Welcome To Our Thrifty Living Project
The Thrifty Living Project began about two years ago, when my wife and I sat down at the kitchen table and decided to find some ways to save more of the money we made. Part of our inspiration came from watching the Suze Orman show and reading her books, and the rest came from simply realizing that we needed to get back to the basics.
We were stressed out and tired of giving away so much of our hard earned money each month to other people for things we really didn't need. We were both literally in tears that day as we sat there at the kitchen table wondering how our financial situation had gotten so out of hand.
Our situation was typical. We had too many credit cards, too many parasitic bills sucking our wallet dry and we were living beyond our means. We had very little in savings since we didn't have any money left over at the end of the month.
Just a little past two years from that tearful kitchen table meeting we have our bills under control and are living well on a fraction of what we needed to survive before. In addition we are now saving money for things we want in the future, and investing for our retirement.
We didn't make this website to sell a book we wrote or to get rich. Just to share some of the ways to save more money that we learned, so you can begin to change the way you think about money and live better without having to work so hard. While some of the methods we used to get rid of our bills will not work for all people, we hope that the pages of our site contain some helpful tips on how to save more money at home. Learning how to live on less money requires that both of you as a couple agree to change your habits and work together as a team with one main goal, to save more of what you earn.
Realizing That Every Penny Counts
In order to be successful in getting rid of most of you bills you should realize that every single cent counts. There is almost nothing that you are spending money on now that you cannot do for less money. Somewhere along the lines it became a game for Michelle and I to try and outdo each other when it came to cutting our expenses. You can often find savings in the most unlikely places.
For example, our home had a metal roof, but our insurance company was not giving us the twenty percent discount for having it.
We learned this by carefully reviewing all of our insurance policies. We also learned that since a new fire hydrant had been placed within 200 feet of our property, we were eligible for another ten percent discount on our insurance bill. Placing our home and auto insurance policies with the same company gained us another fifteen percent discount. Both of us took an online driver education course for a cost or $40 and saved five percent on the auto policy. We notified the insurance company of an add on car alarm for another five percent discount. The total discount we gained from a few minutes review of our policies was 55%. We saved OVER HALF of our insurance bill, or about $150 a month just by paying attention.
Summary: Metal Roof: 20%, Fire Hydrant: 10%, Car Alarm: 5%, Driver Safety Course: 5%, Companion Policy Discount: 15%. Total Savings: 55% or $150 per Month.
Somewhere along the lines it became cool to spend more than you earned. Much of this brainwashing, which begins at infancy, is from marketers who want you to buy and buy until the day you die. Sorry for the rhyme, but it is true. We are bombarded with advertising that tells us that to be "pretty", "handsome", "cool", "successful" and so on, requires spending all of your hard earned money each month. It simply isn't true and there are ways you can be healthy and happy for less money, plus feel less stressed knowing you don't have so many bills.
How To Get A Handle On Credit Card Bills
We divided up the thrifty living project website into several different pages, with a variety of ways to save more money and to reduce or eliminate many of your monthly bills. The first step is to get rid of your credit card bills. Switch to a charge card, such as American Express that your must pay off every month or at least one that pays you cash back for each purchase, and pay the whole bill off each month.
In severe cases you may be forced to file bankruptcy if you are so far in debt that you cannot dig yourself out. This should be your last resort since you will often pay more money over the years that follow in the form of higher interest rates on consumer loans. Debt consolidation or using consumer credit counseling services. With debt consolidation you can reduce your high credit cards by rolling them into one loan with a lower interest rate. You must beware however, since it is not for everybody and you can come out much farther in debt in the long run if you are not careful.
One way to consolidate debt is to use some of the equity in your home, however with the downturn in real estate many homeowners are upside down on their mortgages. Regardless of how you begin to get rid of your credit cards it is important that you stay out of the credit card trap and make every effort to pay with cash or pay off the monthly balance in full each month. You may find a better rate on a credit card and be able to roll over your current balance into the new one. For a list of credit card rates you can visit Bankrate.com
Avoid Companies That Promise To Get You Out Of Debt. See the Federal Trade Commission's List Of Free Alternatives to help you: http://www.ftc.gov
How to Save Money On Utility Bills
Our electricity bill was among the higher monthly bills. Our typical suburban home, built as a spec home by a builder a decade ago, lacked enough insulation and featured energy wasting appliances. Sometimes it requires spending some money to save money, so we set out to save on electricity costs by making the home as energy efficient as possible. In addition to the electricity bill we tried to cut our water use down to a minimum to lower that bill as well. You can read the full article on how we achieved a savings of over 50% on our electricity and water bill here: More Ways That We Cut Our Monthly Bills
Getting Rid Of Parasitic Bills
When you think of parasites, ticks and leeches come to mind. Just like real parasites some bills feed off of your salary and really don't give you that much in return. We took a close look at all of the bills that were leeching off of our incomes and started to get rid of them. We found alternatives to our cable bill, internet and phone bills, plus burglar alarm and more.
