Tag Archives: Thrift

Thinking About Simplicity — Save Money On My Top Ten Nonessentials

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Being downwardly mobile, I’ve got to keep pruning the low-hanging fruit, the non-essentials. In the last post, I cut the telephone land line and the monthly phone bill.  I’ve also whittled away at a long list of other non-essentials as I gradually scaled back my lifestyle from “affluent” to “working poor.” Here’s my top ten list (plus one):

  1. House (Apartment) Cleaning Service. Probably the most expensive of the non-essentials, and the first to go. For years, a cleaning service came every two weeks to do the necessary little chores I was too lazy to do. (Can you believe I paid for a cleaning service, even when I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment?)
  2. Vacations. I’ve never been bitten by the travel bug. Still, I used to get away for one weekend every season of the year, when I was affluent. And I usually took a real one-week vacation in the summer or fall. Now I haven’t had a real vacation in years. I acknowledge that forgoing vacations, year after year, is a sacrifice. But if I did vacation, I’d do it on the credit card, digging myself deeper into debt. Not a good idea.
  3. Cable TV. When I lived alone, I made do with rabbit ears. Cable, even basic cable, was a luxury I could easily live without.
  4. Home Internet Service. Same as Cable TV, above. Most of us weren’t even aware of the Internet a decade ago. Now we act like it’s a necessity. It’s not. I dropped it along with the cable TV, and used the free public Internet access at the library. However, when I share housing with another person, I usually split the cost of cable and internet. It seems like the neighborly thing to do.
  5. Newspapers. This was a tough one. All my life, I’ve read at least one daily newspaper. At the height of affluence, I subscribed to my local  paper seven days a week, plus the out-of-town New York Times. The bill for The Times was $1 a day, and well worth it. But The Times was obviously low-hanging fruit. It had to go. Later, I cancelled the local paper as well. The monthly saving was small but necessary. (I never thought the day would come that I couldn’t afford a daily newspaper.) I still buy ONE Sunday newspaper at the newsstand, when I’m feeling flush. Otherwise, I get my news from TV, or I go to the library and read the newspapers to my heart’s content, for free.
  6. Ice Cream. I switched from the premium Hagen Daz to an everyday brand. Since the doctor advised a low-fat diet, I cut way back on even the less-expensive brand, more to save my health than to save money.
  7. Pizza Delivery. I resisted this extravagance for a long time. (I might be too lazy to clean my own apartment, but I was willing to fetch my own carry-out pizza.) As the years went by, I surrendered to our cultural addiction to ease and convenience. Pizza delivery is handy when you have friends over and don’t cook. But my days of entertaining lavishly with delux pizzas (no anchovies or black olives, please) are over. I still enjoy pizza whenever I can, but I don’t have it delivered.
  8. Eating out. As a lifelong bachelor, I prided myself on preparing my own breakfast of cereal and a banana at home. But for lunch and dinner, I habitually patronized one neighborhood restaurant or another. I was a generous tipper, too, if I do say so myself. That lifestyle is a only a pleasant memory. Now, I look for price cuts at the supermarket, and eat almost every meal at home.
  9. Buying Books. One of my few extravagances was buying and reading new books, mostly paperback, but often enough, expensive hardbacks. When I read, I like to highlight important passages, and you can’t do that unless you own the book. It’s a luxury I can no longer afford. The public library lets me check out books for free, but frowns on highlighting.
  10. Church and Charitable Donations. Now frugality is getting serious. In the affluent days, I sent checks several times a year to favorite charities (soup kitchens, disaster relief, and the like). There came a day when it seemed that I needed the money as much as the charities did. Next, I reduced my weekly church contribution  to an embarrassingly small sum. Lately, I’ve been skipping church contributions entirely, and feeling guilty. I’m determined to return to my habit of small donations to church soon, but not this week.
  11. Bottled water. This is my most recent economy. For years, I carried a bottle of spring water with me everywhere. I still buy bottled water by the gallon for use at home. Our well water is OK for showers and laundry, but not for drinking or cooking. But thanks to a handy, 27-ounce stainless-steel canteen, I no longer buy those outrageously expensive small bottles of water. See, I fill the canteen free, with tap water at work, or from the gallon jugs at home. I still carry water everywhere, but I’m saving money, and with no sacrifice.

There you have it: A list of non-essentials I can live without, and save money. Please add your own suggestions for saving money on low-hanging fruit under “comments.”

