What About Your Lifestyle/Habits Saves You Big $$$ ?

[MrsPete]

We went down to one car about six months ago. DH has worked from home since 2005 and really in the last few years we haven't needed a second car at all, but we're in our early 50s and it felt a little premature to go down to one.

Downsizing to a single car is a great way to save money -- and it's more possible than people like to admit. We could do with one car right now, though it would mean my husband dropping me off at work every day. This idea that every adult should own a car is quite expensive -- both in terms of dollars and in its toll on the environment.

For the first three years of our marriage we only had one car, and -- although it wasn't always convenient -- it was a massive money saver. When I finished college and started teaching in a town 30 minutes away from my husband's job in "the big city", we had to add a car, and -- OUCH! -- did it hurt the budget.

When we retire next year, we will definitely downsize to one car. It's considerably easier now than back when we did it as newlyweds in the 90s. We can call an Uber or order things online.

Another car-related savings: I prefer to drive a small car, and years ago we agreed that we'd buy what I prefer ... and when occasion calls for something larger, we'd rent. We rented a van a couple times when we went on vacation with extended family, and we rented when we moved our kids into college. Renting occasionally is way cheaper than owning the larger, more expensive-to-keep car, and it allows us to have exactly what we need on those occasions,

 

[onegai]

Downsizing my home whenever possible prevents me from filling up the house with unneeded things and saves on the monthly payments. And it forces me to have garage sales to get rid of things I don't need.

 

[FQLover]

Logging every penny I spend in a ledger I have created. You could do it electronically with Excel or other software. I spend 5 minutes at the end of each day and log in that gas I bought on the way home from work, a bag of ice I got while at the gas station, the postage for a package I mailed, whatever.....
I know where my money is going very specifically, and it keeps me in budget, thus meeting my savings goals. It is really quick, too. Not a hassle.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

That's why it was called an EXAMPLE. It was about the actions of the example and not the example itself. It was just something quick I thought of while sitting there typing. It wasn't meant to be the golden ticket for everyone. It was about conveying the "how" to do something.



You do not understand the difference in saving money versus using your saved money to make more money. Your example above is about saving money. It has nothing to do with what I was talking about.



Investing in a chest freezer saves you money. Again, I was talking about using your money to make more money.



For the 3rd (or 4th) time, your examples are about ways to save money. That is not what I was talking about.

If a person does not understand the difference in saving money and using your money to make more money, you will never, ever, everrrrrrrrrr in your life gain wealth. As someone said above, no one ever "saved" themselves into wealth.

I think many people passively invest their savings (retirement fund, stocks, mutual funds... whatever), so I think the pushback on whether or not savings can make you wealthy comes from that mindset (saving = investing). I don't think many believe that sticking money in a basic savings account $5 at a time is going to make them wealthy. So, with your example being an additional job / business, others will tend to quickly disagree. Investing your money is using your money to make more money as well.

Although, reading one of the posts above, it seems like even basic (safe) savings can go a long way!

I had a friend that was living off an inheritance from a grandparent. I asked her how the grands had amassed their $ and she said they didn't even really start saving until their 40's but by then the house was paid and the kids were grown and they just didn't need much. So they just lived frugally and saved the rest. Again, they left my friend enough to live off of for the rest of her life starting in her 30's. I do not know how aggressively they invested / where they kept their $, but they didn't start a side business or anything like that.

My 22 yo daughter just met with a financial planner and by staying home and saving a large sum of money now (the next 2 years) and saving only an additional small monthly amount going forward, they project she will be a "millionaire" at a fairly young age. This plan is to allow her to keep her somewhat low paying job / business (that brings her happiness and fulfillment) as opposed to trying to get into a higher stress but more lucrative field. She will also have to be frugal with her earnings along the way.

I would love it if she had a passion for a high paying profession and could easily earn her way to millionaire, but it's looking like "saving" her way there will be the path she follows. (Where saving = investing.)

 

[crisi]

By the way, you seldom get wealthy leveraging merely your own time. You generally need to figure out a way to leverage someone else's. In my case, I have a dozen consultants that I handle, and each one pays us a bit for each hour they work. If my partner and I wanted to work harder, we'd find more consultants and make more money, but I just do it for vacation cash and she is a single parent - she has other priorities. You are leveraging someone else's time when you buy stocks. Your own time doesn't scale, so unless you can do something that people will pay a lot for (like getting $100,000 for a painting) you probably aren't going to work your way to wealth.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Logging every penny I spend in a ledger I have created. You could do it electronically with Excel or other software. I spend 5 minutes at the end of each day and log in that gas I bought on the way home from work, a bag of ice I got while at the gas station, the postage for a package I mailed, whatever.....
I know where my money is going very specifically, and it keeps me in budget, thus meeting my savings goals. It is really quick, too. Not a hassle.

