Part of living a more self sufficient life is cutting back where one can. This is an area that I haven’t been so good on.
I can always find a really good reason to buy whatever it is I feel like I need at the time.
The problem with this is that in the 10 years I have been married I have spent more than my husband had brought in. I have not been a good home economist, or a good steward of the blessing we have been given. It is a burden, especially for my husband, and I feel so bad for my poor use of the things he had provided.
Looking at our finances I have come to the conclusion that we will be paying someone for the next 50 years (not including our house) at the rate we have been going, and that is just not going to work! How can we be self sufficient if all our extra money is going to pay for so many things, things that I can’t even tell you what they were in the first place!
I recently read an article that said the only true way to recession (or depression) proof yourself was to have some land that you can provide your own food and have no debt.
If my husband were to lose his job we would be in financial ruin in the space of 4 weeks. We have little savings and much debt. Not very recession proof.
Staring in January we are cutting back, way, way back. We need to bang out some debt. I don’t know all the ways we are going to do this, and I know it will mean a lot more work for me, but I am up to it. My husband makes a really good living and it saddens me that we can’t live the way we would like to because of it. I blame myself.
What things do you do to save on money?
Great post! Wanna know what I’m doing? I’m finding encouragement from YOUR blog about our food! No garden here yet, but I am going to start one in the spring. Get ready for TONS of questions! You inspire me! Have a great weekend!
I’m right with ya! My ex-husband and I didn’t have debt. Never did. We had fantastic credit and drove crappy cars to avoid car payments. I pretty much just bought what I wanted. My situation has changed. My new hubby has lots of debt left from his divorce 3 years ago. LOTS more than what I’m used to. He also lives in a different state, so although I work (it’s only 30 hrs a week), we are still trying to keep up on two households and pay travel expenses so we can see each other. His child support is also more than I make in a month (quite a bit more). We are having to cut back… way back… we are just not keeping up and it’s what has to happen. It’s tough!
I also find excuses to buy what I need/want and it was never a problem before, but now it is and it’s a hard habit to break!
Chrissy, you are so kind, thank you so much!
I used to have the opposite problem. I once went 3 years without buying any new clothes. When we had to go out to a fancy business dinner, my husband flipped out (Guess he hadn’t noticed before that).
Anyway, if you havn’t heard of him, I like Dave Ramsey’s advice on living debt free. Lately we have been having trouble staying wihtin the budget we set up, I guess I have been getting lazy. Probably time for me to cut back, too.
Been around THIS block a few times and still trying to get it right. One of the things we’ve gone back to doing is menu planning. Instead of the “what shall we have for dinner today?”, I’ve had to go back to planning two weeks-worth of dinner meals, and trying to buy just those items needed, not all the junk food and goodies I’m used to. Accounting for every penny/dollar is a pain in the neck and drives me crazy, but I guess it’s necessary to be a better mom. We’ve had to stay closer to home (to save gas), which is hard for me because I like to get up and go when I want to. I’m famous for running to the store at least once/day for little things I forget during the BIG shopping trips, so my husband stops on his way home. Our movie collection has doubled to help us stay home and keep us from spending half our mortgage to go “out” as a family! We’ve actually noticed (now and over the years) we have more fun together when we’re forced to stay home and look at each other. Kids’ clothes, shoes, and now, even Christmas gifts have to be budgeted, which doesn’t go over well with teenagers (or mom).
Thanks for sharing this article. We’re right there, too. But things have always worked out for us when we’ve cut back and tried to be wiser with our resources. It’s just going through it that’s been hard.
We were debt-free until we bought our house this year. We live very frugally. As much as we’d love too, we haven’t spent much money yet decorating or landscaping our house. We still have a beat-up old dining table fourth-hand from college and my husband’s grandma’s old couch that’s on its last legs. Our house actually has some rooms that are totally empty. We don’t need them yet; why fill them up?
My biggest tip for saving money is (drumroll, please): don’t go to the store. You can buy off-brands and use coupons all you want at the grocery store, but all that will be wasted as soon as you make a $50 impulse buy somewhere else. I know it sounds dumb and obvious, but there you have it. It’s hard to spend money if you get out of the habit of going shopping all the time. It also saves gas!
