I spotted this ingenious and simple savings plan on Facebook, posted it on my Survival Mom Facebook group, and it went viral with 3,074 likes and 4,230 shares within a couple of days. I’ve never seen anything like it. Obviously, this plan hit a nerve with a large number of people who know they need to save, want to save, but are dealing with the reality of tight budgets.

Here’s how the 52 Week Savings Plan works

On many calendars, each week is numbered, beginning with Week #1: January 1-7.  On this 52 weeks savings plan, you save the amount of dollars that corresponds to that week’s number. Example:

Week 1: Save $1

Week 2: Save $2

Week 3: Save $3

Week 4: Save $4, and so on.

If you follow this plan each week, you’ll end up with $1378 total by the end of December, and that’s no chump change! Any week that you have a little extra cash, add it to the pot and you’ll have even more saved by the end of the year, or you’ll have created a bit of a padding for weeks that don’t have any extra cash left over.

The 52 Weeks Savings Plan is highly versatile. You can begin with Week 52 in January and do the savings in reverse:

Week 1 (January 1-7): Save $52

Week 2 (January 8-14): Save $51

Week 3 (Janaury 15-21): Save $50, and so on.

Some people prefer starting with this larger dollar amount at the beginning of the year and only having to save just a few bucks each week during the holidays when money may be tight.

Another variation is to take the total to be saved, $1378, divide it by 52, and just save a flat $26.50 each week. Others, with more than one breadwinner in the household, double the savings each week.

Start this savings plan now, wherever you are during the year. The reason most people don’t save money is because they don’t have an organized plan. Well, here’s one and it couldn’t be easier!

Print out this chart to help stay on track.

Do you enjoy saving a buck more than most people?  Do you have a black belt in frugality? Here are 20 surefire signs that you are embracing your cheap side.  How many things on this list apply to you?

1. You take it as a personal challenge to see how long you can go without spending money. The game is even better if you have a spouse or friend with whom you can compete.
2. You don’t let food go to waste. You have an ice cream tub in your freezer nearly full of odd bits of leftovers, awaiting their reincarnation into “leftover casserole” or “leftover soup”.
3. It’s physically impossible for you to drive past an interesting-looking garbage pile at the curb during somebody else’s spring cleaning frenzy, much to the dismay of your children. (Although there’s always that one kid who’s excited to dig through the pile with you!)
4. Your first stop at the grocery store is the “last day of sale” rack in each department. When you get home with your stash, you immediately set to freezing, dehydrating, or canning your inexpensive score.
5. Your kid looks at a necklace or pair of earrings at the “cool” store and scoffs, “We could make this.”  Then she puts it back and asks you to take her to the thrift store for items to disassemble for the supplies to make her own accessories.
6. You don’t have cable. Your viewing, if you watch television at all, is done via an internet subscription service or even a rabbit ear antenna on top of the TV.
7. A day of yard-saling is planned out like a military invasion: you have a Mapquest route of at least a half dozen sales, a thermos full of coffee, a wallet full of small bills, and a list including measurements of all empty spaces in your home that need to be filled, kitchen items you are seeking, books your daughter wants to read, and upcoming birthdays.  Your alarm is set the night before, a blueberry muffin is wrapped up and ready to go on the counter, and your comfy clothes are laid out.
8. Before throwing anything in the garbage you take a few seconds to ponder how it might be reused. Then, you either compost it, put it aside for a re-purpose, or you turn it into a homemade “log” for your fire.
9. If something breaks, you try to fix it. If it must be replaced or purchased, you always look for a used version first before doling out the money for a new one.
10. You know how to darn socks….and you do it.
11. You have a special super-skinny rubber spatula earmarked just for getting the very last bit of whatever out of jars and bottles in the kitchen.
12. You wash and re-use sandwich baggies, and you’ve even rigged up a little drying rack for them beside your sink.
13. You are outraged at the idea of spending $18 on a jug of laundry detergent because you could make a year’s supply for that amount of money.
14. You have recently advised your child to cut off that teeny bit of mold on the brick of cheese because the other side is just fine.
15. You don’t carve the Jack-o-Lanterns until the day before Halloween so that you can cook, puree, and can the pumpkin the day after Halloween.
16. You have (and use) a clothesline.  Year round. In fact, you know from experience that laundry dries even if it freezes first.
17. You know how to repair a plastic clothes hamper by “welding it” with a bread tag and a hot glue gun.
18. The dish soap beside your sink is actually 50% dish soap and 50% water.
19. You can’t really understand how other moms spend hundreds of dollars on scrapbooking supplies, when your scrapbooks filled with reclaimed do-dads look just as awesome for mere pennies.
20. The concept of spending $25 dollars or more to get your nails done is as foreign to you as the concept of riding an ostrich around your yard.

Does the list above make you say, “It’s like Daisy knows me!!!”?

Reallocating money for prepping demands some sacrifices. Freeing up the money you need to prepare means that you can’t necessarily keep up with the Joneses.  Trust me, though, the time will come when the Joneses would trade their big screen TVs, their brand new SUVs and their fancy gym memberships in order to keep up with you.

One of the easiest ways to save money is also one of the simplest.  For some people, it’s one of the most difficult.

Stay home.

That’s it – nothing fancy at all.  Just stay home more.

Now, before the flurry of emails begins, I’m not suggesting that you become a mad hermit up on a mountain, only trekking to the village on foot once a year to buy salt and sugar.  In fact, as I write this, I’m on vacation with my daughters.  (The first one in five years!)

Actually being on vacation is what inspired me to write this.  I noticed some of the little things we spend money on when we’re out and about.  Because I work from home, I am not “tempted” by all the things there are to spend money on very frequently.  While I don’t think that we should stop enjoying life, during your everyday, non-vacation life, there are a lot of financial benefits to finding most of your entertainment, companionship,skyrocketing, you’ve probably noticed the pain each time you go to the pumps.

Following, see some of the easy ways that staying home more often can save you money.

Transportation Costs

• Group your errands. Obviously, you have to go to work and run errands.  By grouping these things into fewer outings, however, you will save money on fuel.  Stop by the grocery store on the way home from work instead of making a special trip on the weekend. If you go to a gym, go on the way to work and use the showers there.  If your kids are involved in activities, consider doing some errands while they are engaged instead of dropping them off, going home, and going out again to pick them up.
• Walk.  Are you within walking distance of any of the things you have to do?  If so, walk to the Post Office on your lunch break.  Walk to work and school if you’re near enough.  Not only will your wallet thank you, so will your health.

Food and Beverages

We live in a pretty rural area.  We do our major grocery shopping trip once a month because it’s a long drive. While we always take some drinks and snacks, nearly every single time we end up buying something during our time away.  Maybe it’s a treat like ice cream in the summer or hot chocolate in the winter or even lunch at a restaurant.  Since it’s only once a month, I plan this into the budget.  However, when you’re out every day, these treats really begin to add up.

• Bring your lunch, your drinks, and your coffee.  When I worked outside the home, I always brought my lunch and refilled my water bottle at the cooler.  Many of my coworkers went out for fast food every day at lunch.  They came in with a drive-thru coffee cup in their hands, went to the vending machine for a coke and a bag of chips.  When you hit a drive-thru every time you go out the door, the price of leaving home goes up.
• When you grocery shop, make a plan.  When you go out for the explicit purpose of buying food and beverages, it’s best to make a list.  Bring a drink with you, so you aren’t tempted to grab an overpriced bottle of water.  Eat before you go so that everything in the store doesn’t looks so delicious that it makes its expensive, full-price way into your cart.

