I have been challenging the limits of our budget lately, wondering… what else can we cut back on? What else is there left to not spend money on? It’s got me thinking about things… as I stare at the excel spreadsheet that is our budget, I see very little waste. As an engineer I would say that I have officially leaned out that process. But anyone who knows anything about lean, knows that if you step back and look again later you will see things differently again.
My point is that this is truly a journey. There are three fundamentals to our core success in getting out of debt.
- The first is the income. I can’t do a whole lot about my income other than do my best at work and be happy to have a job in these economic times. Wifey and I do all that we can to do extra surveys, trials and money making things like selling on eBay and cash4books and stuff. Since I can’t change my income from my job, this helps supplement things.
- The second is debt. I can’t do a whole lot about our debt other than put every penny we can towards it and follow the debt snowball and pay the suckers off. We have made tremendous progress on this so far, but again, I can’t really change this.
- The third is expenses. This has been the area of the largest focus on our part thus far. We have cut out everything we can think of, dropped services, gone to bare bones plans, changed providers, you name it. I think we are about as cheap as we can be right now. At first it seems like there isn’t much more we can do here, but looks can be deceiving.
So that gets me thinking about frugality again. I have come up with all kinds of great frugal solutions to things around the house to save money and also keep from having to buy things (such as home made alternatives or freebies). I have also done wonders to our grocery budget with bulk cooking and frugal planning. I keep trying to think of new ways to save money or do things cheaper… but for some reason lately I have been coming up empty.
I can’t help but feel like I have hit a frugal wall, even just temporarily. I need inspiration… I need some great frugal motivational tips… So with that said…
Please leave me a comment, I would love to hear from you all…
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INSPIRE ME ! ! !
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Make your own cleaning solutions for the house, vinegar or ammonia clean almost anything
I am relatively new to your site, but I haven’t run across any info on gardening. As the mother of a 7 1/2 month old, I am starting small this year with a few tomato plants and bell peppers; things that I hate paying high prices for in the store! Last week, I scored a $400+ compost tumbler that just needs some minor repairs out of someone’s trash pile. I am looking forward to using grass clippings, leaves and our kitchen waste to make my own compost and I will be recycling and cutting down on trash at the same time!!!
gardening is a good way to save money as the last person said. But how do you garden if you live in an apartment? Does anyone do this? Would like ideas.
I don’t really have any tips but just wanted to say thank you for all the tips you give us.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I was thinking about doing some gardening of some sort this year. Maybe I could figure out how to can veggies and stock up.
I cloth diaper, wash and reuse baggies, make my own detergent, and I’ve started a garden. We have a 4 x 16 raised bed – ran out of space so I’ll be building another small one this weekend. I’m hoping this will help cut down our grocery expense – the veggies alone are about 1/3 – 1/2 of my grocery bill!
Another thought – a blog I came across suggested using textured vegetable protein to make ground beef go a little further. Are you doing meatless meals? Grains and legume based meals are so economoical.
THANK YOU for sharing YOUR ideas in frugality. I especially like the drying rack for clothes.
I recently found a free Internet phone service called ooma (no, I don't work for them. I'm a customer). It's different than MagicJack & Skype because you don't have to have your computer turned on. Call quality is good (not perfect) but I no longer pay a phone bill. Check Best Buy, Costco, eBay or others for pricing on the required "hub". After you buy the hardware (I paid $175 on eBay) the basic service is absolutely free. There are premium pay services, but all US calls are free. Find out more at http://www.ooma.com
Have you tried Hulu.com? I recently read about it in a magazine as a way to save money because you can watch tv show and movies free. I don’t have any experience with it but it might be worth looking into if you are a movie buff or just enjoy an occasional show but would rather do something else with your cable bill funds, assuming you pay for cable.