April 23, 2010
Cash only please
As part of the debt reduction plan and living frugally; I’ve made two very noticeable changes to our financing budget.
One, we use cash only - for everything. I picked up four of the small filing folder envelope thingy’s for a dollar each at the Dollar Store and labeled them “Grocery”, “Gas”, “Pets” and “Other”. In each of these folders I have a small notebook where I keep a running total of our expenses for that category; I also keep the receipts for everything we purchase. A little overkill huh? I’m okay with it being a little over-the-top though because I’m trying hard to see where we can cut costs and having an exact idea of how much money is being spent where not only helps with cutting costs but helps us to live frugally. Once the money is gone from the folder, we’re done until payday. I’m finding it an extremely useful tool in cutting back on the frivolous spending I tended to do on a fairly regular basis. When I look in that folder and only see $40 and there’s still 7 days to go until payday, I’m not spending 5.00 of it on a Starbucks soy mocha (as much as I love and miss Starbucks!)
Of course, it’s not without it’s difficulties (oh Starbucks, look how pretty you glow!). As another way of striving to live a simple and frugal life, I’ve been looking into growing some of our own food. Not a lot, just some produce and some herbs but one of the concepts I tripped over on the internet was Square foot gardening. This is extremely appealing to me and I’ll most likely use it on my path to growing our own food. Yesterday I stopped to mail some parcels in the post office that is located in London Drugs and there, with a big 20% off sign was the latest and greatest version of the “Square Foot Gardening” book, retail price $24.99. And oh how I wanted it. I picked it up, leafed through it and squealed softly at the detailed pictures, frugality tips and step-by-step instructions on how to build your garden. I had money in my wallet for groceries only but I was still tempted to buy it. In the end, I walked away from it, determined to stick to my budget.
I ran home and checked our local library for a copy, so far there are 134 requests for it which means it should be available for renting sometime in 2011. Oye. After some careful thought, I made the decision that buying the book will be a good investment towards living the simple life. Only problem - $24.99 is not in the aforementioned budget, especially if I’m serious about the debt reduction plan. I’ll take a look around the house this weekend and see what I own that I can sell. I’ve got to have something that’s worth $25. Hee!
Long story short, we pay cash for everything now - groceries, pet supplies, other (meaning brow waxing for Kelly, birthday gifts for others etc.), and gas. Once the money is gone we make do with what we have. Granted I’ve set a small budget for us - $100/week for food (which also includes any meals we eat out), $50/week for other and $70/week for gas for both of us (this will go down by May, I’ll explain why later) so sometimes it feels like we’re really penny pinching but for the most part this seems to treat us just fine.
Which leads me to the second major change. During grocery shopping I’ve started to purchase store brand items. Doesn’t sound that big does it? But for someone like me who is a complete brand name snob it’s been a huge deal to switch to no-name or “store brand” if you like. There are some brand name items that I won’t compromise on - peanut butter and toilet paper come to mind - but in the past week and a half I’ve bought the following store brand items (Walmart, Great Value in case you’re interested):
- paper towel
- flour
- brown sugar
- canola oil
- pretzels
- tuna
- shortening
- chocolate chips
(I’m on a baking kick right now…)
And guess what? With the exception of the paper towel, there hasn’t been a difference in any of the items. And really, the only difference in the paper towel is that it’s a little rougher than the Bounty brand we normally buy.
Ben: What’s with the paper towel?
Kelly: Nothing. It’s perfectly fine.
Ben: It seems a little harsh.
Kelly: It’s called living frugally buddy - it’s a lot cheaper than the Bounty.
Ben: Well, let’s remember I like to get multi-use out of paper towel. For instance, in a pinch, I would have considered using our old brand of paper towel as toilet paper.
Me: Oh for the love of…
Ben: Of course this new paper towel could also be used as sanding paper in a pinch so we’re good!
I’ve always had a slight aversion to using store brand products. Part of it is my (mostly mistaken) belief that it’s not as good as the brand name and part of it is my embarrassment to be buying store brand products as if it’s a big neon sign that screams “Look at them - they’re poor!!”
I rarely get embarrassed and there are few things in my life that I keep close to my chest, in fact I’m probably too open about everything, but one thing I hate for anyone to know or even assume is that we struggle financially. It’s probably a combination of growing up poor and my own shame at still not being able to live fiscally responsible despite my past history with money. So yeah, it’s kind of a struggle to buy the store brand stuff but I’m easing my way into it…
I think that’s part of the reason why living simply is so appealing to me. It has many benefits to it, less clutter, environmentally friendly, the list goes on and on but the most appealing idea to me is the living simply often means living frugally. The reason I’m watching my budget and shopping at thrift stores and trying my damnest not to give in to consumerism and buy yet more STUFF is not because we’re struggling financially (although we kinda are cause I’m stupid) but because we’re trying to live simply. It helps me get past the shame of money struggles and look forward to a cleaner, simpler life. One that helps us not only get out of debt but assists us in achieving our goals in life: live healthy, travel, spend time on our hobbies, learn different languages and own a small home.
Because at the end of the day, those goals are what’s important to us - not whether we have the latest technology, eat only brand name foods or drink Starbucks(!) every day.
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