revelation to many of you reading this as you are probably doing similar things. (Are you? Leave a comment!). This is a completely foreign concept to one of my acquaintances. When we occasionally talk about finances, I mention some of the ways we minimize expenses or spend some time looking for the best deal etc and he looks at me like I just landed from the planet ORB. To him, it seems ludicrous that we would be scrimping or worrying about general purchases if we are both employed and have extra income each month. To him, it is a waste of his time to spend time worrying about whether something is cheaper somewhere else. He also doesn’t usually think about things like want vs need as he is gainfully employed and has no fear of losing his job. So, what does that translate to? He owns the largest DVD collection of anyone I’ve ever met. He has a VERY nice wakeboard boat in his garage. His wife drives a $45,000 car. His kids wear the best clothes and have all the accessories teenagers would want. I’m not criticizing his approach because we each have to make our own financial decisions but I am pointing out that the decisions we do make can have unintended consequences. Because of his approach he couldn’t understand why my wife stayed home for the first three years of our daughter’s life. It was incomprehensible to him that we could live on one income. The fact of the matter was that we were very comfortable on one income, not because of an obscene income level, but due to limiting our expenses and debt. The reality was that he made more money than I did at the time but he also had double, maybe even triple, the expenses that we did. Needless to say, there are no stale crackers in his cupboard……..
I think we often forget that a lot of people in the world don’t even had food, and they would really appreciate stale crackers. Mr Chiot’s and I work hard to keep our expenses under control. Many of our friends and family do not understand this, they spend freely and never bother to try to save. They give us funny looks when we say we’re trying to pay off our mortgage in a few years.
We also eat at home, make everything from scratch, grow some of our own food and preserve it, eat all leftovers, all to be more budget & enironmentall friendly. We find that donating generously to charities that help the poor in other countries helps us be more content with our restrained lifestyle and encourages us to live without a lot of things. I think doing without build great character, it’s good for adults and especially children.
I am currently eating left over rice mixed with canned salmon. My wife and I are both employed and we are doing well. Like you say, I think it’s a frame of mind. People don’t even realize how much money they actually waste, it just amazes me.
Since I see that it’s relevant, I hope it’s okay for me to throw in my two-cents about Thrive. It looks like you’re a mint user, and Thrive is similar, but the reason why I thought I’d comment on your post comes from what you write about budgeting. I’ve been reading blogs that say to give up hobbies to save money or to reconsider them at least, but I beg to differ. It’s never healthy to go cold-turkey on hobbies and I don’t think extreme methods of the sort will last very long either. One thing Thrive helps with is that based on your spending habits, it can determine what areas you spend money on the most (food, entertainment, shopping) and suggest budgeting goals that are unique to every user, since everyone splurges differently. I know that I spend most money on going out to eat and movies and I’ve been trying to compensate by cutting down on lunch spending and going to the movies before noon on the weekends at any AMC to catch their matinee prices.
awesome blog….very useful resource…thanks for the post. :)