Entertainment

It seems like a lot of people can’t have fun at home anymore.  Maybe I have a warped perspective of fun, but I really enjoy gardening, doing arts and crafts with the kids, making popcorn and watching a movie together or just reading a book.

Our society has become so overstimulated that people constantly require more and greater stimulation in order to not feel “bored”.  Take for example the folks who are glued to their iPhones while spending time at a place that should be entertaining in and of itself.  We once saw an entire family at a restaurant, each with their own device out, eating food and ignoring one another.

Because we don’t go out that often, I guess it’s more of a treat, so we are fully engaged in it.  I’ve noticed that going to the backyard to play is no longer interesting enough – it has to be a water park or an amusement park for many kids to be excited about it.

• By learning to entertain ourselves simply we can get a lot more happiness out of a lot less money.  By developing some productive hobbies, we can be creative while meeting needs.  By being active in our pursuits instead of passively entertained, we can be healthier in mind and body.
• And while we’re on the topic of entertainment – shopping should not be “entertainment”.  When you shop as “something to do” you are bound to spend money on something you don’t need.  I have daughters, and they really don’t love my theory on this, but we shop when we need to get something.  We don’t just go hang out at the mall.  If it’s time to buy some school clothes, I allot a certain amount of money and time, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.  I do the same thing with Christmas shopping.  The mall is fraught with ways to drain your money – you get thirsty and buy a bottle of water or another drink.  You weren’t hungry but the smells from the food court are so tantalizing you can’t resist.  That display in front of the store has doohickeys that are ONLY a dollar.

It’s Not You, It’s Them

Don’t feel bad if you’ve read the suggestions above and recognized yourself.  People go to college for 4-6 years just to learn how to part you and your money.  Advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry.  Western society is based on commercialism.

A 2007 article in the New York Times said that the average city dweller is subjected to more than 5000 ads every single day.  It’s a barrage that hits you not only when leaving your house, but when turning on the radio, surfing the internet and watching television.

Add this to the endangered list: blank spaces.

Advertisers seem determined to fill every last one of them. Supermarket eggs have been stamped with the names of CBS television shows. Subway turnstiles bear messages from Geico auto insurance. Chinese food cartons promote Continental Airways.US Airways is selling ads on motion sickness bags. And the trays used in airport security lines have been hawking Rolodexes.

Marketers used to try their hardest to reach people at home, when they were watching TV or reading newspapers or magazines. But consumers’ viewing and reading habits are so scattershot now that many advertisers say the best way to reach time-pressed consumers is to try to catch their eye at literally every turn.

“We never know where the consumer is going to be at any point in time, so we have to find a way to be everywhere,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive at the Kaplan Thaler Group, a New York ad agency. “Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.”

Recognizing that you are the target of commercialism run amok is the first step in resisting the marketing schemes.  Your awareness that you are being manipulated makes you less likely to think, “Wow, that sounds great!  I have to have it!”

Be sure that you are the one who decides where your money should be spent.  Identify your priorities (preps, your stockpile, a better location, lessons that will improve your chances when/if the SHTF) and avoid the marketing machine as much as possible.

By centering your life around your home,  you can stay focused on your goals.  You can begin to see your home as a retreat from the stressors of the world instead of a grim place you’re trapped.

People all over the globe are struggling right now to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.  In the United States and Canada, we’re watching many more people than we’ve seen in nearly a decade plunge into poverty due to our failing economy.  We’re losing jobs, paying higher expenses, and getting slapped with medical bills that we won’t make enough money to pay for in this lifetime.

For some folks, tips like the ones that follow would not be helpful because their situations have become so dire.  For the rest of us, though, there are many places that we can cut the budget in order to survive in the new economic paradigm. Frugality is a viable alternative lifestyle.

You may not want to make changes.  You may not want to sacrifice those little luxuries.  You may feel like you “deserve” them or that you have “earned” them.

First, please get out of your mind the phrase, “I work hard and deserve this chocolate thingamabob while someone paints my toenails for me” or any combination thereof.

You may work hard, but rationalizing poor spending habits is a surefire way to remain broke forever. Now, please don’t misunderstand – you don’t have to be miserably unhappy, grimly plodding through a life bereft of any pleasures. You just have to change your perspective, and that can take a little tough love.

Even small savings matter

Making some small changes in your day-to-day habits can actually add up to huge savings.  And before you say, “Oh, that’s only $2, it doesn’t matter” think about this.

Two dollars, saved on a daily basis over the course of a year, is $730.

If you save $2 on 4 different things, that total is $2920.

Sure, if you’re a multimillionaire homeowner with a paid-off house, yacht, and car, those numbers are small potatoes. But for most of us, a savings of $2920 makes an awfully big difference.

Frugal living tips for any budget

So, look over these small savings and see which of these expenditures you can cut. You can often figure out a way to still have your small luxuries while saving money.

