Frugal not Cheap

You know those articles you always read: "How to Save $20 a Week!" or "Living Well on Less"?? I always read them but never actually find something in the article that I don't already do. I can't give up the daily Latte at $5 a pop because I drink water. I can't cut the weekly manicure because I don't get them. I can't swap out a movie night for a video night because we don't go to the movies (talk about a rip off!). You get the drift. I cut my dryer sheets in half, make homemade pizza instead of ordering it, I'm a pretty frugal gal.
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A few people over the years have made the mistake of calling me cheap?!? only to have to listen to a long lecture from me about the difference between cheap and frugal. Frugal people are careful and wise about how they spend their money. Cheap people are, well, cheap. They are cheap with themselves and everyone else too.

I actually LOVE being generous. I love giving to a cause I believe in or surprising someone with something totally unexpected. The more frugal I am, the greater ability I have to be generous. Win-Win!!

I dislike the title of this book (The Tightwad Gazette), but I still bought volumes one and two, have read both, and as you can see, marked them up pretty well. I also own Dave Ramsey's 'Total Money Makeover' (my favorite) and Clark Howard's book below. I love listening to Dave Ramsey's podcast on iTunes as well. I'm weird that way. I like being frugal and reading about how to be even more frugal.

So recently a friend asked me what we've done to cut back due to the uncertainty of the economy. The hubby is self-employed. So, monthly paychecks in a certain amount are not guaranteed. Therefore, we try to save and be careful so if his work slows down, we're still ok. Here are some of our recent cuts:

The Sunday paper. This was a hard one. I LOVE looking at the ads. The kids loved the funnies. The hubby loved the sports section. But most of it can be seen on-line. Sigh. It's not the same but we'll survive.

Monthly Savings:  $8.00

Netflix.  Not as hard as losing the Sunday paper but still a bummer. We are pretty busy and therefore don't watch a lot of tv. But it was fun watching movies on the weekend. But silly Netflix doubled their price. They should know me better. Of course I have to cancel when someone doubles their price.

Monthly Savings: $15.00

American Express Annual Fee:  We love our AmEx because we use it for our normal expenses, pay it off every month and rack up frequent flier miles we can use to travel. But when the statement came with the annual fee of $95.00, I just couldn't do it. I called and told them we were cancelling to use a card with no annual fee. Because they love me (and my money) so much....valued customer blah blah blah...they WAIVED my fee for the year. Woo Hoo.

Annual Savings: $95.00

Halloween costumes: We're recycling this year. Every year, AFTER Halloween, I scan the 90% off clearance rack and get costumes to throw in the costume bin for next year. Many costumes have been worn by several or all of my daughters. I don't believe in buying new costumes for my kids every year. I don't really even like Halloween but hey, I still go with it for my kids' sake. This year we have a Diva vampire, a dead ghost bride and two undecideds. But they will inevitably come up with something from an item they find in the costume bin. Most Moms I know spend AT LEAST $20 per kid making or buying costumes. O.k., I did have to spend $1 on plastic vampire teeth.

Annual Savings: $79.00

Dustbuster:  We use it constantly and recently, it broke. My genious hubby found a replacement part on-line and fixed it rather than buying a new one.

Savings: $80.00


Satellite T.V.: The hubby, bless his heart, loves BYU football more than life itself. I would LOVE to cancel our satellite t.v. but I also love keeping him happy. The compromise, we switched to the lowest, cheapest package available. 


Savings per month: $20.00


"Airport Express": We currently have our home internet service and separate hubby's back yard office internet service. We recently found this little dream device at the Apple Store. It boosts our wireless internet signal from hubby's office into the house so we can CANCEL our home internet service. The Airport Express cost $100 so it will pay for itself in under 3 months!

Monthly Savings: $35.00

New Car: We drive a 2001 Honda Odyssey with almost 150,000 miles. My daughter recently told me we needed to buy a new car because the C.D. player was skipping. I explained to her that the CD player was fine, it was her CD that was scratched. Said she, "we should still buy a new car. This one is old!" Sure, a new car would be nice. But this one works perfectly fine. And thankfully we buy foreign cars that run forever so we'll talk after another 50,000 miles perhaps.

Yearly Savings: $35,000.00

Food: We NEVER buy our kids fast food and we rarely eat out as a family. None of us buy or drink soda, ever. My kids think it's a really special treat to go to the drive through at McDonalds and get a .50 cent ice cream cone. Hubby and I try to use coupons to eat out on date night and our weekly family meals consist of homemade meals with food that was purchased on sale. I hardly ever buy something just because it sounds good. It HAS to be on sale. Even when we travel, I pack and bring lunches so we don't have to buy airport food. That's just the way I roll.

Monthly Savings: A LOT

Total yearly savings:
$36,190.00

Living frugally brings peace and makes it so we can do awesomely fun things like taking our kids to Europe to see their cousins this year.  

F.U.N.N.E.S.T. thing we've done as a family E.V.E.R.! 
And in my opinion, one of our best investments to date!

We could lose the house, the cars and the money....but the memories are OURS FOREVER.