Much more to come on adjusting my lifestyle from affluent to working poor. Simply cutting the low-hanging fruit was not nearly sufficient to balance my budget. Soon, we’re going to take a hard look at the essentials.

Thinking About Simplicity — The Nonessentials (My Telephone Land Line)

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When I realized that I was living beyond my means, and something had to give, I didn’t start chopping away at the essentials — shelter, health care, and transportation.

Of course not. No one wants to turn their lifestyle upside down overnight. Just chopping away at the low-hanging fruit is painful enough.

By low-hanging fruit, I mean the little things that don’t cost much. You begin carefully pruning the little things.

First thing I learned I could live without came by accident. The moderately priced apartments where I lived were converted to condos. I moved to the cheapest apartment I could find in a safe neighborhood. It was a “junior one-bedroom,” barely larger than the efficiency I live in now. I got telephone service turned on in the new apartment. Basic telephone service, plus the telephone company’s voicemail, for which I paid $5 a month extra.

One little problem: the voicemail didn’t work. It sounded an annoying tone when I picked up the receiver. The tone signaled that I had voicemail waiting. Not such a big problem, right? Except that the system also wouldn’t let me access the mailbox.  So I couldn’t get my messages and turn the annoying tone off. And I didn’t know how many important messages were stuck in the mailbox. How many people were mad at me because I hadn’t called back?  Worse still, as long as the annoying tone stayed on, I couldn’t get a dial tone.  I couldn’t get my messages, and I couldn’t make calls.

So I call the telephone company’s customer-service department. You know how that goes. The telephone company doesn’t like to answer the phone. You get a recorded message tree: Push one if you speak English; Push two to pay your bill; Push three to add expensive options; Push four if you speak Portuguese.  And so on.

Eventually, you get through to a live customer-service agent, who listens to your problem. First time, customer service tells me they’ll fix the problem right away. Three days later, I call back, and they say they’ll fix it. I keep calling. One time they tell me there is no problem. One time they tell me I will have to pay an extra service charge to get it fixed. One time I even speak to a supervisor, who promises to call me back. She never did.

Three things you can count on when you call customer service:  One, you get an answering system;  Two, the customer service agent can’t solve your problem, but wants to sell you additional telephone services; Three, at the end of every frustrating conversation, the customer service agent asks: “Did I provide excellent service today?”

I finally realized that my existing phone service would never work again. I had an idea. I’d cancel the phone service, wait a few days, then call and order new service. What a concept!

And you know what? After weeks of not being able to use my home telephone, I had an Epiphany. I realized that I can live without a land line!  Why was I paying for both a land line and a cell phone? And the cell phone even came with free voicemail.

That is the story of how I got rid of my monthly telephone bill, and lived happily ever after. Except that I was still spending way beyond my means; I needed to prune lots more low-hanging fruit.  To be continued . . .

Thinking About Simplicity — The Essentials

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Food, shelter, and clothing. In a simpler age, those three were the basic human physical needs. In this modern age, most of us would add two more basics — health care and transportation.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the essentials these past seven years, once it became obvious that my earnings had peaked and were sliding downhill. One clings to a familiar standard of living as long as possible, past the point of reasonable indebtedness.

I knew that I was spending more than I earned each month, resulting in slowly mounting credit card debt. I could not ignore it forever. And in my late 50s, as I bounced from one hourly wage job to another, I realized that my ability to work hard and long hours was waning.

It was clear that I needed to live more simply and reduce spending.  If I could reduce spending enough, I would be able to work less.

“What am I spending this money on?” I asked.  “And what are the absolute bare necessities?”

My three major expenses were not food, shelter, and clothing. Shelter, yes. I lived in one of the most expensive suburbs in America. The price of a decent house was outrageous. The cost of renting a decent apartment, almost equally outrageous.

The other two money pits were the car, including gas, maintenance, repairs, insurance; and health care. The health care piece came in the form of health insurance, which remained within reach as long as I had a job that offered health benefits.

Clothing has become relatively inexpensive, since most of it is manufactured by cheap labor in faraway places. I already had more clothing than I needed, so clothing expenses were negligible.

Food is nonnegotiable. Food is the last necessity you give up. You can be homeless and walk everywhere, but you still have to eat. Fortunately, food is still relatively cheap because of efficient modern agribusiness. Also fortunately, I do not consume large quantities of food. Conclusion: Not much savings likely in the essential food category.

By process of elimination, the big savings would have to come from  housing, car, and health care.

Thinking About Simplicity, to be continued . . .