Mainstream America Goes Frugal? Go Figure!

Many online news articles are focusing on the ever changing lifestyles of Americans who have recently decided that living frugally is chic. Chic? Oh my gosh! I cannot imagine my lifestyle as mainstream chic. How many times over the past many years have co-workers, family, and friends cringed over the sacrifices I've made to either get rid of debt, stay out of debt, or live within my means without using credit. Funny stuff, alright.

I hope the new chic living leads them to the wonderful freedom we enjoy!
Freedom!

Making a List and Checking It Twice

One key strategy I've used for all of my shopping involves the use of many lists. I keep a running grocery list on the refrigerator. I have a "big purchases" list as well as daily to-do lists. I realize to many, keeping lists leaves you listless (get it?)

By writing what you want to buy now and in the distant future, you reduce the impulse spending and become empowered to stick to your budget. Writing down expenditures forces me to plan ahead and prioritize. Simultaneously, I keep a saved amount to buy things on sale when those items match what's on one of my lists. For example, I know I want to purchase a new mattress this year and it's been on my list for several months now. So, I know that when the timing is right and the right sale crosses my path, I can freely go buy the mattress, pay cash for it, and enjoy exhilarating nights of slumber. Obviously, the mattress I want is a fabulous upgrade from the one I've slept on for the past 10 years.

In past posts, I've discussed, in tandem with others in the frugal village, the importance of buying food and grocery items you use most often when they go on sale and stock up on them. I still have plenty of toothpaste, detergent, bathroom tissue that I bought on sale a few months ago. My freezer is full of poultry and seafood I bought on sale. (I don't eat red meat any more but there are always sales for tasty steaks and pot roasts.) No need to list what you already have and if you already have it, there's no need to go shopping. The less shopping you do, the more money you save. Marketers will try to persuade you that you actually save money when get a 10 or 20% discount. NO! You save when you don't spend at all. If it's not on the list and I see it on sale, I don't buy it. I save.

Listing helps me plan and control the dollars instead of letting them control me! Freedom!

My Grandmother Survived the Great Depression...Worrying, Not an Option

As crazy as generational family lines can be, all of us have ancestors who survived worse economic times than what we are currently facing. For me, worrying about the current state of the economy is simply not an option.

Fortunately, my grandmother shared many stories of being a poor teenager in rural Mississippi in the 1930's directly with me. All of her life, she lived frugally and made her own fashionable clothes/hats up until her last few years on the earth. She made most of my clothes until I was about 10 years old but later made my prom dress, a few skirts for work, and almost anything upon request. She never had much income but all of her basic needs were always taken care of and she shared what she had with others as she became very rich in other ways: My grandmother loved to cook and my mother shared stories of the dozens of the people my grandmother fed during her childhood of the 1950's. My grandmother, the seamstress, always had cash flow from sewing for clients and she stashed cash all the time!

In my 20's, my grandmother, who had given up driving when I was a child and knew how to use the fragmented public transportation system in LA County, directed me to drive her with sandwiches and soup she prepared for the homeless "residing" in downtown Los Angeles. She'd collected clothes to give away including some she handmade: She neither needed a government program nor a non-profit to feed hungry people. I will never forget the splinters of hope as we opened up the trunk and passed out what she had prepared. I can see it in my mind even as I write this blog.

I don't have the sewing talent or the willingness to periodically deliver food to masses of hungry people on my own but I did inherit the detachment of not buying if you can make it mindset from her as it was imposed by economics and limited access to education and opportunities. I also inherited trying to make life easier for others throughout the journey with my resources and abilities. I only realized what she really passed on to me in the last 4 years as I eliminated debt.

She ironically died on Valentine's Day, 2004 a few weeks before my 40th birthday: Ironic, because she wasn't the easiet person to get along with yet, turns out, she left the best gift ever! The woman with a 4th grade education turned out to be wiser than us all in home economics and taking community responsibility. She often warned me to not become an educated fool and although I did some foolish things with money that I know she would've never done, I am redeemed by returning to the forced frugality principles she lived by with a fabulous twist in my choice to live simply. Freedom!

