Living economically. Care to share some of your tips?

[lifeisbeautiful]

Lol, I was pretty bad in that department. When I was younger I took in ice cream sundaes, Wendy’s food/salad / frosty, food court pizza, microwave popcorn bag, all sorts of candy, you name it… I’m not sure of the morality of it now though… Do they have rules against bringing in outside food? I know I don’t remember ever seeing one, but that was a while back.

Hmm, I just remembered that I did bring a pear with me relatively recently (after I got married). I had morning sickness (not throwing up or anything that would bother other moviegoers) but I had to keep healthy things in my tummy and I couldn’t stand soda/candy/popcorn or any of the junk stuff they sold there.

Anyways, I don’t want to derail…

I second the advice to avoid going shopping as much as you can and to make lists and stick to them.

 

[justacloserwalk]

Don’t live in the desert. It seems like everything is expensive here, because natural resources (like water and wild game) are not exactly abundant. Unless you’re the insect-eating type. We have plenty of bugs!

We’re not very good at living economically (but we’re still well within our means), because it seems like the more natural products like soaps and wholesome foods are more expensive to purchase. I’d love to have the time and talent to make my own soaps; or the time and water to grow my own veggie garden!

You can join a natural foods co-operative here in Phx. Call Tuscon Cooperative Warehouse(in Tuscon) and ask for the names of coops near you.
You will save alot of money!!
There is an organic produce co-op as well.

Barbara

 

[twk001]

my reply is this: Set up a household budget as SOON as you can. DH and I spent-gulp- a WHOPPING $20G eating out, going to movies, buying unnecessary clothes, going on road trips and buing “stuff”, staying in hotels for a weekend, and having “fun” for the first 3 years of our marriage. We were SHOCKED when we actually came up for air and realized what we had done. On top of that, we had debt from spending during college, payments on two new cars, a couple of credit cards, a house payment,etc…we’ve been married 8 years now and we have just over $30G in total debt that we’re paying off. We are able to easily make our payments and are never late, but it also means that I have to continue working for a few more years. I had always planned to stay at home with our kids and because of our reckless spending, we only have one child right now, I have to work, and we’ve decided to put off any more kids until we have most of the debt paid so I will have the option of working or not. twk

 

[kage_ar]

I once managed to get an entire finger-lickin’ good meal for 2 from KFC into the theater in my purse. LOL! Those were the days!

I hear you - our best was chinese food and a bottle of wine (only to realize that we did not have a corkscrew).

 

[jmcrae]

my reply is this: Set up a household budget as SOON as you can.

Along the same lines, simple things like making a grocery list and then sticking to the list, deciding together ahead of time how much to spend on evenings out, and how many evenings out you can afford, taking advantage of two-for-one coupons, popcorn coupons, etc., and having video nights in instead of going to a theatre, are all good ways to stick to your budget.

At our house, we also are in the practice of taking a certain amount of money out of the bank for shopping trips, and then once the money is spent, it’s time to go home - no debit cards or credit cards allowed.

 

[justacloserwalk]

my reply is this: Set up a household budget as SOON as you can. DH and I spent-gulp- a WHOPPING $20G eating out, going to movies, buying unnecessary clothes, going on road trips and buing “stuff”, staying in hotels for a weekend, and having “fun” for the first 3 years of our marriage. We were SHOCKED when we actually came up for air and realized what we had done. On top of that, we had debt from spending during college, payments on two new cars, a couple of credit cards, a house payment,etc…we’ve been married 8 years now and we have just over $30G in total debt that we’re paying off. We are able to easily make our payments and are never late, but it also means that I have to continue working for a few more years. I had always planned to stay at home with our kids and because of our reckless spending, we only have one child right now, I have to work, and we’ve decided to put off any more kids until we have most of the debt paid so I will have the option of working or not. twk

I wish I had found this site sooner, it is a free debt reduction planner/calculator.
You enter your debt, the interest rate and the min payment. You can play around with paying your debt off with min payments (you will NEVER get out of debt doing this) or enter a set amount, whatever you want to do. If you enter years to become debt free in it will tell you what you have to pay to achieve that goal.
I was amazed at how much difference it makes to pay an extra 30.00 a month or to divide a payment!

Barbara

cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/debtplanner/debtplanner.jsp