Category — frugal living

photo by Mr G’s Travels

As the stock market crumbles and the job market shrinks, it’s easy to see the negatives of the troubled economy. After all, they’re right in front of us every day on the news, in our friends’ and neighbors’ struggles, and in our own homes.

Despite all of this, I can see one upside — America’s obsession with bigger and better seems to be waning out of necessity.

We’re all looking for ways to downsize:

• Smaller houses are becoming the new trend instead of huge homes that cost a fortune to buy and maintain.

• Economic and environmental concerns are leading smaller, more fuel efficient cars to overtake gas guzzling SUVs and trucks in sales.

• Consumers aren’t just downsizing for big purchases, though. They’re also using more coupons for grocery shopping and eating out less to downsize grocery bills.

• Though gas prices have sharply decreased in the past month or so, we’re still driving less.

I hate that more people are struggling with job loss and home foreclosures, but I love to see people spending smarter, conserving resources, owing less and saving more.

Though I know that these trends correlate with the struggling economy, I hope that newly frugal people will take away some valuable lessons from their new frugal habits. Though unnecessary spending will most likely surge again when the economy bounces back, I hope the memory of these uncertain times motivates people to at least save more and live within their means — even if they are spending more than now.

This is a guest post from my wonderful husband, Tony. You can read more from him at his movie review blog, Screen Savour. But first read about his experiences with an old-fashioned safety razor.

When we began to live the frugal lifestyle, I started looking for a way to become a frugal shaver. Shaving is something that’s required of me (growing a beard isn’t currently an option in my world), and if I’m going to do it, I think my face should feel good afterward. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to drop a fortune to do it.

When I began shaving as a teenager, my first razor of choice was the electric razor for its quickness. But the skin on my face has always been too sensitive, and the electric razor not only irritated my skin but it never gave me the smoothness I wanted. Furthermore, for an electric razor to function well, the mechanical blades inside need to be replaced at least annually. Depending on the make and model of your razor, those can set you back. It wasn’t worth it to me.

Bags of disposable razors are cheap. I’ve used them before, and believe me, the little torn-off pieces of toilet paper covering up my shredded face are proof enough that there’s a reason they’re so cheap. So they’re out, too.

Replacement cartridge razors were my choice for most of my life. I initially used the three-blade model, then upgraded once to the four-blade and again to the five-blade. As the number of blades increased, so did the price of replacing those cartridges.

Replacement cartridge packs for the last razor I used were running me more than $25 for eight cartridge heads. If one cartridge head lasts for two weeks, that means I’m still spending about $100 (depending on the deal) to buy enough cartridges to shave for one year. And that’s not even counting the cost of shaving cream and aftershave!

Earlier this year, I found the solution to my shaving problem in the unlikeliest of places: a pro-environmental lifestyle magazine. The magazine urged readers to abandon the replacement cartridges (which waste tons of plastic each year) and convert to using a safety razor.

The safety razor is the cast-iron skillet of the shaving world. If you buy one and properly care for it, you’ll never have to buy another.

It’s an old-school device that screws together and sandwiches a single sharp, steel blade between two layers of polished and brushed metal. All that is exposed is the thin edge of the steel blade. When the blade becomes dull, the safety razor unscrews and all you throw away is a thin piece of steel (which is completely recyclable).

The device is very retro in appearance, and although it takes a little while to get used to, the shaves have been unparalleled.

You pay up front for the safety razor. The actual handheld device cost me about $25, which is on the lower end of the spectrum. (Editor’s note: Price of one safety razor = price of 8 disposable cartridges. Just saying. )

The real savings come in the replacement blades. They’re very sharp and functional, but also thin and cheap. Amazon is selling a pack of 30 razor blades right now at less than $15. That’s 50 cents per blade, compared to over $3 each for replacement cartridges. Even if I changed the blade every week, I would only spend $26 a year on razors. If I changed the blade as often as I did replacement cartridges for my old razor (every other week), I would spend just $13 a year.

