       
Live Frugally
What I Do to Live Frugally
A long time back, Map girl tagged me to write about what I do to live
frugally. That was right around the time when my cyclical behavior was
in the most unfrugal part of the cycle. What's worse, it was followed in
the next few days by our old car dying and us deciding to buy an
un-frugal car (which was still pre-owned but cost us more than what we
thought we would ever pay for a car). With all this going on, I couldn't
bring myself to write a post about what I do to live frugally! But now,
the dark days are behind us (hopefully) and we are striving hard to get
back to our old selves. Frankly I am not much of a person for memes and
tagging, and I don't really know what the rules for participation are,
and it is probably too late for me be part of this meme anyway. But
writing about what I used to do to live frugally seems like a good
exercise to make me think about what I need to do in the future to stay
on track, so I decided to write about it anyway.
1. Cook at home as often as possible: I love cooking exotic dishes once
in a while. And I *hate* regular everyday cooking. I am a foodie and at
the end of a busy day spending an hour in the kitchen to fix a plain
(aka “healthy and nutritious”) meal just doesn’t feel like it is worth
the effort. But I have been trying hard to get into the habit and before
this last break down, I used to cook 4-6 times a week! I need to get
back in that mode. Since the last couple of week I have started getting
back on track and have cooked about 5 times each week – just need to
make sure that the habit sticks and I do not give in to the temptation
to just pick up some food on my way home.
2. Take lunch with me to work at least 3 times a week: This is one thing
I am really proud of. Even during my bleakest unfrugal days, I have
stuck with this schedule. It has been a little over a year since I
started working, and in the entire period I think I have gone out for
lunch more than twice a week only 4-5 times, and even during those
weeks, the max I ate out was 3 times a week. My next goal is to see if I
can go for another year with less than 4-5 slip-ups.
3. We have coffee and breakfast at home, rest of the time we drink free
coffee available at office. We don’t entirely ban coffee houses or star
bucks, but usually reserve it for occasions when we meet old friends.
Over time, we have come to associate coffee houses, with lazy leisurely
evenings spent catching up and swapping old stories. And being loathe to
spoil that association keeps us away from running in and out for an
overpriced cup of coffee that is drank in a hurry at the desk or while
driving.
4. We don’t have a telephone land line: We have gone for over 4 years
now without a phone land line and have not missed it a bit. We both make
sure that our cell phones stay charged all the time, so we are never at
a loss of an instrument to make calls from. On the cell phone we have
the least expensive plans with fairly low minutes, but since many of our
friends have the same service provider, we get to talk to them for free.
Only once in the past 4 years have we paid for extra minutes.
5. Shop for pretty much everything during “sale” and after researching
the prices thoroughly. Avoid impulse buy. One of the first lessons
someone told me when I landed in the US is that if you pay full price to
buy anything, you are a sucker. At first I thought it was a joke. But
now, I firmly believe it. As long as you can avoid impulse buying, you
can get pretty much anything on sale.
6. Drive our cars to death: People who are regular visitors to this blog
may be surprised that I have listed this here since I recently confessed
that we bought a fairly unfrugal car. Over the long run though, our car
ownership turns out to be quite frugal. We take good care of our cars
(regular oil changes, get necessary repairs done as soon as we possibly
can etc.,) and drive the car until the wheels fall off – literally. The
car we just replaced was 14 years old and had 165K miles on it and we
drove it until the engine finally quit on us. Both our current cars now
are pre-owned and we plan to use them (hopefully) past the 150K mile
mark too!
7. Hang out with like minded friends: It’s not just how frugal you are,
but who you hang out with. If all the friends around you are spenders,
then some time or the other you will crack up and give up being frugal.
In our case, we have been fortunate enough to have friends who are
fairly like-minded. Even though frugality is not the core of our
conversation or anything, we still end up making choices that do not
require too much expenditure, and still end up having a blast.
8. Watch movies at discount theatre, or watch it before 6:00pm if it is
a regular cinema hall. Both the better half and I like watching movies
in the theatre. Since it is something that we really enjoy and it helps
us unwind, we don’t bother to curb this indulgence. Instead, we try to
wait for the movies to screen on the discount cinema ($2 per ticket).
And, if we really don’t want to wait for 3 months for a particular
movie, we catch it before 6:00pm when the tickets are less expensive.
9. Go to the movies on a full stomach: We very rarely get popcorn or
soda at the movies. I mean, what’s the point in watching a movie in a
discount cinema for $2 per person, if you blow $6 per person on pop corn
and soda?
10. I go grocery shopping when I am too hungry or too tired: Basically
any time that I really don’t want to be doing grocery shopping. And I go
only once a week, no matter what I remember/forget to bring. Believe it
or not, this is the most efficient and money-saving way to shop. At
least in my case, since I am ever curious and if I have the time, I will
walk through all the aisles looking for new and strange items and buy
them so I can “try them out”.
