I have decided that since I live within the rules of frugality by necessity I would start tagging posts as this. This way if I come up with more ways to be frugal and on-budget, I can easily connect to it for readers.
As a family of 7 where both parents work fulltime, time is of constant limitation. I find myself forgetting small little details that I used to be able to easily remember. So, while we are frugal; our motto for the past couple of years has been to stay frugal and enjoy life within frugality, we have time to balance with saving money. This is us doing this and living this on a daily, hourly basis.
We survive on more than some, but less than most. Maybe not in this exact economy since we're fortunate to still have jobs, but before the crisis caused major job loss. We survive on well less than $100,000 and still enjoy some perks in life.
Clothes are HUGE expense for most families. If you have 5 growing kids, imagine the costs. Brian wears uniforms and he's not a clothes crazy man, so a few shirts and pants and he's good to go. The only thing he asks for is a new, name brand pair of shoes every year or two. I still wear clothes that is close to 10 years old. If' it's not torn or stained, why not? I wear a lot of khakis to work. I can spruce it up with inexpensive, dress shirts for work. I don't buy new shoes often at all. If I still like them, they stay. The kids get most of their clothes off the Kohls, Penneys, Target and Walmart clearance racks. I wait until there's a good discount to go with the department store purchases and can usually buy items for $5 or less. Children's Place outlets are great for little kids to buy cheap. We still rummage sale for the little ones too. Way to many name brand things we can get at these places hardly worn for a dollar or two.
I drive a 2010 minivan...top model. I wanted to enjoy things, so we bought this one with everything the kids and I could want. It is, afterall, the only vehicle we own that all 7 of us can fit in. Brian drives a 1993 station wagon. Serves it's purpose with great gas mileage. He also has a truck for hunting, etc. that 's almost 10 years old. It's very nice though. With him in construction we wouldn't want him driving anything too nice. One drive through the woods, mud, etc. would just tear them up anyways. They are all paid for. We saved trying to do this and intend to continue this.
Luckily, my husband does a lot of cooking. I usually do it on the weekends, but since he's home way earlier than me on weeknights he cooks those nights. You can save a ton by not buying processed, prepared foods. We don't buy canned goods. Though it's cheaper, fresh or frozen is better for you and that tops saving a buck. We eat a lot of venison. This saves a ton. We eat well, I have to say. We're probably not spending as little as we could, but eating healthy is important to us. We buy generic if we can and get the best buy on what we can.
We watch our bills closely. If we're not getting a discount a provider promised us than we stay with it until we do. Every dollar counts.
We have smaller packages when it comes to cable. We don't get any locals without it, so it's not necessarily an necessity, but just to watch the news here, we need it. We have the slowest internet, but we do have it. We have the least expensive package with our phone too. If you call them you can usually get them to find you a better deal for a limited time. Then, when that limited time is up you call again. It's worth $10/month to me.
Save for everything. Do not buy it unless you have the money. We even save for those non-monthly bills such as insurance, tracfone, Christmas, taxes, etc. We have a totally separate account just for these bills and we have the money transferred automatically each month. Then, when the bills come due the money is always there. If a bill goes up the interest will usually cover it and we just call the bank to up how much we save every month for the next bill. We've lived by this for many years and it saves a lot.
We don't buy little things. We give ourselves an allowance every month. With this cash, it's all you get to spend on collections at work, dinners out, sodas, coffee, snacks, etc. This really keeps me from going to vending machines, etc. We usually take turns with our cash grabbing things off a dollar menu to bring home to eat every once in awhile. So while we don't get to go "out" to eat, we don't necessarily have to cook on these few nights either. It's a whole lot cheaper and we just turn it into a carpet picnic with the kids and a movie. And what I mean by don't buy little things is literally, when you go to Walmart or wherever for groceries; think before you buy. Really ask yourself, "do I need this?" I can usually answer no on that trip and if I REALLY want it I can get it another time when I'm sure how bad I want it.
I'd say shop around, but for some families, that's just not possible. For major purchases yes. First, have the money to pay for it, then call around to stores that carry what you want as well as checking the internet. Shop around. Groceries is something we don't have the luxury of that. With 5 kids, we do good to remember we need to grocery shop. We usually do not buy anything at Walmart, weekly, besides groceries though. The toiletries and other things we want from Walmart goes on a 'monthly list'. This makes me think as I buy those items as to whether we really want or need them by the time I go as well as making tracking our expenses easier.
Keep track of what you spend. We do not have debit or ATM cards. I don't like those. It's WAY too easy to spend and lose track. We write very few checks since we only write them if we have to. We have most bills come directly out of our account. We do put most purchases on our credit card. This way we know exactly where the money went, can pay it off monthly and get rewards in cash for doing so. Well worth it.
Don't have too many cards. Keep it to the basics. We have two credits cards. We have one that we use for pretty much everything and another to use at places that don't take the first. I do have a Kohls card too. Only to get those 30% discounts. Otherwise, I rarely even use it or buy there.
Dental insurance is somewhere we save too. Our dental insurance would cost more to pay for insurance monthly for our family compared to just paying for our fees out-of-pocket. My dental offered is not that great, so it's a wise decision for us. You have to compare things.
Keep your life simple. The more simple it is the more affordable. I'm trying to slowly pass these strategies onto my children. Not because I don't think they'll make more than us, but because I want them to spend what money they do have wisely. Why waste? That's pretty much our beliefs....don't waste.
I'll share more as I think of them.
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