Ever read The Tightwad Gazette books? They're basically full of newsletter articles that offer tips, tricks and hints for saving money and living frugally. I read them years ago for my job, and have been thinking about them recently because of a blog post at TheSurvivalistBlog.Net. Essentially, the post asked readers how long they thought it would be until a collapse of our economy. The basic response: Not much longer.
Hubby and I just built our house a year ago. As a result, we're carrying a seriously large mortgage. We both still have student loans. Otherwise, we're debt-free. I'm not too worried about the student loans, but I'd love to get the mortgage paid down (or off). It seems impossible, since our mortgage total is about 2.5 times what Hubby earns a year, but I can't help thinking it's worth a try because of The Tightwad books.
The author, Amy Dacyczn, claims that her family's income averaged less than $30,000. (This was back in the 1980s.) Nonetheless, in less than seven years they saved $43,000, made significant purchases (cars, appliances, etc.) of $38,000, and were completely debt-free.
Now, she advocates things that I probably won't do. I'm not going to wash and re-use aluminum foil, and I'm not going to dumpster dive for unopened cans of food. I'm also unlikely to start buying the bulk of my clothing in thrift stores, mostly because the selection for women in my size is almost non-existent.
I consider myself a minimalist in a lot of ways, but there are a few things where I have spending issues: books, food (we don't eat), restaurant meals (I first wrote that as "restaurant males"!!), and crap to entertain my kids. Also, I've noticed that I buy more crap and have boosted our lifestyle as Hubby's income has increased.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
I should've kept our lifestyle the same and stashed the extra income in the bank!
When shit+fan happens, I know I'm going to be wishing I had spent our money on more preps rather than buying another piece of plastic crap for my kid.
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1 comments:
We're in similar boats, you and I. We have a largish mortgage, though smallish when compared to what the banker assured us we could afford. Ours is about 1.3 times my husband's income.
We haven't saved as much as we could, but we've really worked on paying off debt quickly. We're just a few payments shy of having our car paid for, very little cc debt and no other real obligations other than utilities.
I'm reading the Tightwad Gazette right now and honestly, I think you need to take most of what she writes with a grain of salt. Recycling aluminum foil and dumpster diving does not a mortgage pay for.
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