Marching to a Different Beat in 2008

(This photo was taken in my backyard a couple of days before Christmas. It must have been around 55 degrees that day. Cold for Southern CA)

I just made another pot of chicken veggie soup from scratch and it is probably the best one I've ever made. Of course, I say that each time I make a very tasty soup. The chicken was from the one I baked for myself on Christmas. I added the last of this season's fresh herbs from my garden plus the usual base of red bell pepper, garlic, onions, celery. Threw in some frozen green peas. Yummy!

In terms of my simple, frugal lifestyle, I learned more about what I can live without and altered a few practices throughout the journey:

• I began driving to work again about 2 months ago after gas prices shot down far below what I paid summer of 2006 when I started taking the train/bus to work - 25 miles away from home. I learned more about community on the buses/trains of Los Angeles County and encountered the everyday extraordinary people you never hear about on the news. The advantage of taking the bus allowed me to read, on average, 2-3 books a month. I read mostly free library books.
  
• I drive the street to/from work during rush hour so I don't sit in traffic and I enjoy driving through different communities.
  
• I took my lunch to work every single day except for the one or two days when I forgot it. YIKES! It hurt to buy from the cafeteria. I brewed my own coffee each morning at about 11 cents a cup including my favorite creamers. You do the math of spending $4 a day on Stuckbucks coffee...never mind, I'll do it for you: comes to about $1460 a year.
  
• I gave up buying bottled water except for the ones in my earthquake kit and bought 2 large reusable bottles for lunch and working out. I will miss my periodic trips to the recycling center to claim my $5 but the tap water does taste very good.
• I reduced my DirecTV bill to the family plan which eliminated another $30 from my monthly expenses and forced me to stop watching all of the gloom and doom news. (I have been known to scream at the TV for the ridiculous programming they throw at us.) I average about 7-10 hours a week watching the TV I bought about 13 years ago.
  
• I reduced my grocery bill by $60 to $100 each month by buying more of what I already like when it is on sale and freezing or storing it. (Lots of websites and blogs out there on the benefits of buying like this.) I still don't care for coupons, though. So, I just try to go the store every 8 to 10 days instead of once or twice a week.
• I totally gave up red meat. I gave up pork years ago but I will sample it if I am invited to someone's house. I was still enjoying an occasional steak but I no longer miss it.
• I reduced my visits to restaurants to about 1 or 2 a month, including my favorite Pollo Loco drive thru binge.
  
• I paid cash for every single thing that I bought in 2008.
• I was able to give over 10% of my gross income away and I never missed it. God has a way of making this all work out and it is essential to the way I've chosen to live.
• Just received my water bill for December and I cut water usage for the 3rd month in a row: We received free rainfall over the last couple of weeks which directly affected how often I watered both front and back yards and I have consciously been washing larger and fewer loads. I bought more towels from Target a few months ago so that I could wash that load less often. Plus, I don't own that many clothes. I never wash my car at home and prefer the little drive thru one at the gas station. (I stopped going to full service car washes in 2008 and I vacuum the inside myself.)
  

Freedom!

Happy Thanksgiving and the Sky Isn't Falling!

Most of my adult life, I have either cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal or contributed to a gathering. NOT THIS YEAR! I neither asked anyone to join me today, nor did I accept any invitations simply because I really needed to rest. Since I don't eat out much throughout the year and cook/prepare all 3 of my meals each day at home (I always take my lunch to work), I allowed myself to enjoy a prepared meal from a local restaurant and it was really yummy! I kept thanking God that I could both afford the meal financially (paying cash for it, of course) and am now delivered from ever cooking on this holiday again. That's why I had the time to go work out at the gym early this morning, kick back, and read throughout the day. I went to bed very early last night because I was exhausted from working and enjoying my life during this short work week.

As I sat and waited for my order to take home, I watched so many families arrive to eat in the restaurant and take out that I really wondered if we are in the deep recession that the media/banks/government insist we're in as a nation. I saw several people come in and take out HUGE family orders in HUGE boxes while I had a nice and easy bag. These meals start at $23 for each adult so I know those folks with the big boxes must have spent well over $100-$200. Ohhhhhh...so the sky really isn't falling all over America. Let's continue to research our own news stories and not rely on the networks to tell us what to think. Freedom!