We got rid of services like satellite radio that we did not use as much and cut out the premium features like web browsing on our cell phones. We switched to a cell phone plan with fewer minutes and adjusted our calling habits. We quit using 411 and put the yellow pages under the seat of each of our cars and used free Google 411. We got rid of six magazine subscriptions that we rarely read. For more on how we got rid of many of our monthly bills see. Pulling The Plug and The Little Things Add Up.
Saving On Grocery Expenses By Gardening
Fresh green beans from our garden
last year.
Gardening can be one of the great ways to save more money and to cut your food bill. One thing to keep in mind however that you have to watch your spending on your garden project.
It's easy to get carried away with grand schemes of turning the backyard into a small truck farm but it is not realistic for most people to have a huge garden.
It is hard to justify spending a thousand dollars on a backyard vegetable garden if you only get a few hundred dollars worth of vegetables.
Start by setting aside a part of your backyard and put up a border using landscape timbers or used railroad ties and dig up the soil. Remove the rocks and add organic mulch and decomposed manure.
If you live in the country or the suburbs, try to find a farmer from whom you can get some buckets of decomposed cow manure. You can also make good garden mulch by composing your yard waste, leaves and kitchen waste in a tumbling composter. Avoid man made fertilizers and use natural insect controls such as diluted dish soap to keep your garden organic and save money. You can buy cheap packets of seeds and start them indoors or wait until after the last frost and plant them outside.
Even if you don't have a yard but have a sunny balcony you can grow things like tomatoes, green beans, herbs, lettuce, squash and even vines like cucumbers. You will get the most savings from planting salad greens, tomatoes and things you tend to eat with each meal. It is harder to save much money by planting things like potatoes, but fresh ones are better than store bought and you can use the popular method of planting them in a stack of old car tires (made more attractive with bamboo screen wrapped around them) for easy harvesting.
We got the most savings from our tomato and green bean crop. We planted ordinary dry pinto beans from the pantry, which yielded tasty green beans in just a few weeks. For the rest of our garden seeds we ordered from Burpee Seed Company or bought at the local hardware store. We froze and canned tomatoes, beans, spinach, potatoes, okra, squash and more and dried herbs to use in cooking.
Estimated savings from growing a spring and fall garden: $100 a month in grocery expenses.
Saving Money By Getting Things For Free
An important element of our money
saving strategy is to get some of our money back by participating in rebate
programs and things such as airline reward miles. We got rid of all of our
credit cards except Discover card which pays us cash back, and an American
Express charge card, which we must pay off each month, but which pays us back
roughly two percent on each transaction in the form of airline miles. Since we
shop mostly at Costco, we joined the Executive membership plan which pays you
back two percent on most everything you buy. Since they accept American Express
we get a whopping 4% back every time we buy groceries. We also save coupons and
use them at our local grocery store on triple coupon day when most coupons under
a dollar count for three times their value. How about a roll of Bounty paper
towels for fifty cents? There are lots of little things you can get cash back on
and save on by using coupons.
Saving What You Save
Once you begin to see some savings from the changes you have made in the way you spend money it's time to start putting some of it away. Our savings plan includes two separate online savings accounts, a pre-tax medical savings account through my employer, our 401-K's and buying gold and silver coins. It's important to keep an emergency fund, of at least six month's living expenses put away for a rainy day. It's especially hard to save money now in these tough times, but with the right amount of budget cutting you can often find a little here and there to put away.
For a summary of the total savings that we accomplished during our thrifty living project see: Total Savings
Thank you for visiting our Thrifty Living Project page. We will keep updating the site as we find more ways to save money and live well for less.
Read about my after work, one hour a day project to make money: The One Hour A Day Internet Income Project
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