Yahoo news has an article today featuring author Jeff Yeager. He has written a book titled, The Ultimate Cheapskate's Roadmap to True Riches. He says, "We shouldn't be asking ourselves "How can we afford it?" We should instead be asking, "Do we really need it?" Here is the article in full for your Saturday read. Mr. MacFrugal and I have been sticking with Dave Ramsey's program, The Total Money Makeover, paying off debt at the speed of a gazelle! Once you get on board with the debt elimination process, it becomes somewhat of a game trying to be frugal. You know, living off beans and rice, rationing, doing without, etc.
Today my daughter Ann asked if we had any organic sugar for her morning coffee ... I said all I have is plain old brown sugar sweetie ... it's out of the budget this month. Do you really need sugar in your coffee ... try it with or without the brown stuff. She's catching on and becoming a convert to all things frugal. Tomorrow night we are inviting the family out to dinner at a restaurant. A rarity around here living on a shoe string. But, we've saved up enough money and want to get together ... here's the stipulation. Dad is handing each adult child a set amount of money. Individually or as a couple, they have to order and pay for their own meal(s). If they go over, the cost difference is on them. You won't believe how much money a family night dinner would cost when dad was paying for everyone without any limits. I'm sure they will all be ordering water as their beverage of choice if they have to be creative with funds. Our latest money idea is to eliminate buying everybody individual Christmas gifts .. instead opting for drawing names from a hat. Maybe tomorrow night will be a good time to draw names. Then we can take our time figuring out what would be a nice gift to purchase ... and maybe even find it on sale this summer. I can just imagine how much less stress this will cause come Christmas.
What about you ... are you in a frugal mode? Do you have any frugal ideas that are working with your family? What's the biggest savings plan you've come up with?
Some more worthy reads:
Dave Ramsey on How To Cut The Food Budget
Dave Ramsey on Spring Gardening On A Budget
Photo: FreeFoto.com
2 comments:
We stopped buying Christmas
gifts for all our family
members a few years ago. We
only buy for our two boys and
then it's practical things they
really need.
When we are in need of something
I try to always wait for it to
go on sale.
I shop flea markets and second
hand stores.
I cook from scratch and during
gardening season we eat from
our organic garden.
I started using a clothes line
again fairly recently.
We rarely go out to eat or to
see a movie.
We get most of our books from
the library.
Saving money is fun.
I, from my mother, have "The Tightwad Gazette", vol 1 and 2. I love it. My hubby and I are both tightwads and have been for years and years, long before we met and married. that's part of how I knew I could marry him, we had similar money attitudes and methods. We saved about 30% of our income last year (2009) and hope to increase that this year (2010). I have a salary increase coming in July (going from part time to full time, so it will nearly double), and we have plans to keep our lifestyle the same, but increase saving and investing for income and retirement.
It takes the right attitude and intentionality to do it, for sure.
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