1. Drink water.  Even if you purchase it in $5 gallon jugs with the hot/cold dispenser, it’s still the best deal around, with the added bonus of being good for your health.  Skip the soda pop, juices and sports drinks. Also, skip the individual bottles of water because those can be just as pricey as buying a soda. Coffee and tea that you make at home are also very inexpensive.
2. Join a Farm Co-op.  You can get baskets of produce for more than half the year at a fraction of the price.
3. Stop buying coffee in the drive thru on your way to work every day.  You can save anywhere from  $300-1300, depending on whether you are a Tim Hortons/Dunkin Donuts/Starbucks person. If you absolutely adore your coffee, make it at home and put it in a nice to-go mug for your commute.
4. Brown bag it.  Bring a healthy lunch from home instead of spending $5 or more each work day on your lunch. The peer pressure to go out with friends from the office can make this difficult but stand firm.  If there are 260 workdays in a year, and you save a minimum of $5 on each one of those workdays, at the end of the year, you’ve tallied up $1300!!! (and these days, a $5 lunch is tough to find – you’ll most likely be spending closer to $10, which means your savings is closer to $2600.)
5. Skip the meat – consider 2 meatless meals per week, or at the very least make meat a condiment instead of a main dish.
6. Cancel cable or satellite.  Yes, the kids will complain.  Yes, it will suck at first.  Then you’ll learn to do other things and it won’t bother you at all. If you still want to watch television and movies, get an Amazon Prime or Netflix membership for viewing and pay less than $10 per month. (Prime also offers a music service, a photo service, and a Kindle Lending Library service, making it a better investment.)
7. Lower your thermostat.  The Consumer Energy Center says that for every degree you lower your heat under 70 degrees F, you can save up to 5% off your bill.  Look into other ways to stay warm.
8. Don’t use credit cards. If you must, because of an expense account, be sure to pay it off in full before the interest can kick in.
9. Check your insurance rates. Shop around for car and home insurance to be sure you are getting the best price. This can be a recurrent savings of up to hundreds of dollars.
10. Grow some of your own food. You don’t need a farm to grow some of your own veggies and herbs. You can also consider sprouting for fresh off-season greens at a fraction of the price of grocery store sprouts or produce. (I’ve had much better luck with the sprouting kits than with makeshift sprouters I’ve created – for me it was $20 well-spent)
11. Find the best phone plan.  For some it may be Skype, for others it may be a cell phone instead of a landline and for still others, especially those who make a lot of long-distance calls, it may be a VOIP service with unlimited national calling.  We went for years with no phone except for Skype.
12. Take shorter showers – this can save you up to $100 per year, depending on your water rates and your cost to heat the water.
13. Make homemade pizza instead of ordering delivery.  At the very least, go pick the pizza up to save yourself delivery charges and tip. In our house, Friday night pizza-making is a beloved family tradition.
14. Set up a clothesline. Hanging your clothes to dry instead of using an electric dryer can save over $300 per year.  You can set up a clothesline outside,or, if you live somewhere dusty like me, get a foldable drying rack, or devise something in your laundry room for drying clothing.
15. Wash in cold water. Washing your clothes in cold water can save $50 per year – plus your clothes will last longer.
16. Don’t throw away your leftovers.  You can collect small amounts of left overs and combine them into something totally new.  We often keep a container in the freezer for leftover veggies.  Later we add them to soups or pot pies.  Sometimes we have enough miscellaneous leftovers to create an entirely new meal, which is like free food!  Another option is what my kids call “leftover buffet” – all the leftovers go out on the counter and the kids can pick and choose their items – the ovenproof dish gets heated up and voila – TV dinner is served!  If you have a few servings of dinner left over, put them in single serving containers so that you can grab them for lunches throughout the week.
17. Eat at home.  If you cut meals out to one a month, you can save up to $3000 per year for a family of four.  As well, when it is a rare occurrence, it’s much more of a treat.
18. Shop secondhand.  Hit up thrift stores, Craigslist, Ebay, and yard sales before purchasing items new.  Seek and ye shall very often find what you need for a fraction of the price.  Also, check out “Freecycle” – a website dedicated to unloading unwanted things at no charge.
19.  Stay healthy.  Sometimes this is easier said than done, but by taking precautions like washing your hands and avoiding sick people you can reduce your risk of becoming ill.  Also, good nutrition, vitamins, exercise and sunshine all help to boost your immune system.  Being sick results in lost wages, money spent on trips to the doctor,  and expensive medications.
20. Prep your food ahead of time.  Nothing says “drive thru” like a gnawing hunger pain in your stomach on your way home from work.  Spend time on the weekend prepping your food for the week ahead so that you are able to have dinner on the table in less time than it takes to wait in line at a fast food restaurant.
21. Skip the gym and take your workout outside.  Walk, run, bike, or hike and save those monthly fees.
22. Quit smoking.  Need I say more?
23. DIY your hair color.  At the very least, touch up your roots at home.
24. Speaking of hair – consider simplifying.  Try to stretch the time between hair cuts, learn to trim your hair yourself, forgo the fancy highlights and procedures, and cut back on the products.  I realize not everyone is as enthusiastic about the ponytail as I am but see where you can simplify.
25. Ditch the fake nails.  I used to have a friend that insisted it was necessary to her job to have perfectly manicured fingers. No.  If you are not a professional hand model, it’s not.  Either learn to do it yourself or simplify to short neat fingernails buffed to a shine.  I sincerely doubt any person ever lost a job for not having artificial nails.
26. Clip coupons.  Coupons can often net you big savings, but not always. Be sure to compare with the price of the less expensive store brands – sometimes coupons aren’t that great of a deal. As well, another risk with coupons is that you’ll buy something you wouldn’t normally purchase. Make sure the item is something that would be on your list anyway.
27. DIY cleaning products. Skip the fancy cleaning supplies and use household items like white vinegar and baking soda to keep your house spotless.
28. Repair instead of replace.  In our disposable society, most  people say “Oh, it’s only $3 – I’ll get a new one.”  Repairing items isn’t just a way to save money – it’s a great way to improve your skills.  Learn skills like mending, darning, welding, simple electrical and mechanical repairs and minor carpentry.
29. Skip the doggie beauty salon.  Learn to groom your dog at home.  For the price of one trip to the groomer, you can purchase quality nail clippers and a good brush.  Use human shampoo and brush your pet frequently to reduce matting.  If your dog requires trimming on a regular basis, consider getting professional quality clippers and learning to give her a cut, or at the very least, stretching out the visits with a bit more time in between.
30. Stay home.  When you stay home, you aren’t spending money on gas, drinks, food and shopping.  If you are the type of person that needs the social aspect of going out, take your own water bottle and picnic lunch, and focus on free activities like going to the dog park, the museum on free-admission days, and the splash pad with the kids.

If you used every one of these tips, you would save, literally, thousands of dollars per year. And they’re all small things, a dollar here, a quarter there. But I’m sure you can see how they add up.

You can use one of these suggestions or all of them.  Be creative and come up with your own ways to save that work well with your life.

There’s a big movement towards frugality afoot these days. It probably has something to do with our declining economy, record unemployment levels, and the increasing price of food, but only the wisest families are paying attention to these things. The rest of the folks are blithely going on as they always have, wondering why on earth they keep spending more money each week at the store.

If you are just beginning to move towards a thriftier lifestyle, you might be looking at the big picture.  You could be asking yourself things like, “How can I save money on my car?” or “How can I pay less for that new laptop?”  These are all fine things to do – paying less is great, but shopping for a bargain is actually not the key to a frugal lifestyle.

Living a life of thrift and frugality is all about the little habits. It’s about your mindset.  Saving money on enormous expenditures is great, but it is the small daily actions that add up and change your life.  Truly frugal people absolutely LOVE saving money. Embrace these daily habits and make them your own. You’ll soon see an incredible difference in the way you look at pretty much everything.

