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Frugal, starting now

Posted Dec 03 2007, 11:28 AM by Donna Freedman
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A reader who calls herself “Tightwad_Amy” always has been kind of frugal. But recent upheavals in her personal life forced her to really live up to her sobriquet.

First, Amy lost “a great job.” Then her husband quit his job. Then her husband left her.

“I’ve really had to cut expenses,” Amy wrote on the Smart Spending message board.

She started a thread called “I wish I had been doing this all along” to chronicle her cutbacks. One of them, flushing the toilet only once a day, struck me as excessive -- but not as excessive as some extreme savings measures.

Some of her other cutbacks are bringing more quantifiable savings: brown-bag lunches, no more soda or bottled water, using public transit to get to her new job.

Fact is, she has to take the bus -- her husband took their car when he left. Yet “riding the bus is another thing I wish I’d been doing all along,” Amy writes. At $80 a month, bus fares are a steal compared with a $400 car payment plus another $220 for gas and insurance.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda
“I wish I had been doing this all along” is a common refrain among those who have changed their spending habits. They can’t believe they used to spend $200 a month on lunches out, let alone thousands of dollars on designer purses and footwear.

They wish they’d been smarter. They wish they’d deferred gratification. They wish they’d held on to even a fraction of the funds they frittered. 

Quick reality check: You can’t change the past, and you can’t get that money back. But you can change the present and, in doing so, change the future. You can change the way you handle money now.

It doesn’t matter when you start. It matters that you start.

Working vs. wishing
Let me backtrack: To some extent it does matter when you start. For example, someone who contributes to a retirement plan beginning in her 20s will be better off than someone who’s just getting around to it in her 40s.

But that someone in her 40s has to start somewhere. Sitting around saying, “I wish...” won’t get her very far.

Not that Amy is just wishing. (Or that she’s in her 40s, for that matter. I have no idea how old she is.) She’s cutting her budget, weighing available resources, and seeking out tips and support on the message board.

An excellent piece of advice came from reader “back2basix," who weighed in thusly: “Ah, the ‘I wish’ mode! Me too, except I’m trying to change that into (a) ‘Finally, where I need to be’ mode of thinking.”

That’s both practical and positive. What you used to do doesn’t matter, except as an object lesson against which to weigh your current behavior.

If there's one piece of advice I could give, it would be this: Don’t impose absolute penury on yourself as a desperate attempt to make up for perceived financial sins of the past. That way “frugal burnout” lies.

Instead, consider that “where I need to be” mode as the framework for living both frugally and fully.

Oh, and feel free to flush more than once a day.

Comments

 

I'm glad DH and I made the necessary changes we did this year. After our money meltdown, it was hard to change the initial spending mode from full on to fully frugal and it actually hurt for about a month. 7 months later, we are both very grateful that we made the changes, and we won't go back to over spending any more.

I thought (with exception of toilet flushing) this story was about me. I lost a job in a layoff as a pharmaceutical rep....my husband left and I filed for divorce. Legal costs are enormous. Unemployment leaves me and 2 tennage kids ( from a 10 yr previous marriage) at poverty level. I also had more legal fees trying to get additional child support. I have lived on hardship distributions and a loan from 401K's. That is exhausted and still no real job.

Nowadays the emergency fund need to be able to cover more than 6 months. Try a year. Thats the first thing I'm doing. Then stuffing money into rretirement and college funds.

No more eating out. I am selling the 4 bedroom ranch to rent for a while and actually relocating to a larger town in order to have better college options for me and the kids. I hope to get into pharmacy school...keep telling yourself "change is good". Somedays it actually works!!

Single Mom Struggling

Donna,

when I read articles like this it really reinforces that those who are learning from their money mistakes (myself included) need to mentor the younger generation. How are we ever going to break the cycle of debt and poverty unless we do more? Sure, it would be great if schools taught personal finance but I know my school spent a very short time my senior year most of which I ignored.

I'm 23 years old and mentor a 15 yo and a 18 yo in a very informal arrangement. We're more likely to talk about buying cds than mutual funds but the groundwork is there. I also joke that I mentor my 22 yo best friend but this week when she buys her first car she's learning from the mistakes I made when I purchased mine two years ago.

These message boards are great but for every older person that complains about the state of our youth and wonders who stupid you could be to make those financial mistakes I have to ask, what are you doing to change that reality?

"startsmart" from the WIRR

those of us who lived thru the finicial turmoil of the late sixties and early seventies know how to be frugal without hurting; its not fun all of the time, but we have to be realistic; how much of the "stuff" that you buy is really essential? if you are young and think that the ability to live on a thousand dollars a month is not real, talk to those who have retired or who work earning minimum wage; hang in there!!!

Im not single and my husband isnt leaving me but we both work,I am a daycare provider and have been for the last 19 yrs and he is a custodian at  our local high school. we have 4 children 2 that live with us and 2 that are grown.But we both are hurting, we are 1 month behind on our house payment and everyweek i feel im paying last weeks bills . Whens it  going to end for  us and this money problems  the whole U.S is  having.When we see alilltle light something happens like the Van broke down and it cost us 1000.00 to fix . whens does it get better.

Amen, startsmart. A Millennial myself, I've read plenty of literature forecasting everything short of Biblical apocalypse as a result of all the things that are so very wrong with every single one of us. Well, one doesn't exit the womb as a responsible economic entity. If we're so bad, it's only because the previous generations who raised us didn't consider such things important - who did when a house was considered a fail-safe investment for so many years? Any kids that pop out of me will have retirement accounts (and contribute to them regularly) as soon as legally possible.

I'm 21, and I'm helping my mother manage her pittance...er, divorce settlement. She's 50 with no retirement savings (Dad is/was horrible at saving, and had a way of finding whatever money she'd saved), and has no idea how to use her settlement to prevent her from eating dog food in 20 years. I learned responsible spending from her, but she's learning everything fancier (retirement savings etc.) from self-taught me. I'm trying to talk her into getting a reputable financial planner, but she's stubborn... I guess hanging around here wasn't such a time waster, eh? ^_^  

THE GOVERMENT IS NOW GOING TO HAVE{750 BILLION} OF OUR MONEY TO PLAY   WITH ALL PET PROJECTS NOW ARE NOW FUNDED. DOES THAT MEAN WE ARE ALL SAVED? I HOPE SO BECAUSE I DONT THINK WE CAN MAKE MANY MORE BAD JUDGEMENT CALLS LIKE THE ONESE WE JUST PUT A BANDADE ON

Up-n-Down, Up-n-Down...when your 51 you've seen it.  It's a good thing to go through , these economic "hard times" , because it reminds us that not chasing the

Jone's and submitting to jeolousy & greed has put us in the best place we could be!

I'm not hurting,my children are not hurting and we're not "scared".

Generic medications are a great way to keep your prescription drug costs down.   I’ve seen ads on TV for Caduet. It has two ingredients.  One is Amlodipine and the other is Atorvastatin.  With my RxDrugCard I can get 30 tablets of Amlodipine for $9 and 30 tablets of Simvastatin for $9.  I’ll bet they are charging more than $18 for this new drug!  The unthinking public is going to pressure their doctors into giving them something just because it’s new, when something old or generic would do the job for cheaper.  

I am not hurting, except for the self inflicting hurt of reducing expenses because I wanna be out of debt. I have one car, a small house, student loan, and some credit card debt. I want it all gone by the time my kids are ready for college. Big goal I know since im a single parent with two kids, but I'm working at it. Whenever I see something I want to buy, i think of that feeling of being debt free and it feels way better than having more junk sitting around.

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