“mental health”? “self care”? No. The term is “indulgence”.
Its not that the $766 is going to make you or break you. Its about lifestyle. There are lots of little things people can cut that won’t really change their quality of life but which will save a significant amount of money. For example:
- bring your own lunch/drinks if you work away from home
- learn to cook and do so. Do it regularly. Avoid dining out and ESPECIALLY avoid buying food from a restaurant and having it delivered. How lazy can you get? Besides, you can eat healthier if you cook for yourself. Pasta in particular freezes really well. Make giant family size portions. Separate out meal size portions in ziplock baggies and toss ‘em in the freezer. During the week when time is at a premium, you can just defrost one in the microwave in a few minutes.
- My monthly phone bills went from $82/month to $27/month when I switched from AT&T to Charter who provides my cable. I got unlimited data plans with both. I did it because AT&T made my chit list for supporting Leftists. Only after I started looking around did I realize how badly they were hosing me charging me an extra $55/month for nothing.
- Do you need a whole bunch of streaming services? I get a monthly streaming service with no contract during the 4 months per year of college football season and then I drop it as soon as the season is over. The other 8 months per year I have YouTube, Rumble, Dailymotion and other places where I can watch lots of good content for free. That’s in addition to Tubi and other free channels that come with my Roku. I’m amazed at what some of the people I know pay to have Amazon Prime, Hulu, several movie channels, etc etc. Some of them pay hundreds of $ per month on all those streaming channels.
- Need to get away but don’t want to spend a lot of $ to do it? Try hiking. I love getting out in nature, my little hiking buddy (my black lab) loves it too, its good exercise and its both beautiful and peaceful getting away from people and traffic and everything. All it costs is the gas it takes to get there.
- Get a coffee maker and stop giving Starbucks $6-7 per day. Even the Kuerig pods only cost about $1 each. Make your coffee at home.
- Do I even need to say don’t buy a bunch of crap you don’t really need online at places like Amazon because you’re bored? I know people who do this.
Doing the above will not dramatically reduce your standard of living. In some ways they’ll enhance it with better diet, exercise, etc. Just the things outlined there can save you thousands of dollars a year. You just have to break the habit of doing things that cost a lot when you add them up.
Even better: invest a few dollars in an immersion cooker and a vacuum-sealer. Frozen items last in vacuum-sealed bags for months and months, and can be perfectly reheated with the immersion cooker while you're busy doing something else.
The government is going to force people into frugality whether they like it or not.
My wife and I used to go to movies. We can’t justify $23 per person now, even if there were good movies. We have never owned cable. Ever. When we want to watch movies, we check them out from the library.
We used to go out to eat a nice meal several times a week. We do a ‘nice meal’ once every few months now. Can’t afford it.
We used to rent a small cottage for a weeks vacation. Can’t do that anymore. Prices are outrageous.
And so on.
My wife and I spent our lives living within our means. We purchased a small ranch on a quarter acre in a development forty years ago instead of a large multi-story home.
We did not purchase new furniture as a rule, but took hand-me-downs from relatives looking to get rid of it.
We didn’t buy expensive cars, and when we finally had enough to afford it, used cash to purchase them.
My wife is an inveterate coupon shopper, and she saves a lot of money.
I make a month or two of soup, freeze them in containers, and brown bag that to work for lunch every day.
I am late to coffee. I avoided it my whole life
It can be done. You can get out from under debt. It is simply a matter of exercising self control.
For how long that will be true...I don’t know.
And our life-savings? My wife and I have worked diligently and hard, but I see Weimar Republic inflation coming. I feel that we will be destitute, like all the rest, when we might have to burn our dollars for warmth because there will be no coal, oil, gas, or nuclear.
I agree. We’re at the point in life where we don’t need to scrimp as much. It’s now a lifestyle. If I have to buy clothes, it’s usually clearance rack stuff and never at full retail.
As far as the phone, my employer pays for my cell phone but I still switched to Pure Talk. It’s 1/3 what AT&T was, similar quality service and saves my employer money.
We’re gonna save tons of money for the next three months. I’ll be on the road about 80% of the time so my wife won’t really bother with meals. She’s happy to mix up a healthy smoothie and drink that for dinner.