1. Frugal people use everything right to the last drop. If you go to someone’s home and notice that their ketchup bottles are upside-down in the refrigerator, their toothpaste tube on the bathroom counter is tightly rolled and held in place with a clothespin, and the contents of the liquid soap pump look mysteriously watery, you may be visiting a fellow frugal person. We don’t like to waste stuff, so we use things right to the last drop, until there is absolutely no life left in it.  We use rubber spatulas to get one more sandwich from the peanut butter jar. (I even have a special skinny rubber spatula that I purchased for the express purpose of scraping out containers in the kitchen.) We extend our dish soap with a little bit of water. What others throw away, we see as a personal challenge.  I don’t know about you, but I get a little rush seeing how many more bangs I can get for my buck when using things that most folks would consider empty.
2. Frugal people like to stay home. Going out costs money. I’m lucky enough to work from home, so I don’t have the daily temptations that folks do who go out to work. First there’s the peer pressure. In my old workplace, I was one of the few people who brought my lunch.  Each day, the other ladies would spend half an hour deciding where they were going to go for lunch together. Then there are transportation costs and incidentals. Thirsty? A bottle of water is just $1. I’m not saying that you need to be a hermit on a mountaintop, trekking into the village on foot once a year for salt, sugar, and a box of oranges to offset scurvy, but you don’t have to go out every single day. If you have the day off, why not enjoy your home and your family instead of heading out to an activity that is going to cost for admission, refreshments, and a snazzy item from the gift shop?
3. Frugal people don’t spoil their children. This may not make you popular now, but later, your kids just might appreciate it.  When my kids were in public school, I was astonished at the cost of various activities and events.  There were $40 field trips, $5 “pizza days”, and special $50 hoodies with the school emblem. As a single mom with two kids in school, there was no way I was just forking out the money for this stuff. So, when the girls came home with forms and asked for money, I made a list of extra chores they could do around the house to earn the money for the activity.  If they didn’t feel it was worth a little extra work for them, I certainly wasn’t going to hand them my hard-earned cash for it. They learned the value of work, the relationship between work and getting stuff, and that sometimes, what they paid for just wasn’t worth the effort of earning the money for it. As well, they came to appreciate special meals and activities more. I recently took them on a vacation for Christmas and splurged a little. I was touched by how appreciative they were and delighted as I saw them take steps to keep expenses down, like packing a picnic in our little hotel kitchenette instead of planning to eat out all day.  When a child is constantly given everything, they grow up to be less satisfied, and they’re a lot harder to make happy. Those are the kids who grow up to be the adults that trade their cars in every two years and keep remortgaging their homes for things like pools and pricey vacations. It is far more loving to raise your children in an atmosphere that encourages thrift, productivity, and personal accomplishment instead of a silver platter environment.
4. Frugal people have productive hobbies. What do you like to do for fun?  Does it use up resources or produce them? Productive hobbies should teach something, create something, repair something, or improve something. Think back to the days before television.  People worked hard all day long, producing food, cutting wood, cooking, hunting, building…it was a full-time job to survive and thrive.  In the evenings, by candlelight, they could stop and put their feet up for a while.  Books were not widely available like they are now, so families passed the time by performing stitchery, carving, making furniture, mending things, and creating items that made their lives more pleasant and beautiful. Sometimes a family member would read aloud, play an instrument, or sing.  Time was of value and not to be wasted. Most of my hobbies are relatively productive.  Sure, I’ll watch a movie on Amazon, but while I do, I’m crocheting a Christmas present, mending clothes, or making some small item for our home. I like to grow vegetables and flowers. Chickens make me happy.
5. Frugal people don’t shop as a form of entertainment. When you shop as “something to do” you are bound to spend money on something you don’t need.  I have daughters, and they really don’t love my theory on this, but we shop when we need to get something.  We don’t just go hang out at the mall.  If it’s time to buy some school clothes, I allot a certain amount of money and time, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.  I do the same thing with Christmas shopping.  The mall is fraught with ways to drain your money – you get thirsty and buy a bottle of water or another drink.  You weren’t hungry but the smells from the food court are so tantalizing you can’t resist.  That display in front of the store has doohickeys that are ONLY a dollar.
6. Frugal people save pennies throughout every single day. Frugality is a way of life for us. It isn’t saving money on the big things. It is eagerly grasping hold of the challenge of doing everything less expensively. It’s automatically calculating the lowest unit price. It’s making things instead of buying them. It’s choosing to use your own creativity instead of the party supply store’s when throwing a birthday party for your child. It’s putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat. These small daily actions add up to enormous savings and allow you, unlike the greater majority of our society, to live within your means.
7. Frugal people put aside emergency funds. When times are tight, being taken by surprise over a sudden necessity is sure to turn your budget upside down if you haven’t prepared for it. This is why frugal people keep a rainy day fund and a fully-stocked pantry. Then, if the refrigerator groans and breathes its last, if the car grinds to a halt 50 miles from home, or if a family member needs to go to the doctor, it doesn’t put you in a situation where you must be faced with deciding whether to deal with the emergency or keep your electricity on.
8. Frugal people cook from scratch. One of the most certain ways to destroy your budget is to eat food prepared by other people.  Think about it: whether you buy it from a restaurant or from a box on the grocery store shelf, someone spent time making that food.  And you are paying for that!  Those pouches of pre-cooked rice, those rotisserie chickens, that bag of take-out food, or that just-add-water and heat for 10 minutes meal from a box all include the cost of someone else’s labor. If you don’t know how to cook from scratch, there are simple foods you can start with, like soup, steamed vegetables, baked potatoes, and chicken breast. Get an old-fashioned cookbook for simple instructions to make basic foods.
9. Frugal people do things the low-tech way. There are simple ways to save money that don’t show you an immediate return. Things like hanging your laundry instead of using your dryer. Things like putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat. Things like taking it easy in the hottest part of a summer afternoon instead of cranking up the air conditioner. Things like using solar lights as night lights. The list could go on and on, but by reducing your dependence on electricity and natural gas (or whatever your heat source is) you can save hundreds of dollars per year.
10. Frugal people repair things. We live in a society of planned obsolescence. Most things aren’t made to last a lifetime anymore, and our society is happy to just toss their doo-dads in a landfill and go get new ones. Frugal people fix things. We mend our clothes, we repair our appliances, we fix broken furniture, and some of us even do unheard of things like darning our socks. We don’t immediately think about replacement of something broken. Our first step is always to attempt a repair.

Real frugality is all in your head.

Hard-core frugality is not just making a choice to buy the generic brand of laundry soap instead of a jug of Tide with scent beads.  Hard-core frugality is buying the ingredients to make 5 times the amount of laundry soap for half the price of that name-brand detergent, all the while LOVING the fact that Proctor and Gamble are not getting your money.

Being a black belt in frugality takes creativity and an optimistic outlook.  It should never be some grim, sad thing that you have to do.  It should be something that you choose to do.  By finding joy in your non-consumerism, you will be far more successful at it. It becomes a game that you win if you can do something for free that others spend money on.

When you feel like you require less, then you are happy with less.  This means that you have to spend less time working at things you may not truly enjoy to pay for the things that you never actually needed in the first place.  This means that the money that you have goes a lot further and that your life feels a lot more satisfying.

When you finally cross that line between resenting the fact that you have to strictly budget to embracing the fact that by being as thrifty as possible, you have achieved freedom you never dreamed of before, you’ve made the conversion.  You aren’t just acting with thrift until things get better. You, my friend, are one of those truly joyous frugal people that others look to for inspiration.

One of my favorite parts of spring is scrubbing down the entire house, throwing open the windows so the breeze can come through, and hanging rugs and bedding outside.  Maybe it’s weird but I just love spring cleaning.

However, what I don’t love is the expensive, chemical-laden cleaning products from the store.  That’s why I spend some time making my own, from simple, non-toxic ingredients.

It’s quick, frugal, and easy to make non-toxic cleaning products.

That’s why I spend just a few moments of extra time making my own cleaning products, from simple, non-toxic ingredients. I order most of my basic supplies online in bulk and keep them on hand so I can always whip them up as needed.  Not only are you sparing your health, but you’ll save a lot of money with DIY products!

Here’s what you need for a clean home:

• Baking Soda (Save lots of money by buying it in bulk)
• Borax
• Vinegar
• Essential oils in your favorite scents
• Dr. Bronner’s liquid Castille soap in your favorite scent
• Non-smelly cooking oil (I get something inexpensive for this, since we won’t be consuming it)

You can make everything you need from those items.

5 DIY Cleaning Product Recipes

Scouring powder:

• 1 part baking soda
• 1 part borax
• Essential oil of choice

In a mason jar, mix the baking soda with the borax.  Sprinkle in some essential oil. (I like citrus or mint smells for the fresh clean fragrance.)  Combine the mixture well, and put it in a sunny windowsill for a week to let the powders absorb the scent of the oils.  If you aren’t concerned about the fragrance you can use this right away.

Spray surface cleaner #1:

• 2 parts white vinegar
• 1 part water
• Essential oil of choice

Fill a spray bottle with white vinegar and water. Add your favorite essential oils to cover the vinegar smell. This works on non-wood surfaces and glass.

Spray surface cleaner #2:

This one is good for wood surfaces. Mix this up as you go along, because the oil can go rancid.

• 3 parts unscented cooking oil
• 1 part vinegar
• Essential oil of choice

Yes, basically, it’s salad dressing.  I like to add sandalwood essential oil to this because it’s…well, woody. Lots of folks use citrus oil to get that lemon fresh fragrance.  Spray this on wooden furniture and work with the grain.

Hardwood floor cleaner:

Your hardwoods will gleam with this cleaner. If you use it on laminate it will be slippery. This is only for real wood floors.

• 16 parts hot water
• 1 part cooking oil
• 1/2 part lemon or lime juice
• Citrus essential oil

Other floor cleaner:

• 16 parts hot water
• 1 part borax
• 1/2 part Dr. Bronner’s Castille soap
• A few drops of tea tree essential oil
• A few drops of other essential oil for fragrance

If your floor is particularly greasy you can replace half of the water with white vinegar.