11. Make a list before going shopping: This is particularly important
when I go to Costco! Like I said earlier, I get easily tempted to buy
something that looks new and interesting. And at places like Costco,
that can be quite damaging since the portion sizes are large and so,
even though the unit price may be less than the regular store, the large
portion sizes make buying unnecessary junk a big costly mistake.
12. Stock up non-perishable items on sale: When I find the things we use
often go on sale, I generally stock them up. That particular grocery run
my bill will be pretty huge, but I make it a point that during the
subsequent trips, my bill is small so the average is around what I have
budgeted for.
13. Keep an eye on expiry dates: I hate throwing out stuff because they
have expired – so while buying stuff, I check to make sure I buy
something with the farthest expiry date. This is true particularly with
meats and milk – the grocery store always puts the stock with the
closest expiry date at the front. And every once in a while I have a
“clearance week” when I do minimal grocery shopping and clear out the
fridge, freezer and some of the canned goods.
14. We don’t buy anything at the vending machines. Neither of us have
the habit of snacking, but in Texas if you spend some time outdoors, it
is usually very tempting to grab a coke at the vending machine. To avoid
this temptation, if we plan on staying out for long, then during the
previous day, we fill a bottle of water and shove it in the freezer.
Next day we take the frozen bottle of ice in the car and generally we
get to drink cold water (or at least “not hot” water) for the better
part of the day.
15. Buy second hand when possible: I do not like buying some things
second hand (eg. clothes, mattress etc.) but I have no hassles buying
some other things second hand (eg. books, car etc.). So whenever, I have
no stigma against something, I try to buy it second hand. Maybe not as
frugal as a lot of people out there, but still every bit helps.
16. We throw away the advertising mailers left in our mailbox without
even looking. We only make an exception when we need something and know
that it is possible to get a discount using the coupon in the mailer
(e.g., haircut coupons – (gasp!) Yep, I use a coupon to get a haircut).
17. We have a habit of switching off electric items when they are not in
use. For instance, when we walk out of a room, we make sure the lights
and fan are switched off. When I am not watching TV (which is most of
the time), I keep the TV off. When we go out for work we switch off the
A/C (the jury is still out on whether this is good or it is better to
keep it on at a constant temp, but we just do this out of habit).
18. We DIY things when possible: The lawn is taken care of by the better
half, and home cleaning by me. In the 2.5 years of owning the home, I
have had the maid service come in once to help me with the cleaning. The
temptation is very strong to let them come in and help again. Until now,
I have not given in and have stuck to keeping the house clean myself.
Currently, my plan is to have them come over once every 3-6 months to do
a thorough cleaning (particularly bathrooms, over side of fans, window
blinds etc. that I don’t do often) and do incremental cleaning by myself
during the rest of the time. Additionally, small repairs around the
house are handled by the better half with me acting as the able
assistant :)
19. When we travel, we usually search for discount airfares and in the
nights, don’t hesitate to crash in Motel 6 or Super 8. Or any place with
or without a numeral in the name for that matter as long as they let us
stay for cheap and don’t look like they could be a candidate for the set
of a scary slasher movie. And if they throw in the breakfast, all the
more better :)
20. Every now and then we love going to a good ol’ buffet place.
All-you-can-eat buffets are great ways to have a frugal feast. No they
do not serve gourmet food in buffets (unless you are in Vegas), but when
you are hungry, there is no better way to get the best value for the
buck than to go for the most extensive buffet place around. We have
tried out a few in our area and now know the ones we like best and on
days that we feel like packing in a lot of food, we skip the restaurant
and go get in line for the buffet. (As a side note, if you are a fellow
buffet-lover, you should read this post by Nick @ Puny Money – funny and
informative – can it get any better?)
That’s all I can think of now. As you can see, I don’t particularly
deprive myself of anything, but when possible, I try to incorporate
little bits of frugality in every day things. Every small bit helps.
I will not tag anyone in this post, but I do encourage those of you on
the unfrugal part of your cyclical behavior to go ahead and do this
exercise. Just thinking about it and writing it down, has filled me with
renewed determination to stay frugal during the coming days. As I have
mentioned before, for some people living a simple and frugal life comes
naturally. But for the rest of us, it takes conscious effort,
determination and a fair amount of discipline to incorporate frugality
in our lives. And an exercise like this goes a long way in helping us
stay on track.
PS: If you don’t have a blog, feel free to use the comments section
below as a scratch pad, or send me an email with your list and I will
publish it here.
And if you are looking for inspiration about what others in the
photosphere are doing to stay frugal, here are some good reads –
Live Frugally
|