I can’t speak to how well a safety razor works on shaving legs, but my face and wallet have been thankful for the change.

So there you have it. If you’re tired of filling up landfills and spending a fortune on plastic replacement cartridges and you’re willing to try something new, the safety razor might be right for you. It would make a great gift for the frugal, environmentally conscious man in your life.

Every month I’m learning more about saving and frugality. I freely admit, though, that I’m not as frugal as I could be. Not by a long shot. There are plenty of choices that I make that aren’t the most frugal, but I continue to make them anyway. Some of them are out of convenience, others compromise. Some are simply weaknesses that I’m continually trying to improve on. Here are my worst offenses:

Paper towels

I use dish rags and cloths for a lot of things, but sometimes I just want a paper towel for particularly tough messes. I don’t like keeping dirty or wet rags around the kitchen, so if I was going to switch to completely reusable rags, I’d be washing them constantly. Sometimes it’s just easier to use a paper towel. Of course, I use coupons to buy them, I always look for sales, and I try to keep my use to a minimum. That’s my frugal compromise.

Cable television

We don’t spend a lot of money on entertainment or meals out. The compromise? We spring for cable television with DVR. It’s expensive at about $60 a month, but it certainly makes it easier to stay home instead of going out and spending money.

Brand Names

For most things, I don’t mind buying the generic version to save money. But there are some items (including paper towels, dog food, laundry detergent and shampoo) that I spring for the brand name. In my experimentation, I’ve discovered that I really can tell a difference. Most of the time I can’t tell a difference between brand names and their generic counterparts, but if there’s a considerable quality difference, then I’ll spend a little more for the better product.

Food

The grocery store has always been our top weakness. We’ve worked really hard to cut our grocery spending down from $80-$90 a week to about $55-$60 a week. I wanted to cut it to $40 a week, but I found it to be too much of a struggle. So to make things easy on us, I decided to cut myself some slack. Somehow we still manage to go over budget on food every month, so this is definitely an area that I continue to work on. But I’ve stopped being quite so hard on myself about our failures. Every week is a learning experience.

I’m still working on doing better, and I continue to improve. But there are some things (like cable and paper towels) that I may never give up. Frugality is as much about compromise as it is about saving, so I try to keep a balance.

Do you have any frugal weaknesses?

Yesterday Kacie at Sense to Save wrote about what she would do in a financial worse case scenario like a job loss or sudden medical expenses. I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately. Unfortunately, an acquaintance’s husband recently lost his job, and it made me wonder if we’d be prepared for a similar situation.

Our emergency fund is nowhere near complete. We actually only have enough to cover us for about a month and a half. Yikes. But we’ve only been working on it for about four months, and we plan to make it a top priority in the coming year.

Obviously, just as Kacie suggested in her post, the first thing to go would be discretionary expenses (cable, entertainment, cell phone extras, etc.) Our budget is pretty bare bones already, but cutting discretionary spending would probably free up $250 or so max. That’s easy enough.

But what if that wasn’t enough? What then? I think it’s important not just to have a plan for financial emergency, but also a plan for financial catastrophe.

For us, it would mean putting my student loans back into forbearance (a lender-approved pause in repayment that wouldn’t negatively affect my credit score, but still leads to interest accrual). That would free up another $200.

Next we would consider downsizing to a smaller apartment. We currently live in a 2-bedroom because we like the extra space (a 1-bedroom can get a little cramped with two people and a dog). We considered downsizing last summer, but then our landlord offered to renegotiate our lease and lower our rent. We decided it wasn’t worth it after we crunched the numbers (including a $300 loss for nonrefundable security deposits) and considered the hassle of moving and living in a smaller apartment.

In an emergency we might try to get out of our lease or find a subletter. Moving to a smaller apartment could save us another $200 a month.

Until we have a 6-month emergency fund in place I consider it a priority, but if we had to choose between saving and eating, I’d be willing to cut back temporarily.

