Frugalities

"Hi there! Please excuse my intrusiveness, but could you please share with me how you and your hubby bring in enough income to raise such a large family? I ask because I am a newly wed and we are hoping for a family...but I have been wondering how people handle it all financially."

That was posted in the comments to a previous post. I don't mind the question at all! This is something I've talked about frequently here, but not much of late, and I never mind revisiting it. We have never made 'enough income,' by most standards, but we have almost always lived within our means- and that is what makes all the difference.

It can be a hard question to answer with any level of specificity though, because what works in one part of the country won't work in another, and what suits us as a family won't suit somebody else. It might help if I knew what you are spending money on now. What I wear and being able to host fancy entertainment has never mattered to my husband's career, for example, but I know that these are vitally important expenses in families where the breadwinner is in a different line of work. I did things when I was younger that I couldn't do so well now (like eating a baked potato for lunch every day because we couldn't afford anything else- that would make me physically ill to do it today). We have usually lived near a good thrift shop, but I know some people really don't. So the details will vary.

So you see, the most important frugal tool you can have is not the income you bring in, but the way you think about what you need and what you want- your own mindset and attitude. A sense of entitlement does more harm to the family budget than just about anything else I can think of. Often we don't realize just how entitled we feel. Years and years ago I remember a young friend telling me they had finally just decided to run their air conditioner, even though we lived in Japan and the cost of running the AC added hundreds of dollars to the utilities bill and none of us could afford it. She told me that she had just decided that they "shouldn't have to live this way." Well, why not? Living within ones' means is the way all of us should have to live, and if that means we are sweaty and uncomfortable or cold and shivery, oh, well. Not that I like it. It's just a reality.

It's vital to rethink what you truly, really need. I have a basic 'need' test. If no family living anywhere in the world at any time could get by without whatever that item is- it's a need. If other families have managed to get along without it for centuries and in other places, it's not a need. It's a want. Now, it may be an important, worthy, even admirable 'want,' but if we won't starve, get very sick, be thought insane, or lose our source of income without it, then it's not a need.

Transportation rates as a need, because we need it for our source of income. But what sort of transportation do we really need? For our first 16 months of marriage our main transportation was a borrowed mo-ped for my husband and my feet for me. Somebody gave us a ride to church, sometimes I was able to borrow my parents car to do the grocery shopping (other times I walked), and after we moved away from my folks, sometimes I called a cab. We live much further from town now and we no longer live in California, so a mo-ped is not practical or very safe for the HM. He needs a vehicle. But do do we need a pretty new car, or is the one with peeling paint and a broken seat that only stays up when you prop up an old tire behind it good enough for the HM to drive to work?

Learn to get by with less, make do, or do without. Learn to cook from scratch. Hamburger HElper is not cheap and it is not from scratch. Learn to buy used clothes and to mend the ones you have. Shop at thrift shops, garage sales, and consignment stores. Drive a used, a very used, car, and get by with one or none if you can. Don't go the credit card route. Buy only what you can pay for.

Reconsider what you need for housing. We are living in a decadently wonderful house now, but we spent nearly three years in 1200 square feet with no AC and precious little heat and only one bathroom. Being retired military we moved a lot, and our housing situation has fluctuated over the years. We've had 2000 square feet and 1400 square feet. We've had windows where the curtains billowed in the breeze when the windows were closed. We have had four children in one bedroom, and we have had two children in our bedroom for a few months when somebody else lived with us. We have lived in neighborhoods that other people did not consider 'safe,' and we have lived in housing other people considered substandard. What mattered is that we were together and we were not in debt. We trust to God to keep us save more than we trust to the neighborhood.

What can you do without? I haven't had a professional haircut in more years than I can remember (twelve? Maybe longer). Over the last 20 years I have worn makeup perhaps twice a year (mostly because I am allergic to most of it, but still, it does save us money). I wear the same pair of shoes for years. We don't have television and have never paid for cable. We have gone without life insurance before, and we have foregone renter's insurance frequently. We have eaten buckets of beans and rice and rice and beans. We didn't see a movie in a theater for years, and we didn't ever rent movies until just a couple years ago, preferring our library because it was free. Please understand that there is nothing more spiritual or righteous about doing without these things. I am not even necessarily recommending each of these things, I am just offering them as food for thought to help prime your own pump about what is important to you and what isn't.

I have spent a lot of money on books and board games, because they matter to me. We have purchased memberships to museums and zoos, where other people would go without. We have high speed internet service because we use the internet for school, business, and recreational purposes and we have several people who like to be on at the same time. Others may differ. There is nothing holier about going without a haircut- it's just cheaper and that's one place I chose to save money. Somebody else might do the haircuts and skip the book binges or settle for internet connections at the library. My husband can't wear the same pair of shoes for more than a few months, he's too hard on them and his feet are a funny shape, so I wear my shoes forever, and he gets two new pairs a year because if he didn't, he'd have to go barefoot and this is frowned on by grocery store customers. So how to live within your means will vary with the individual.

Previous posts on the topic: The 'new' quilt: Frugality is a state of mind- look at what you have on hand in a new way.

Frugal Emergency Preparations: The tips and recipes in these posts can be used to help save money in every day cooking and living, too.

Frugalities and Potatoes

Frugal Baby Supplies

Frugal Baby

Frugal Presents

Being Poor- a series we did on how poor we used to be and why. I especially like this one.

Frugal Winterizing

Frugal savings at the grocery store- how to make 'hamburger helper' from scratch and more.

Here's another round-up of a few of our frugalities posts.

Specific details on 'use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.'

Home-made laundry soap

What Do I Have In My Hand?

The Gift of Space

Calculating the 'Wow' Factor.

If any of our readers have a favorite post that I don't mention here, or a link to another good article or helpful blog on the topic, please let us know in the comments, and I'll add them.