What is needed? January 14, 2008
Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Life...otherwise , trackbackMy Canadian buddy,, Midlife Traveler, is trying to save money. Her family wants to buy a house in a rural area and of course, houses mean mortgages, and mortgages mean you need money as a down payment.
Her blog often leaves me thinking, and now is no different. Please go over and read, but a quick summary is this: the original plan was to learn how to save money. This lead to her discovering the live simply theory. Now she is very excited about this concept and the practical implications.
She has asked a very important question "What is needed?"
I think that is a great question and I have been thinking about that the past few days
Things I think I could easily cut back on
- Starbucks. Yeah, I know. Sad, isn’t it? But I love my grande, 2 pump skim no whip mochas.
- lunches out
- My coffee shipment from Gevalia (yes I mail order coffee. get over it)
- my occasional Eddie Bauer flings
- discretionary spending- Jay and I each allow ourselves a certain amount of money each month for discretionary spending. If we have a tight month, then we stop this spending. So far, this system has worked well and we have managed to keep ourselves in check during tight months.
Things that are not so easy:
- Acupuncture. I have to say I love it, but it is expensive
- Health Club. I have signed a 2 year agreement. I need to do this another year, but to be honest, I could find a way to use the Harvard gyms or walking or weights at home. It is just that much more convenient to do the gym instead of finding a way to exercise.
- cable/hd/dvr- Eh, I know, these should be expendable. We love the HD. Just adore it. We love the ability to use the TV to just chill with our sports and the DVR is beyond wonderful for those mornings that the kids just want one show….
- Kid activities. We have 3 activities that we pay for right now, ice skating, swimming and gymnastics. These would be the last to be sacrificed.
To be honest, Jay and I do live pretty simply. We try to eat healthy at home and don’t buy a ton of junk at the store. Impulse buys are low and we rarely buy food that we don’t need. We don’t "shop" often. Soleil and I both have a touch of SID and we both flip after being at the mall for a while. We’ve switched our main lighting to CFLs, and have discovered that our electric bill dropped $40 a month (I kid you not). We’ve added a gas fireplace enclosure on each floor. We are burning less gas to keep the house as warm as before, plus we have sealed out the drafts from outside.
Every year we draft up a budget of what we want to do for the house, what expenses we expect to have that year from an annual grocery bill to travel costs (personal travel, not work travel), furniture purchases, electronic expenses and that oh so important savings. We actually put our savings into the budget and insist on a certain level of savings.
So I guess we have already simplified our lives. This holiday season was a perfect example. The girls got 1 present a day. Some presents were simple, a game that I purchased at a rummage sale. Or Leapster cartridges that I was able to pick up on a buy one get one free sale. The 8 gifts were not all from us. Parents and aunts/uncles were giving gifts too. That helped. In September/October, I had the girls do a toy purge with me. We discussed how we need to get rid of what we don’t use and that we should help those who could use it instead of throwing it out.
What do you find is needed in your life? What can you simplify?
Comments»
Well it sounds like you guys are doing a great job. You make a budget, you have a discretionary fund, and you are saving money too. And IIRC somewhere you mentioned that you don’t carry credit card debt. I don’t think you need to feel too guilty about those Mochas, lol. It’s really about priorities - I’m willing to give up that mocha (or, in my case, decaf Vanilla Lattes) to achieve a certain goal. When that goal is met I might allow myself more Lattes. Or I might get a new goal!
Oh, and shameless plug here, my blog address (I don’t think you linked to it) is ruralaspirations.wordpress.com.
Interesting reading! While we dont live a simple life in terms of debt (we have too much!), we have recently downsized a lot with our move to France. We now live in an apartment half the size - its a challenge with 2 kids and a home office but we’re getting by. We have no car. We walk to school, shops, friend’s houses and take trains or buses for holidays or day-trips. Its actually made my life a lot more pleasant not having to listen to Jasper scream on car trips! We dont eat out anywhere near as much as in Australia. I cook almost all our meals now. We dont have TV but once a week we rent a DVD to practice my french. I need to go through the toys and baby clothes and start getting rid of things but realistically I think our kids have a lot less toys than many. What do I need in life? I could never get rid of my internet connection
Wifey’s cousin gave her a subscription to a magazine called Simple Living or something to that effect. But the magazine was HUGE. In supreme irony, it had so many pages that she never did end up reading it. Each month it came, and it was recycled unread. Too much information…that it made it not simple to read.