With all of those expenses cut, we could reduce our spending by about $1000 a month. Wow, that would make a huge difference. Of course, it would be uncomfortable. But there’s no room in the budget for comfort in times of extreme hardship, is there?

Finally, in the event of an extreme emergency, Tony would drop out of grad school and find a full time job. He’s currently paid a stipend to teach, but it’s much less than he’d make in a full time job (if he could find one in this economy).

We might even consider packing up and moving back home where we have a support network. That would be an absolute last resort if we had no other options. Tony only has about 18 months left in his program, so I’m hoping nothing too extreme happens before he finishes.

How about you? What’s your plan for financial emergency?

Photo  by larimdame

This month, the Extended Group Writing Project at PFBloggers asks a very interesting question: What was the poorest time in your life? It made me think. A lot. So I decided to chime in.

I want to begin by clarifying that I’ve never fallen into the category of genuine poverty. To me, poverty is the point beyond budget cuts when you can’t just cut the budget to make ends meet, because you’re already living with so little. When you’re truly poor, you’re not worried about debt and savings. Your main concern is keeping a roof over your head and food on the table.

Thankfully, I’ve never been there, and I’m certainly not comparing my experiences with debt and low income to genuine poverty. That being said, it’s definitely possible to FEEL pretty poor even when you’re not living in poverty.

My first inclination was that a year ago, right after we moved here, was the “poorest” time in my life. Tony’s teaching job didn’t pay nearly enough to make ends meet, and I struggled to find a job for months.

Technically, we had more money in the bank than ever. We’d spent a year saving $10,000 for moving and living expenses. But with very little income, we sure felt pretty poor. It’s a really scary thing when your bank account is dwindling with very little coming in.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I came to realize that my first inclination was wrong. Last year was not the poorest time in my life.

Our living expenses may have been much higher than our income, but our circumstances motivated me to get serious about personal finance. Even though our financial situation was bleak, I felt more empowered than I ever had before. I started budgeting, cutting unnecessary expenses, and tackling debt. Despite our low income, we managed to get through the year without adding to our debt. We even paid off a huge chunk of my credit card debt.

Because I was making the decisions about where our money went, I didn’t feel deprived or scared about money. It was exactly the opposite. When we stopped spending money out of choice rather than out of necessity, we suddenly felt incredibly rich. We realized just how far the money we had could go if we weren’t blowing it.

We made smart choices to make our savings last. For the first time, I was paying my bills a month ahead of time instead of waiting for a paycheck at the last minute. We didn’t have money to buy a lot of stuff or eat out, but we didn’t have to worry about paying our rent or buying groceries. When I think about that, I realize that I didn’t feel poor at all a year ago. Quite the opposite, actually.

On the flip side, I lived pretty opulently in college. I went out to eat a lot. I bought a lot of “stuff.” On the outside, I appeared to be anything but poor. But I never had money in the bank. I blew through what I had so quickly that I often came dangerously close to overdrawing my account. As soon as I got a little money, it was gone. I was stressed every time I swiped my debit card, because I wasn’t sure there was enough in my account to cover it.

One night, my gas tank was so low that my car started sputtering. I knew I had to get gas, but I also knew that I had less than $5 in my bank account. I pulled into the gas station and put one gallon in my tank to make it home. When I got home, I had to check my account to make sure I hadn’t overdrawn it.

That’s the poorest I’ve ever felt.

Sadly, that wasn’t an isolated incident. Stuff like that happened to me a lot in my college days. I had no control over my money, so I didn’t feel like I was making the decisions. Obviously, I was just making the wrong ones. But every time my account balance dipped that low, I didn’t think about all the things I spent my money on. I only thought about what I couldn’t afford.

I still hesitate to refer to that as being “poor,” because it was my own fault. If I hadn’t spent my money on pizza and movies, then I would have had enough to pay for gas. The point is that feeling poor isn’t about the stuff you have or money in the bank. Some people feel “poor” if they can’t afford all the things they want. For me, feeling poor is stressing about whether I can afford the things I need.