I would also suggest bi-weekly trips to the store if you can swing it. I save so much money by buying groceries less often. Also, if you have food storage, make sure you use it as much as possible, and replace as you go along. The basics that we store are cheap and they need to be rotated.
Another thing that helps is attitude. Instead of feeling bad that you have shabby furniture (my problem) or whatever it is that bugs you, instead, try to gain pleasure from making do with what you have and enjoying the ride! It makes such a difference to me.
i am no longer working outside the home, jason gets a ride to work and back (the guy lives two streets over and passes our house anyway) so we save a LOT on gas for the van, which means we also save a lot on upkeep because we really aren’t driving a lot anymore..i go shopping once a week now, i’d like to get to the point of doing it every other week, but we aren’t quite there yet…our thermostat for the house stays between 65 and 67..it makes for some pretty cool evenings, and days as winter comes…we don’t have cable or satellite…we haven’t even bought an adapter for the regular channels…we don’t eat out any more, at least hardly at all, the last time was pizza and that was about 2 weeks ago…when i shop, i only get things we need…i’ve stopped picking up “extras” all the time..and if i do get something “extra”, it is as cheaply as possible…for christmas this year, our family is getting a lot of homemade gifts, and for the kids, i am waiting to use jason’s christmas bonus to buy their gifts with that…it makes things tight, and i get complaints from the kids about not having their “desired” choices of snacks (they don’t need all the junk anyway) but it makes it so we can pay the bills and work on finding our financial feet…we planted a garden this year that wasn’t very fruitful at all, next year i hope it will turn out better…
It’s so hard, not to justify things. I have found that I have to say no to EVERYTHING, go home and think about it. If it’s worth going back for a day or two later, then we really want or need it. I make a lot more from scratch. We also spent EVERY extra bit of money (bonuses, tax returns, etc.) purely on debt. We don’t have much now. And we cut up the credit cards, we don’t have ANY.
You’ll get there. Good luck.
*hugs*
I think a lot of people don’t really know where there money is going. Being in the business, I do our personal finances in quickbooks. This lets me know exactly where our money is going and also helps to budget ourselves. I think you are already on the right track. Realizing there needs to be a change!
I admire you for seeing that there is a problem and want to fix it. That’s a really good first step.
I have to second the other poster that said stay home. Since I have been home we have actually “found” an additional $1k a month in order to pay off our credit card. I didn’t realize how my quick run to Target, then to Walmart here and there turned into mega gas money and then of course I just had to stop by Sonic for something to eat and drink since I was gone all day. That really adds up quick.
Another thing is menu planning. Look at the store deals and see what’s good. If there’s nothing good then go to a discount store and buy store brands, or if you have a store that double coupons and its a good deal then try that.
Last, if you can afford to buy land then do. Hang a clothesline out back and hang up your clothes. Make whatever clothes you can.
You can do it! I think most of us need to work on this issue.
Blessings for your efforts.
Here’s a guest post I wrote that deals with these issues:
http://happytobeathome.net/happy-with-what-we-have/
Keep pluggin’! You can do it! Amy
Hey girl! Great post, I feel like I wrote it myself! I agree with all you’ve said and I’ve incorporated so many things out of necessity for us to move to SS. Our life is very simple. I will post a few things, because I am a lengthy writer, but you are so on your way, and I commend you for putting it out there!
Love ya!
My biggest problem is impulse buying. I’ve really been working on that and I’ve noticed the paychecks lasting longer. One thing I’ve started doing to control my spending is to decide on an amount of money I have to spend on groceries, household items etc and pull cash out in that amount. If I spend it all then we are out of money until the next week and have to make do. Since we are trying to build up a savings I put any extra, even if it just a few quarters, into the savings. It has really motivated me to see how little I can spend and how much extra I can add to the savings.
Everyones comments are great. I would also recommend Dave Ramsey! He has a book out, that most library’s have. We read it and are doing the plan! Love thinking about being debt free!