Posted on 11/10/2008 9:52:05 PM PST by TenthAmendmentChampion
On paper, my wife and I are poor. How poor? In 2005 we made $4,303.84 combined; in 2004 we made half that. We’re in such a low tax bracket that I have trouble convincing the government of our tax return’s accuracy; they simply can’t believe Americans can live on that kind of money.
Yet in many ways, we’re better off than a Wall Street banker: We’ve saved enough money to buy land without a mortgage, we have no credit cards or monthly bills, I work 20 flexible hours a week from home, and my daughter has two stay-at-home parents.
Simply put, we never want for anything, and we have a lot of fun.
We’ve arrived where we are now through a decade of daily financial decisions. Because we didn’t want to spend our time earning money at jobs we didn’t like, we instead focused on how to stretch our money. We found that by controlling our day-to-day expenses, we could save a lot of money without sacrificing our quality of life. Neither my wife nor I will ever be confused for financial wizards; there’s nothing we’ve done that you can’t do if you’re serious about saving money. Here are 75 money-saving tips to consider, drawn from our own experiences. Find what works for you and enjoy living on less!
Good Cheap Food
1. Buy raw ingredients instead of prepackaged foods. If you don’t know how to cook, learn. You’ll save on food bills, and your body will thank you for it in the long run.
2. Buy in bulk from a local health food store, or place bulk orders directly with mail-order companies. If you can’t meet their minimum order size, go in on an order with another family, or organize a larger food buying club.
3. Avoid the middleman and buy directly from farmers. Look for farm stands, community supported agriculture programs and farmers markets.
4. Eat fruits and vegetables in season, when they are least expensive. (Once, we found organic watermelon for three cents a pound!) Stock up when they’re cheap and freeze or can any excess for later use.
5. Keep up with what’s in your refrigerator and make sure nothing spoils. Once a week, make soup or casseroles to use up vegetables and other leftovers.
6. Calculate the price of food per pound when you visit supermarkets. Doing the math will help you spot good deals.
7. Don’t overeat. When you do, you’re flushing money down the drain.
How to Avoid Rent
8. Find a live-in elder care position and help someone stay out of a nursing home. There’s always someone desperate for reliable help, and often there are no qualifications needed other than compassion.
9. Help renovate a house in exchange for lodging. This is how we came into our current home.
10. For short-term stays, become a housesitter or pet sitter.
11. For long-term stays, become a caretaker. A good place to find such caretaking jobs is The Caretaker Gazette.
Find and Build Your Nest
12. Look beyond realtors’ listings to find cheap property. Try local penny papers.
13. Don’t be afraid to ask. If you see a piece of land you like, find the owner and ask if it’s for sale. It might be cheaper than you think.
14. Salvage materials for your new home. There are lots of possible sources: Look for someone who’s renovating a house and might let you cart away old materials; check the yellow pages for used building materials; or look for online groups, such as Freecycle, where people trade all kinds of unwanted items.
15. Never skimp on insulation or good windows. Build your home tight enough, and it will cost much less to heat. You may even be able to get away with a woodstove or other supplemental heating and avoid the cost of buying and running a central heating system.
16. Barter for services with carpenters. Some communities have organized time banks, to make bartering these kinds of services easier. You can learn more about them here.
17. Buy into a piece of land with another family. Be sure to check local zoning ordinances to be sure you can legally subdivide a property before you buy it.
18. Build with natural materials found on-site. If you have wood, the equipment to mill it yourself is relatively inexpensive, compared to buying lumber. (You can resell the sawmill after you’re done with it.) Building with stone or straw bales and using clay for plasters are other relatively inexpensive natural building options.
Keep Home Upkeep costs Down
19. Close off unused rooms to save on heat and air conditioning.
20. Be efficient with your appliances. Have a big baking night when you’re going to use the oven. Let your woodstove also be your dryer and water heater.
21. Take advantage of natural weather patterns to heat and cool your house. In the summer, open the windows at night and close them again by noon.
22. Place your refrigerator in the coldest part of the house so it requires less energy to keep the temperature low.
23. Wash your clothes in cold water. It’s the friction that does most of the cleaning, not the heat.
24. Switch off your water heater when you’re not going to use it for extended periods of time.
25. Buy energy-efficient light bulbs. The savings on your electric bills add up fast.
26. Unplug any unused electric items with lights, clocks or timers. They use an amazing amount of power just sitting there. You can plug multiple items into one power strip to make shutting them all off faster.
Creative Transportation
27. Carpool with friends or co-workers. Some cities maintain online listings to help people connect with other carpoolers.
28. Ask if your city has a carshare program or start one with people you trust.
29. Convert a diesel car to run on used vegetable oil. You’ll pay once for the conversion or kit, but after that all your fuel can be free. All you have to do is find a restaurant that wants to dispose of their used oil and will let you cart it away.
30. Keep track of your gas mileage and look for ways to improve it — keep your tires properly inflated and don’t speed.
31. Do as many errands as possible with each car trip around town instead of making multiple trips. You’ll save a lot of gas.