Several bargain websites hit the internet about 8 years ago, offering deals on travel, restaurants, and a variety of products sure to please everyone. Two of the most popular sites are Living Social and Groupon. These sites offer lightning, limited time deals and frequently have only a limited number of discounts to sell.

A customer buys an item or pays for an activity and receive a voucher via email. That voucher can then be redeemed directly with the merchant, and you enjoy a very nice discount.

These sites aren’t on the radar of most preppers. It just doesn’t compute – aren’t those sites about discounted spa days, restaurants, museum tickets, and hotels?

Well, yes, definitely, but if you look deeper at what they offer, there is an astounding cornucopia of goods, services, and experiences for the savvy prepper to explore.

What Do They Have for Preppers?

While writing this article, I spent some time browsing through online pages on both websites. I was pleasantly surprised to find cooking classes, firearms safety courses, physical fitness classes, goods and gear to buy – they have a little bit of everything, at least sometimes. (The deals are only for a short time, but many recur if they drive enough business to the merchant.)

As one example, my son and I are going to learn how to make cheese – a whole bunch of different kinds of cheese, not just one or two. Truthfully, I might never have taken the leap into cheesemaking, but I got a great deal on Living Social and my son really really loves cheese, so we’re going to do it together.

Learning how to make cheese is a great prepper skill, plus a great way for the two of us to bond. Who knows? Maybe we’ll end up making cheese together for many years to come. Worst case, I’ve wasted approximately the cost of our family of four going to a single movie at the theater.

The Survival Mom and her husband took a bee-keeping class, thanks to a Living Social deal!

Here are some classes you might find on these websites. They have all been offered at one time or another.

Personal Safety

• Evasive driving techniques
• Simulated tactical shooting situation (not target shooting)
• Krav Maga (unarmed self defense), plus countless other martial arts classes
• Shooting classes

Even paintball could also be a way to simulate a more tactical shooting situation while having some family fun.

Physical Fitness

• Boot camp and gym memberships
• Kayaking, tubing, and canoeing
• 5K races (even the mud, zombie, and colorful ones)
• Skiing
• Aerial adventure parks
• Parkour (think American Ninja Warrior)
• Barre (yes, as in ballet, but for those of us who aren’t flexible ten year olds any more)

The list of possibilities is enormous. If you want to get fit, they want to provide you with the class(es) to do it.

Goods

• Hand-crank solar flashlights
• Reusable water bottles (the super lightweight, foldable kind)
• Home organizers (under bed/closet/hanging)
• Camping backpacks
• Portable hammock (with stand)
• Cast iron cookware
• Knives (all kinds) abound – cooking, diving, pocket, etc.

Food

• Powdered peanut butter
• Tea and coffee, in K-cups or not
• Gourmet beef
• Astronaut ice cream
• Kits to make root beer, cheese, or molecular gastronomy

The deals change constantly, but there is something for everyone. And with the discounts they offer, it’s a whole lot easier to take a risk and try something new.

When we think of preparing for emergencies, conventional wisdom tells us to stockpile food and water, know how to shut off our home utilities, and have a family plan. I can watch videos on the Internet and read books to learn preparedness skills. I have a plan and supplies to take my pets with me if I have to evacuate. So is that it? Am I done?

I would argue that there is a way to take your preparedness to the next level by becoming a volunteer. You can learn prepper skills through volunteer work without having to spend a dime on that training.

My advice on volunteering is mostly selfish as someone who has worked in the emergency response field for many years. I’m suggesting a fair exchange of your valuable personal time for knowledge, skills, and abilities that will increase your level of emergency preparedness and provide much needed help for the multitude of emergency agencies that exist. You would be surprised how much you can learn, how many like-minded people you can meet, and how your confidence can swell with focused, goal-oriented volunteer service.

In many ways, volunteers are in a better position to define their experience with their organization than if they were an employee. In many cases, the employer-employee relationship is coercive, with the money exchanged held over the employee’s head. The special status of the volunteer, sacrificing their time for no reimbursement, can open opportunities that are generally only available to paid staff.

I’ll make the case for learning prepper skills through volunteer work

I first volunteered in high school, through my school’s Key Club. I represented our school in a wheelchair-a-thon for a local charity; people pledged an amount for each lap I could complete around the ¼ mile school track. I surprised myself and others when I was able to push my wheelchair a full 5 miles that day…and I gained the perspective of the limitations of being confined to a wheelchair.

Over the years, other volunteer stints included:

• Time as a police Explorer Scout, where I learned law enforcement culture, leading to a future job as a city cop
• Volunteer firefighter, where I learned fire suppression and rescue skills, and gained lifelong friends
• Disaster Medical Assistance Team member, leading to disaster deployments across the country and a chance to develop leadership skills
• Currently a member of Team Rubicon where I just spent a weekend learning chainsaw skills and hanging out with patriots.

My investment in these opportunities was the effort spent looking for a good volunteer opportunity, my time, and attention.

Step 1: Road map to success

A first step is making an honest assessment of what you need to learn, as a prepper. Let’s say your weakness is in communications. You never even had a CB radio. Most communities have an Amateur Radio group associated with a police or fire department to provide communications support in emergencies. These groups are known by different acronyms like RACES or ARES, but all provide valuable opportunities to learn about radio communications and an inside view of their hosting agency, in exchange for a few hours of your time here and there.

If you’re going to learn prepper skills through volunteer work, you must first identify what it is you need to learn.

Want to increase your cooking skills on a shoestring budget? Volunteer for a soup kitchen. Don’t know the difference between a ball peen hammer and a cat’s paw? Habitat for Humanity will get you squared away. Building a house piece by piece will give you an extraordinary range of skills. And no outfit will teach you flexibility and give you more front-line experience with victims better than the American Red Cross. Their Disaster Action Teams help people every day in communities across the country. In addition, most communities have a “Volunteer Center” that helps steer prospective volunteers to appropriate volunteer groups that need help.

Step 2: Focus and Commit

You won’t achieve your goals and meet your needs if you approach volunteering in a half-assed manner. Volunteer-based groups go through hundreds of prospects before finding a person that can follow directions, take whatever entry-level training they require, and show up to meetings and events as expected. Believe me, once you are assessed to be a reliable volunteer that can follow rules and directions, opportunities will open up. Every group has an “old guard” that carries the institutional knowledge of the group, and if approached respectfully they love to pass on their knowledge no matter what the subject.

The training or opportunity that is your primary interest may not be immediately available. While you wait, make it a point to show up for as many events or work details as you can. Remember that volunteer organizations know that 80% of the needed work is done by 20% of their people. So be one of the 20% and they will invest in you.

Step 3: Assess your contribution vs. your gain

Volunteer as long as it meets your needs. There may come a time when you feel that it is no longer a good match for you…that’s OK! End your service to the group gracefully and move on, the need for good volunteers always exceeds the number available. On the other hand, if you have organizational or leadership skills, work your way up within a group; your opportunities to learn skills and access training will naturally increase.

Complete the Circle: Share your experience

This is both a suggestion and a challenge: as a volunteer, there area always new volunteers joining your group who need basic information and mentoring. If you are motivated to share information and skills with them, your skill level will increase as well. On the other hand, if that’s not your cup of tea you still need to pass the knowledge you gain as a volunteer to family and friends, increasing their knowledge, skills, and abilities. You invested the time and effort; make sure you can take advantage of what you learned in return.

Author Jim Acosta

As a parent, sometimes I’ve asked my kids to do things they don’t want to do.  (Haven’t we all?)  The biggest key to their success in the endeavour is their attitude.

