This post is basically a commentary on Simple Dollar’s post
I’m only using snippets here.. but the whole article is worth your time to read and I am going to assume (oh yes I am) you have read it before you read the rest of this post.
here’s the premise:
Stephen, like most of modern society, operates under the assumption that certain categories of non-essential spending is impossible to cut. In other words, if you cut some of the luxuries in life, life no longer becomes enjoyable, so these luxuries become viewed as essential.Unlike a lot of other personal finance writers, I don’t advocate cutting out the elements of your life that make your life enjoyable. Instead, I take a different approach. I argue that a lot of the routines we consider essential in our lives aren’t bringing us joy on the whole.
I have found this to be true is some surprising ways. The article illustrates some of the same findings I have which prompted me to comment. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think these are easy places to make changes.
Eating out - read the article for a really good time/money breakdown on eating out. I realized that I was associating eating out with good food, and eating at home with boring food that required a lot of work and time. But then I also realized that most of the time when we were eating out - it was boring food that was taking a lot of time. From where we live, a really good steak dinner is about an hour drive. So that’s not what we were eating most of the time. It was usually steak at the local place which was OK at best, or just burgers and fries.
So I learned how to make a really good steak. I mean really good. And crab legs… they are super duper easy - like embarrassingly easy. I buy them frozen, on sale, and keep them in the freezer. Now they don’t compare to fresh crab legs, but the cost and time savings is worth it in most cases.
I do not even want to eat steak anywhere but at home, or at a really good steakhouse. Mine are that good, and super easy and super fast.
It was a little bit scary to invest in a good cut of meat and crab legs for that first meal, but it’s really really easy.
Books - When we moved, I packed up boxes and boxes of books. Where was I going to put them? Did I want to find a place for them? How likely was it that I was going to want to read them again? So I started checking out the libraries. I have access to several - our teeny town library (with a surprisingly good selection, but with a librarian who doesn’t really make you feel welcome), my school’s library and the universities they are in partnership with (super handy because I go online and find the books I want from any of the university libraries and they deliver them to me) and the town library where I go to school (I actually paid $20 for a year’s membership to this one, but I like the atmosphere of going in there
With all those choices, I feel confident that if I want to re-read a certain book - I’ll be able to find it. I’ve checked out Square Foot Gardening twice now, so I think I’ll probably go ahead and buy a used copy of it. I am especially loving borrowing cookbooks and decorating magazines. I get all the enjoyment, non of the cost and I don’t have to find a place to keep the books.
That makes a great transition into another category - video entertainment. When we moved we opted to not have satellite or broadcast television. We have a Netflix account (which we used heavily) and our tiny little local library has a huge selection of children’s DVDs. Again - no cost, no clutter.
Now that the weather is getting cooler, we found ourselves missing TV. So we bought and hooked up an antenna. I am super impressed by the new digital channels! I almost wish there wasn’t so much on. We are finding ourselves watching a little too much. There’s a couple of shows I miss from satellite, but I don’t miss the $80/month bill AT ALL.
Internet - DSL isn’t available where we live (seriously - the middle of nowhere) and I gave dial up a good try, but it just was not working for me. I’m a student and I homeschool 4 kids. I rely heavily on the internet. We ponied up and paid the $75/month for satellite internet. I still want DSL -it’s a much better value, but I’m thankful for what I have.
I’ll leave you with this parting thought from Simple Dollar:
Strip back your life. If you get rid of something you truly, deeply miss and can’t find a way to replace it, bring it back. The whole purpose is to figure out what you really do value (which are things that are perfectly fine to spend money on) and the things that you really don’t value. Often, there’s a ton of grey area in our lives between these groups – and that grey area is lost money that brings us nothing in return except heartache and missed opportunities.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