32. Book any airplane trips well in advance to get the lowest possible fare. Then show up early and offer to be bumped in exchange for free tickets if a plane is overbooked.
When You Can’t Avoid Shopping
33. Don’t go into stores unless you need something. Always carry a shopping list. Remember, stores are designed to get you to buy things you didn’t know you needed.
34. Hit end-of-season sales for as many items as possible, from kayaks to gardening supplies.
35. Before you shop, try borrowing the items you need from family or friends. Check out local Freecycle groups to find out what people are giving away. Set up borrowing co-ops for tools.
36. Try to find it used before you buy new. You can find a wide variety of items online, in the classifieds or penny papers, and at garage sales, estate sales and thrift stores.
37. When buying new, choose high-quality, durable items. It’s often cheaper to spend more upfront if you won’t have to replace the item in the near future.
38. Instead of shopping, scavenge. Watch the curbs at the end of the semester in a college town. If you live near a high school, try talking to the janitor the last day of school when they’re cleaning out the lockers.
Get Some Clothes On!
39. Buy clothing used whenever possible. You may have good luck finding clothes at garage sales, or find a wider selection at thrift stores, consignment shops and on eBay.
40. Have a clothing exchange party to trade unwanted clothing with friends.
41. Try sewing. Look for cheap material in thrift stores, or try reincarnating your outfits into something new.
42. Watch the clearance racks. It’s always amazing how much stores are willing to mark down unsold clothing.
For Your Health
43. Ask a doctor or dentist if they have sliding-scale fees.
44. Look for free or low-cost clinics and/or medical schools for treatment. (But be warned, sometimes you get what you pay for. I have a couple of bad fillings from a new dentist.)
45. Do preventive maintenance on your body. Exercise and eat well. Try yoga to reduce stress. Quit smoking.
46. Campaign for a national health care system! [uh, no.]
Cutting Education costs
47. For the college bound, take some general education classes at a state school or community college where the tuition is low, even if you plan to take most of your classes at a more expensive college. Just check carefully with your school of choice to make sure the classes will transfer.
48. Attend an in-state college. Establish residency for a year or two beforehand, if need be. The money saved can be well worth the time it takes to establish residency.
49. Buy your college books used online. Don’t give in to the monopoly of the college bookstore!
50. Watch for unique scholarship opportunities, including those that involve resources other than cash. (I once received a case of organic macaroni and cheese for making the dean’s list.)
51. Audit classes that you only want for the learning, not the credit.
52. For lessons, try bartering. For example, my wife is planning to do some photography in exchange for dance lessons.
Cheap Entertainment
53. Discontinue your Internet service and utilize a wireless “hotspot” where you can connect to the Internet for free. Even the smallest towns tend to have at least one.
54. Rediscover the radical notion of the library. Imagine Internet access and thousands of books, CDs and DVDs for free!
55. Volunteer to usher for concerts, plays and other events. (I haven’t paid for a play in years.)
56. Find low-cost fun in your local paper. Take full advantage of free concerts, events and movies.
57. When at a concert or movie, avoid buying anything to eat or drink. Some places even let you bring your own snacks.
58. Take turns entertaining with friends holding parties, potlucks or music nights.
59. Occasionally, go ahead and spend the money. Saving money’s like going on a diet: If you try to starve yourself, you’ll end up consuming more in the long-run.
If there’s a form of entertainment you value, that’s a good place to consider splurging.
See the World for Less
60. Volunteer for organizations such as Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF) that provide food and lodging in exchange for a reasonable amount of daily work.
61. Trade your home with friends around the country and enjoy free lodging in a new location.
62. Go camping, or rent a cabin. Don’t overlook state parks and national forests, they’re often less expensive and less crowded than national parks.
63. Try a local vacation. Chances are, there’s something great to see within a 100-mile radius of where you live.
64. Ask hotels about discounted distressed-traveler rates, especially if you hadn’t planned to stop but must because of inclement weather.
65. There’s no law against haggling with a hotel on the room rate!
66. Make your vacations pay for you by combining them with work. I once volunteered for my school to check out an innovative learning program in Vermont and got to stay in a bed and breakfast with my wife for free.
67. Buy food at local supermarkets when traveling. It’s much cheaper than eating at restaurants.
68. Choose a vehicle with fold-down seats if you’re renting a car or truck. Find a safe place to sleep for the night, and you have instant, snug lodging.
Happy Families for Cheap
69. Definitely choose used clothes for babies. They’re so cute, they don’t need to be stylish.
70. Trade babysitting time with other couples and have rotating playgroups with other families.
71. During the holidays, draw names for gift giving with groups of family or friends rather than buying a gift for everybody. A fun variation or addition to this is the white elephant holiday party, where everyone brings unwanted items and other joke gifts.
72. Invoke a gift giving spending cap.
73. Give homemade gift certificates for a home-cooked dinner, massage or babysitting time.
74. Donate to a good cause that a friend or family member supports instead of buying a gift they don’t need. Not only do you support a worthwhile organization, but you’ll save on sales tax and transportation costs.