Scenario #1:

Me: Kiddo, it’s time to swap your winter clothes for your spring clothes. Please go through your closet, sort through your winter clothes and get rid of the stuff that’s too small or that you don’t want anymore.

Kiddo:  I don’t want to!  I hate this! It’s not fair!!!

Kiddo goes through the closet, angrily shoving things in a garbage bag without taking a good hard look at things.  She sulks, pouts and is otherwise miserable.  She gets the job done but makes sure that it is unpleasant for all of us.

Scenario #2:

Me: Kiddo, it’s time to swap your winter clothes for your spring clothes. Please go through your closet, sort through your winter clothes and get rid of the stuff that’s too small or that you don’t want anymore.

Kiddo:  Okay – this gives me a chance to see if there’s anything I can re-purpose, too!

Kiddo goes through the closet, eagerly sorting items into piles.  She comes up with a good stash of ‘new’ materials for craft projects, a bag of donations, and 2 shirts that were buried at the back that she forgot she had.  The job is done and the end result is its own reward.

Switching over to a more frugal lifestyle can be just like the above scenarios.   You can embrace it and relish the challenge of it, or you can sulk, pout, and be absolutely miserable.

Sometimes a reader comments on my website or sends me an email telling me that by preaching a frugal lifestyle, I am, in fact, giving in to the financial elite who have destroyed our nation’s economy.  They feel that I should be recommending other types of resistance.  They say, “Why should I have to do that when THEY have trashed our economy?  Why should I do without?”

I understand, truly, where these readers are coming from.  They’re right – we shouldn’t have to be thrifty because the “elite” have trashed the economy for everyday people.  However, I choose to.  I opt to live a frugal, non-consumer lifestyle because of my personal experiences. Disengaging from the uncaring financial machine has provided me with a freedom I never had when I was pulling down close to six figures.

The Story Behind My Advent into Cheapskatery

I suffered some great financial losses back in 2010. I lost my house, my car, and my business.  We had been living frugally in comparison to many people, but not frugally enough to counteract that personal economic disaster. Looking back, I’m not sure if any amount of frugality could have really made a difference.

It was a devastating blow, and it came right on the heels of the loss of my dear father.  We became even more thrifty of a necessity, and I resented the need to do so every single time I stepped into a mall, purchased groceries, or emptied my bank account on payday to keep the utilities on and a roof over our heads, with nothing extra left over for fun, or even secondary needs.  It was a very grim time for our family.

When the depression began to lift, I saw that getting out from under that mountain of debt had actually provided me with a gift of enormous freedom. I realized that my life could take a different turn. I was no longer tied to anything.

And that’s when I began to embrace my cheap side.

I realized that I no longer needed to buy into the system that had been the source of my economic collapse. By supporting them, I wasn’t supporting us. By being as self-sufficient as possible, by cutting my spending, and by not needing “the system”, I was winning.  I was becoming truly free.

When an entity has nothing to hold over your head, all the options are your own.  You can make your decisions based on what is good for you and your family, not on what terrible things might happen to you if you don’t “toe the line.”

Embrace your cheap side

Hard-core frugality is not just making a choice to buy the generic brand of laundry soap instead of a jug of Tide with scent beads.  Hard-core frugality is buying the ingredients to make 5 times the amount of laundry soap for half the price of that name-brand detergent, all the while LOVING the fact that Proctor and Gamble are not getting your money.

When you can cross that line between resenting the fact that you have to strictly budget to embracing the fact that by being as frugal as possible, you have a freedom you never dreamed of before, then you have begun to embrace your cheap side.

Being a black belt in frugality takes creativity and an optimistic outlook.  It should never be some grim, sad thing that you have to do.  It should be something that you choose to do.  By finding joy in your non-consumerism, you will be far more successful at it. It becomes a game that you win if you can do something for free that others spend money on.

When you feel like you require less, then you are happy with less.  This means that you have to spend less time working at things you may not truly enjoy to pay for the things that you never actually needed in the first place.  This means that the money that you have goes a lot further

You might be a cheapskate if….

Here are some surefire signs that you are embracing your cheap side:

1. Before throwing anything in the garbage you take a few seconds to ponder how it might be reused, and then either compost it, put it aside for a re-purpose, or you turn it into a homemade “log” for your fire.
2. You have an ice cream tub in your freezer nearly full of odd bits of leftovers, awaiting their reincarnation into “leftover casserole” or “leftover soup”.
3. It’s physically impossible for you to drive past an interesting-looking garbage pile at the curb during somebody else’s spring cleaning frenzy.
4. Your first stop at the grocery store is the “last day of sale” rack in each department.
5. Your kid looks at a necklace or pair of earrings at the “cool” store and scoffs, “We could make this.”  Then she puts it back and asks you to take her to the thrift store for items to disassemble for the supplies to make her own accessories.
6. A day of yard-saling is planned out like a military invasion: you have a Mapquest route of at least a half dozen sales, a thermos full of coffee, a wallet full of small bills, and a list including measurements of all empty spaces in your home that need to be filled, kitchen items you are seeking, books your daughter wants to read, and upcoming birthdays.  Your alarm is set the night before, a blueberry muffin is wrapped up and ready to go on the counter, and your comfy clothes are laid out.
7. If something must be replaced or purchased, you always look for a used version first before doling out the money for a new one.
8. You know how to darn socks….and you do it.
9. You wash and re-use sandwich baggies, and you’ve even rigged up a little drying rack for them beside your sink.
10. You are outraged at the idea of spending $18 on a jug of laundry detergent because you could make a year’s supply for that amount of money.
11. You have recently advised your child to cut off that teeny bit of mold on the brick of cheese because the other side is just fine.
12. You don’t carve the Jack-o-Lanterns until the day before Halloween so that you can cook, puree, and can the pumpkin the day after Halloween.
13. You have (and use) a clothesline.  Year round.
14. You know how to repair a plastic clothes hamper by “welding it” with a bread tag and a hot glue gun.
15. The dish soap beside your sink is actually 50% dish soap and 50% water.

How to Become a Happy Non-Consumer

Be grateful.  An “attitude of gratitude” is the most vital part of embracing your cheap side. If you’re happy with what you’ve got, you will find that you “need” far less than you did before.  That’s because you aren’t seeking some momentary hit of joyous adrenaline by purchasing something.  That rush rarely lasts and you’re just left with more stuff and less money.

Be creative.  How can you make something, save something, or repair something in a totally original way?  Embrace the challenge and tap into your creativity – you may just discover that, in your originality, you’ve come up with something far better than the purchased alternative. (We’ve found this to be especially true with fashion accessories, home decor, and birthday parties!)

Give.  Don’t let your pursuit of frugality make you stingy.  There are always people who are worse off than you. It’s important to give a hand up to those people.  If your kids were hungry, or cold, or without shelter, wouldn’t you hope that some kind person would help them?  Even at our absolute rock bottom financially, we donated one can of spaghetti sauce and a package of noodles to the food bank every week, which hopefully provided a warm comforting meal for someone who needed it. It isn’t really necessary to debate whether people are truly in need or just milking the system.  That is a subject for them and their consciences.  Just give.  You are responsible for your intentions, not theirs.

Spend your money where it really matters.  We opted to move to a very small community into a drafty little cabin in the woods.  We made this decision as a family, in order to reduce our monthly output.  By getting rid of “city rent” and all of the bills that came with it, we cut our monthly output in half.  This means that I can spend a little extra on high-quality meats and dairy, for example.  When my daughter needs new glasses, it’s not a problem to pay for them.  It means my older daughter can get through college without crippling student loans.

