Elliott and I have cut back quite a bit in preparation for the baby coming so we have extra money for those unexpected expenses. Also work has been pretty slow so we have been conserving on the company side as well. We learned many of these skills when we got laid off which, amazingly that was two years ago now. After starting a company and enjoying several months with strong billings about a year or so ago we slipped back into some of our old habits.
What we remember now and I think and hope are resolved to do is to live below our means and when things get good rather than raising our standard of living we want to save that money so that we can either retire early and also be more resilient if things ever get worse. Ideally we would like to save money and some day buy a house and then maybe put solar on it, and then grow much of our own food, and slowly live lighter and lighter both on the earth and on our pocket books. So what have we done to save money?
1) I stopped working with a coach. I really, really, really enjoyed the coach I was working with. I can honestly say I think the things I learned from her changed my life for the better and was worth every penny. This was an expense on the company side so it was easy to swallow when things were good, however when our billings slowed down it was clear that I couldn’t continue this luxury.
2) I cancelled my gym membership. This was also a company expense and a relatively small one in perspective although really almost everything I was doing at the gym I can do at home or I can modify slightly to get a similar effect. Plus I would much rather get my exercise outside when possible so I let this one go.
3) We down graded our phones. Its pretty funny because most of our friends are moving forward, like our friends who just got smart phones: http://livingabrighterlife.blogspot.com/2011/05/joining-21st-century.html, and now we moved backwards. We ditched our smart phones, actually we got to keep them they just only work with wifi now and we went back to phones that simply make calls. We also started using Google Voice, which is a free service, as a way to save on our minutes. The phones was a decent expense on the company side each month and we decided it was a luxury. Also we realized that these costs over the entire year really do add up.
4) We reviewed our personal expenses for several months and cut out the fat. Actually this is a work in progress. The first thing we realized is we spent way too much money at coffee shops. So we vowed to cut this out. We still might get a coffee every other week although that’s a big improvement from several a week plus pastry treats. Instead we make coffee or tea at home or enjoy coconut water or kombucha from the store as a beverage treat. We also did a research project to figure out if we could buy our groceries cheaper. We put together a spreadsheet to compare the items that we typically buy. This included a trip to Costco to see if a membership there was worth it, the spreadsheet was quite an undertaking! Before we did all of our shopping at Whole Foods, just out of convenience. What we learned is that meat is significantly cheaper at Farmer Joe’s and our favorite nut butter, raw almond butter, is a quarter of the price at Trader Joe’s. Also our protein powder is nearly half the price from Amazon. So with a little extra work and stops at stores we are working to reduce our food bill, which is actually one of our largest monthly expenses. We don’t yet have enough data to say how much this will save us each month although I think the effort it worth it.
5) Our next step is to downgrade our car. This is actually has dual reasoning. First off our MINI is soon enough not going to reasonably fit the entire family, including baby and dog. That car is a lease for a very low monthly payment, although we put a lot down on it. We looked at the options to change over to a wagon, lease a new car, buy a new car, buy a relatively new car, etc. We decided to try a different approach and buy an older used car (1997 ish) that we can buy right out and not have a monthly payment. We are going to use money from our savings so we want to pay that back to ourselves over time and we will also put money away for a car fund which will pay for maintenance and over time will grow to buy another car in the future when the car dies or becomes a maintenance hassle. So its sort of moving money around although ultimately we believe it will lower our monthly burden which makes us more nimble which we like. We actually already found a car that we really like with pretty low miles and it is a solid car with great maintenance ratings. So, we will likely buy that soon and hopefully sell the MINI shortly after.
I think those are the big changes we have made so far and I expect that we will look for ways to keep getting more lean because its kind of fun and allows us to spend money on the things that are most important to us. If you want to find inspiration for ways to save money I found these podcasts interesting: http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/ways-to-save-money-part-four. You should be able to find parts 1-3 on the same website. I started listening to this podcast when it was recommended by a urban homesteading blogger I follow. This guy is a bit of a doomer, one of these people who believes the crap is going to hit the fan in the US. I think that includes there will be less oil, expensive or limited food, and perhaps other chaos that goes with that. I am not sure if that will happen although I don’t think that it is outside the realm of possibility either. Personally I listen to the podcast more because I find it interesting and I find that many of the topics overlap with a sustainable lifestyle.
On the topic of doomer podcasts I also really like this podcast: http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/, the topics are interesting and thought provoking, when you don’t pay for cable these are the things you have to do to entertain yourself. Ah, speaking of entertaining myself I also got a library card and plan to stop sending Amazon so much money for books I read and then donate. And that is a great tip to end on for our the Elliott and Teresa money saving tips of the week. Now a quote:
“Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.” - Epicurus