75. Swallow your pride; accept your family’s help every now and then. It’ll make them feel good.
These suggestions are just a starting place. You’ll find lots of new ways to save that work best for you. Make a game of it if you can, and keep it fun. After all, it’s only money. Happy penny pinching!
Absolutely!! We bought our previous house, and two pieces of rural land which we now own, exactly this way.
bump.
“Where do they use the bathroom? And just try that with nine kids - you’d need to rent a tractor-trailer”
amen sister.
I too bought a ‘fixer-upper’ (from HUD) that was off of the market for many years due to mold. Contrary to all of the repair estimates, I was able to DIY remedy and move in after only three weeks and an expenditure of less than $600 (versus $8700 ~ $20,000+).
You are correct that mold will rapidly grow on sheet rock paper. There is mold resistant papered sheet rock available though.
However, mold will also attach and grow to concrete, plaster and especially the wood studding. Wood is also the most difficult base to remove it from, often requiring ‘ice blasting’ for removal.
I had all three conditions and upon ‘gutting’ the cellar wall finish covering, I found the growth on the cement reminiscent of something out a 50’s drive in movie double feature. (I have pictures, but as a ‘newbie’ and considerate of bandwidth, won’t post)
The spores go everywhere so correcting the moisture problem is the primary goal. I will be removing approximately 30” of attic insulation due to mold spores. But, at least they are now dormant.
The money saved by paying cash was a factor, the personal satisfaction of DIY was a bonus. This for a house that everyone deemed in need of complete destruction/removal.
I wonder if there will be imputed and/or retroactive “fees” come 2009.
As to the other suggestions, I too have simplified my life style. Have more money, need less and don’t have a lot of stuff to dust.
Most importantly, I have time to learn what is behind the “headlines”.
‘Living the dream’ ping.
Here’s another way to live off the grid, at least as far as electricity is concerned: live in an RV fully outfitted with solar panels. The benefits to a house on wheels is that you can move it to the right climate as needed. Of course this likely precludes raising your own food, unless you have a plot of land to park your RV on during the growing season.
This guy has some interesting things to say about the RV lifestyle:
http://www.andybaird.com/travels/saving-the-earth.htm
And here’s another gentleman who lives in his RV with plenty of on board solar and battery power:
http://vagabonders-supreme.net/
He pretty well lives on his SS check, which is just over $1k a month, and income from the Google ads on his blog. He has quite a following, which helps, but his lifestyle is certainly inspiring. I suppose that’s partly why so many people enjoy reading his blog.
No, it's a basically self-indulgent point of view.
46. Campaign for a national health care system!
And also the note about swallowing your pride and asking for family help.
Based on those two ideas, this is an non-sufficient life style. The person has chosen not to be able to afford medical care, and expects others to pay it for them.
You usually don't have to swallow your pride when asking for help from family, unless you are asking for help with something you should have but did not plan to pay for yourself.
Some of the things are reasonable, but the basic reason they are stating for this list is that they didn't want to work hard enough to not need these tricks. As if I really want someone doing aid for the elderly because they think it will leave them a lot of free time.
There are other sites out there that will give "live cheap" advice without the socialist poison pills.
That is pretty funny! Suddenly we might all turn into the smelly hippies we've been mocking all these years - except with better music and good literature.
“Choose a vehicle with fold-down seats if you’re renting a car or truck. Find a safe place to sleep for the night, and you have instant, snug lodging.”
Need we say more?
_______________________
Also...just after checkout time, go to a local hotel/motel and tip the maid $10 to let you use a shower and towels in one of the rooms.
I largely agree with you. I do believe we could all probably be more frugal with our money. My husband and I have avoided all debt except for our home. We forego credit cards completely but use debit cards. What bothers me, too, is the reliance on others to sustain a self-indulgent lifestyle. It reminds me of two things: first, all the Moonies that used to populate the airports begging for money. I decided I didn’t have much respect for people whose “virtuous” lifestyle depended on others not living that lifestyle to support them. Second, it reminded me of that “poster family” the Dems used to justify expanded SCHIP, that Yuppie trust fund couple who worked part-time and begged for free health care for their kids.
As a side note, there was a recent Readers’ Digest article about a family living cost-free for a month as an experiment. While they learned something about materialism, I noticed among their tactics was mooching food at CostCo’s tasting tables with no intention of buying anything at the store and eating at least once at a food kitchen. Again, don’t rely on others not as virtuous as yourself to sustain you.
But, on the other hand, I am going to start being more conscious of my expenses and cutting back. I think whatever financial problems the nation has right now will deepen before it gets better.
It was interesting to read the comments on TMEN to the author’s ideas. Most of them opposed #46! Maybe there’s hope...
I’d welcome links to those sites on this thread. Thanks!
It was impressive reading about the gentleman who is a cancer survivor. His life is about as close to being free as one can get. Plus it's a lot easier for a guy to be footloose in a RV than a woman, considering the times we live in.
I have the feeling people with a few young children aren't going to be house sitting any time soon...
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