Less need equals more time.  Not only does a thrifty lifestyle mean that I can refocus where my money goes. It means that I can refocus where my time goes.  I don’t have to work quite as hard on stuff outside the home and can focus on farm and family.  I have the time to make hats and scarves instead of purchasing them. I have time to garden and can the harvests.  I have time to perform money-saving tasks like cooking from scratch, which goes into a big happy circle of having more money to put towards important things.

Stay home.  When you stay home more, you are tempted less.  You aren’t thirsty, requiring a beverage. You aren’t hungry, requiring a snack.  You aren’t using the car, requiring gas.  You aren’t tempted by all the colorful and wonderful things in the stores.

Hang out with like-minded people.  It is so much easier to embrace your cheap side if you don’t have people telling you how deprived you are all the time, or berating you for being too cheap to spend $27.85 on a movie ticket, popcorn, and a soda pop.  Most of my closest friends are thrifty.  We swap  clothing, we borrow and lend tools, and we cheerfully hang out without spending a dime.  Instead of going out to sit in a boutique coffee shop sipping a $6 latte with whipped cream, we sit in the garden at one of our houses sipping a coffee that one of us made, along with a nice fresh blueberry muffin.  We enjoy the same conversation we would have had at that coffee shop too. Instead of heading to the mall, we chat on Skype.   When your nearest and dearest are on the same page, life is a whole lot easier.

Turn off the TV.  People go to school for years to study how to make people want what they don’t need.  That great big brainwash box sitting in the living room is a direct pipeline into your brain.  From the beautiful homes on the TV programs, the fancy clothes and cars, and the ads for food, recreation, and new cars, the whole racket is designed to make you feel you what you have now is inferior to what you could have.  Kids are the biggest target of product placement advertising in popular shows.  If you watch TV, limit it.  Become aware of the scams and discuss them with your kids so that they can easily identify how marketers are attempting to manipulate them.  (Confession: we do watch a little bit of TV in our home, and when we do, it’s a big game to identify the hidden ads. While this may sound contrary to the advice to turn the TV off, I believe that some limited viewing coupled with an awareness of the marketing techniques  inoculates my children against the sales pitch.)

The Two Week Challenge

Okay….do you want to get started on your journey to frugality, freedom, and fun?

Make a list of the things that you absolutely require over the next two weeks.  This, for most of us, is the distance between one paycheck and the next.   So, if you need some milk and other supplies, pick that up.  (If you are already a prepper, you probably have enough food to get by for several months!)

Then – lock up your bank card, your cash, and your credit cards (if you use them).  For the next two weeks, I don’t want you to spend a dime.

(Obviously, the bills that must be paid, must still be paid – I’m not suggesting you stiff your landlord or skip a car payment!)

But for EVERYTHING ELSE…..put it off for two weeks.

Every time you have the urge to spend money, write it down.  (You can cheer yourself along by promising to make this purchase when the two weeks are over, if you still want it.)  You are going to be AMAZED at the things you spend money on, as well as the amount that you would have spent.

Come up with creative solutions for your “needs” and most likely, you will discover that they were actually “wants.”

So for two weeks you will NOT be purchasing….

• Additional groceries
• Drive-thru coffee
• Take out pizza
• Movie tickets
• New clothes
• Books and magazines
• That adorable pair of shoes – you know, the ones that are ON SALE!!!!
• Gasoline (unless this is absolutely necessary for work – but try to get by on one tank of gas if you aren’t a commuter)
• A candy bar or a pack of gum (easy since you won’t be at a checkout stand – right?)
• Music downloads
• Greeting cards
• Special ingredients for a meal
• A sweater for the dog
• A throw pillow for the sofa

You get the idea.  If you cannot go for two weeks without spending money on any of the above, it might be time to take a critical look at how you’re living your life.  What will you do if you lose your job? If the economy gets worse? If all of your money goes to keep a roof over your head and you have nothing left for discretionary spending, it’s going to be far worse to have that lifestyle forced on you by circumstances.

At the end of the two weeks, take a look at your handy-dandy notebook and tally up the money you would normally have spent.  Are you surprised?

*******

To switch over to a frugal lifestyle successfully, you really have to want to do it. If you’re constantly bemoaning what you don’t have, you’ll be miserable.  If you are resentful that you can’t have “stuff” then you won’t stick to your frugal plan.  The most important thing of all is to switch off your personal “want” button.  When you don’t want or need the things that the  big corporations are selling, then you are suddenly free of their restrictions.  You are no longer a slave to the wages you must earn to pay for the things they tell you that you should have.  You don’t have a lifestyle built on expectations, debt, and the never-ending search for happiness bought from a store.

How often do you hear people talk about how they would live their dreams if they only had a bit more money?  People always dream about moving to a remote area or about staying home with the kids or about relocating to the bug-out location, but often feel that these things are financially unreachable. Do you do this yourself?

If so, then maybe it’s time to take a good hard look at your finances and enact a personal austerity plan to radically cut expenses.  Most people would be surprised at the changes that can be made when they rethink the definition of the word “necessities”.

aus·tere

   [aw-steer]

adjective

1.severe in manner or appearance; uncompromising; strict; forbidding.

2.rigorously self-disciplined and severely moral; ascetic; abstinent3.

grave; sober; solemn; serious.

4.without excess, luxury, or ease; limited; severe.

5.severely simple; without ornament ; lacking softness; hard

With the gloomy economic forecast, it’s not reasonable or rational to expect things to improve in the near future.  If you want to be somewhat immune to the financial difficulties coming down the pipe, you need  to perform a financial makeover to pare down the monthly output to the bare minimum.

Does this sound kind of grim?  It’s not – decreasing your monthly output provides a different kind of safety net.   You can end (or at least reduce) your slavery to the system, where the government helps itself to at least 30% of your paycheck through payroll deductions.  With your newfound freedom, you may discover that you have the money to start a business, relocate, or cut back your work hours to spend more time doing the important things in life.

Devastating financial changes are coming to a location near you.  Wouldn’t you prefer to make the cuts now and adjust accordingly, instead of having them forced upon you through evictions, foreclosures, repossessions, and other painful methods?

 Redefining necessities

If your finances are out of control, the best possible reality check is a stark look at what necessities really are.  It is not necessary to life to have an iPhone, a vehicle in both stalls of your two-car garage, or for your children to all have separate bedrooms.  People in Southern and Eastern Europe right now will tell you, as they scramble for food, basic over the counter medications like aspirin, and shelter, that “necessities” are those things essential to life:

• Water
• Food (and the ability to cook it)
• Medicine and medical supplies
• Basic hygiene supplies
• Shelter (including sanitation, lights, heat)
• Simple tools
• Seeds
• Defense Items

Absolutely everything above those basic necessities is a luxury.

So, by this definition, what luxuries do you have?

Some are more important than others, based on your lifestyle and might be considered secondary necessities.   You might require transportation, work clothing, a computer and an internet connection, electrical appliances, a cell phone – you are the only person who can define which are these are luxuries and which are secondary necessities.  It’s essential to be truly honest with yourself and separate “wants” and “I really enjoy having this” and “the kids will complain without it” from “needs”

For example, I am a freelance writer who lives in a remote area.  Without an internet connection and a laptop, I have no work.  For me to make a living, therefore, my computer and monthly internet bill are a necessity.  However, because I work from home, a fashionable work wardrobe is not important to me.  I can wear jeans and a t-shirt to work every single day, and it won’t affect my career at all.  If you have to go out to a job in customer service, for example, then perhaps a computer and internet connection would be less important than a good-looking career wardrobe.

My Personal Austerity Plan

A couple of years ago, I began to see the writing on the wall for my own personal finances. I’m a single mom and my former husband is deceased, so there is no child support coming in.  So as far as raising these children goes, I’m the only game in town.  I realized that the industry I had been working in for many years was very shaky (automotive) and that I’d better get my financial house in order.

I began to cut expenses as quickly as possible.  I was making a very good income and our lifestyle had “improved” with each pay raise and promotion.  Although these changes were not incredibly popular with the kiddos, I made them ruthlessly.  I made the following adjustments:

• Moved from a 4 bedroom home to a small 2 bedroom
• Cut cable and home phone
• Began providing a limited budget to the kids for school clothes, winter coats, and holiday gifts. If something “better” was wanted, the difference had to be earned
• Made the kids do extra chores for privileges like field trips, vacations, and houseguests
• Began cooking entirely from scratch and limiting meals out to birthdays or long trips
• Got rid of the current model year car and got an older, more affordable vehicle
• Began gardening, preserving bulk foods, and shopping through mail order sources

These efforts paid off within a few months, because my prediction was right – I got downsized.  Had my expenses been at their former level, we would have struggled to keep the electricity on and food in the cupboards.

When I lost my job, I began looking for ways to make money from home.  I was fortunate and picked up some freelance jobs pretty shortly, but I realized that I couldn’t make ends meet with what I was making, at least not in my then-current location.

So, I began a search for a less expensive place to live.  The beauty of what I do for a living is that I can live anywhere – I only require a reliable connection to the internet.   Within a few months, we’d located a very distant, very remote little cabin in the North Woods.  We sold a bunch of stuff and then packed up the rest and moved 7 hours north to the boondocks, a move that saved over $1100 per month when compared to city life.

Get a Picture of Where You Are, Right Now

I realize that the changes I made are not changes that will work for everybody.  I’m not suggesting the changes are a whole lot of fun either.  Adjusting your own situation requires a brutal analysis of your expenditures.  If you can’t get your partner or spouse on board, it’s all but impossible to do a complete overhaul.  Kids, however, have to deal with it – expect loud complaints but be firm.

Print off your bank account statements for the past 2 months.  On a piece of paper, track where your money is going.  List the following

• Rent/Mortgage
• Utilities
• Car payments
• Vehicle operating expenses (fuel, repairs)
• Insurances
• Credit card and other debt payments
• Telephone/Cell phone
• Cable/Satellite
• Internet
• Extracurricular activities for the kids
• Extracurricular activities for the adults
• Dining out
• Groceries
• School expenses
• Clothing
• Recreational spending
• Gifts
• Miscellaneous (anything that doesn’t fall into the above categories gets it’s own category or goes here)

Don’t say to yourself, “Well, I usually don’t spend $400 on clothing so that isn’t realistic.”  If you spent it, then it’s realistic.  You are averaging together two months, which should account for those less common expenses.  Brutal honesty isn’t fun, but it’s vital for this exercise.

So….what do you see when you look at your piece of paper with your average monthly expenditures for the past two months?  Are there any surprises?  Did you actually realize how much you’ve been spending?

It can’t continue like this.  The economy will not withstand it.  Step one is to see where you can cut things out right now from the above expenditures.  Can you reduce your grocery bill?  Slash meals out?  Budget more carefully for gift-giving and school clothes?

Design a Plan to Radically Cut Expenses

Step two – this is where the brutal cuts come in.  What can you change about your life?  Where can you reduce expenditures by several hundred dollars monthly?  This is the point at which most people say, “I can’t.”  Most people don’t want to move to a smaller house, get an old car, or go without premium cable.  But this is where you can truly dig in and change your life.

As I said before, everyone’s situation is different.  You may be locked into a mortgage on a huge house in a market that won’t even cover the balance of what you owe.  It could be the same with your vehicle.  Explore all of your options, though, because paying a few thousand dollars to get out from under it could be worthwhile.  Some people could have reached the point where they must begin to default on payments.  That too, is a personal choice. I’m not recommending that you blow off your obligations.  (However, do consider the fact that large banks get bailed out by the government, and everyday people do not.)  Before making decisions like that, be sure to discover all of the potential ramifications, such as repossessions, garnishing of bank accounts, and ruined credit.

Here are some cuts to consider:

1. Move to a smaller house.  Contrary to popular belief, no child ever died because he or she had to share a room with a sibling.
2. Relocate to a small town.  Is it worthwhile to commute to a job in the city from a smaller, less expensive location? This can give you the added opportunity of homesteading and providing for many of your own needs.
3. Get rid of your late model year vehicle.  Look for a decent used vehicle that you can purchase with cash.
4. Cut back to one vehicle or even no vehicles.  Sometimes public transit and your own two feet can provide all of the transportation you really need at a fraction of the price of owning a vehicle.  This varies by location.
5. Stop using credit cards.  This goes for any type of lending system that requires you to pay interest.  Stop accumulating debt.
6. Don’t eat out.  Limit meals out to no more than once a month or special occasions.  Even better, don’t eat out at all.  Dining out, even at a fast food place, is at minimum 4 times more expensive than the same meal prepared from scratch at home. (And far less healthy!)
7. Look for free or low-cost entertainment.  Consider a family YMCA or community center membership instead of gymnastics clubs or private tennis lessons if you need to enroll your kids in some activities. Go hiking, have picnics, explore parks, go to the library, and find out what’s offered for free in your home town. Learn to enjoy productive hobbies like canning, carving and needlework. Switch from cable to Netflix.
8. Use the envelope method to budget for shopping trips.  For back-to-school shopping or Christmas shopping, decide how much you want to spend.  Put that money in an envelope.  As you shop, place each receipt in the envelope.  When the money is gone, it’s gone.  If there’s something else your child desperately wants, then they need to decide what item they’d like to take back to get it.  Be firm and stick to your guns.  This has the added benefit of teaching your children to budget.
9. Reduce your monthly payments by cutting things like cable, cell phones, home phones, and/or gym memberships.  Look at every single monthly payment that comes out of your bank account and slash relentlessly.
10. Shop using the stockpile method.  Shop only the sales and simply replenish your stockpile. Keep shelf-stable food on hand for unexpected financial crunches.
11. Eat leftovers.  Have you ever stopped to think about how much food you throw out every month?  You can often provide a few “freebies” every month by carefully repurposing your leftovers.
12. Stay home.  By spending more time at home, you will spend less money.  You won’t be grabbing a bottle of water, going through drive-thru for lunch or putting fuel in the car.  Learn to treasure you time at home with loved ones – it’s worth more than money.

This is not a comprehensive list – when you look at your personal expenditures,  other ideas will present themselves.

Why Now?

Why is it so important to make these changes?

Because if you don’t change your way of life, the government will.  A job loss will.  Inflation will.

These upcoming cuts won’t hurt the ones who are making the cuts.  Congress members will still get large salaries and raises.  The First Lady will still spend millions of taxpayer dollars on vacations that would make Marie Antoinette blush.  The White House will still serve gourmet meals while Americans are digging through the garbage to stave off hunger.

Realistically speaking, the way things are going, none of us is likely to get a hefty raise.  We’ll be lucky to keep the incomes we have.  But expenses are only going to go up.  To keep the true necessities within reach, we need to reduce our expenditures and put away emergency funds and stockpiles.

Personal bank accounts are being plundered across Europe.  People are not just living paycheck to paycheck – there ARE no more paychecks.  They’re living hand to mouth, hunting and gathering what they can in order to stay fed.

Making some difficult changes now can provide a stable standard of living in a world that is going downhill at breakneck speed. By decreasing your monthly output, you can hang on to necessities.  I’d rather choose my own austerity plan than to have it forced upon me.