We still do this....have for many, many years. I use Good Budget. Only use this for groceries and our "general spending" category, which for us is just the amount we have budgeted for each month for fun/miscellaneous/whatever spending. We keep an excel spreadsheet for every other category we have as far as our monthly budget.

 

[DisneyHardin]

my mom passed in 2011. mom survived dad by just shy of 30 years. mom had sold the family home several years earlier (for not a tremendous amount) and spent the last 6 or so years first in assisted living and finally in skilled nursing. despite the much higher cost of living in those places vs. living in her own home she managed to leave an estate, strictly by saving over the years, of half a million dollars (no life insurance, no retirement accounts-strictly savings and cd's).

Your parents are exactly the same story as my Grandparents. They were born in 1926 on farms in a very rural part of KY, but moved to Louisville when they first got married so my Grandfather could get an apprenticeship to be a plumber. He worked fairly low paying jobs and my Grandma was a SAHM to the 6 kids. My mom grew up thinking they were so poor, but all along my Grandma was tucking money away. My Grandfather died 15 years ago, and then my Grandma 2 years ago. She lived in a VERY expensive assisted living the last 4 or 5 years of her life and still left almost $800,000 when she died. She made it all my saving and putting it into CDs, just like your parents. When her health started to go down hill and my Mom took over as her POA, she couldn't believe how much money there was.

 

[DisneyHardin]

Downsizing to a single car is a great way to save money -- and it's more possible than people like to admit. We could do with one car right now, though it would mean my husband dropping me off at work every day. This idea that every adult should own a car is quite expensive -- both in terms of dollars and in its toll on the environment.

My husband wants us to go down to one car (that we own) because he is a Sheriff Deputy and has a take home car now, but I'm the one holding out on selling his truck. We are only paying about $30/month to insure it and it's paid off. I know $30/month x 12 months is $360 we could do something else with, but I just can't seem to let go of it. We hardly ever drive, but it sure is nice to have when we need a truck for something or if my car is in the shop.

 

[shawthorne44]

My husband wants us to go down to one car (that we own) because he is a Sheriff Deputy and has a take home car now, but I'm the one holding out on selling his truck. We are only paying about $30/month to insure it and it's paid off. I know $30/month x 12 months is $360 we could do something else with, but I just can't seem to let go of it. We hardly ever drive, but it sure is nice to have when we need a truck for something or if my car is in the shop.

I'm holding onto our extra car too. My excuse is that we live in the boonies and the nearest car rental place is 30 miles away. So, it is nice when one of ours has to be in the shop. Plus, if we sell it we wouldn't get much for it. 2002 PT Cruiser. Mechanically it is awesome shape.

 

[808blessing]

I had a Tesla a while ago. Just a word of caution...I loved my Tesla, but it took around 9 months to get parts after I was involved in a fender bender. Repair was very expensive. I can’t remember the exact amount, but it was somewhere around $10,000-15,000. The other driver was at fault so her insurance covered it. Damage to my car was minimal, so the cost and the long wait were a shock to us. I sold it after it was repaired because I was afraid if I had another accident it would probably be even more expensive and just as long/longer wait for parts. It was an awesome car though!

I couldn’t thinking about this as I was rear ended by a Tesla this morning and their bumper was tore up!! (We are ok, thankfully.)

We still do this....have for many, many years. We keep an excel spreadsheet for every other category we have as far as our monthly budget.

Here’s my iphone hack. I have a note called Checkbook. Then at the counter or in my car, I just say Siri, add 70 dollars groceries to my Checkbook note. I also “pin” it but I usually just type a few letters into phone search bar if I want to do it silently.
No miss/no excuse budgeting.

 

[barkley]

I'm holding onto our extra car too. My excuse is that we live in the boonies and the nearest car rental place is 30 miles away.

that's if they even have a rental car available. it is impossible to get a rental car most places right now. it's well worth paying that little bit extra for insuring an extra rarely used car to ensure you've got that backup source of transportation available (we are in the boonies too-it's a killer when your primary car's battery decides to totally die and absent a spare vehicle you are hoping a neighbor is around you can call in a big favor from to get you into the nearest town).

 

[dvcgirl67]

I couldn’t thinking about this as I was rear ended by a Tesla this morning and their bumper was tore up!! (We are ok, thankfully.)



Here’s my iphone hack. I have a note called Checkbook. Then at the counter or in my car, I just say Siri, add 70 dollars groceries to my Checkbook note. I also “pin” it but I usually just type a few letters into phone search bar if I want to do it silently.
No miss/no excuse budgeting.

That's a good one....I'll have to check it out.

 

[DisneyHardin]

I'm holding onto our extra car too. My excuse is that we live in the boonies and the nearest car rental place is 30 miles away. So, it is nice when one of ours has to be in the shop. Plus, if we sell it we wouldn't get much for it. 2002 PT Cruiser. Mechanically it is awesome shape.

Thanks - you make me feel better about holding on to ours.

 

[rangerxenos]

We have used Tracfone for a decade, $60 to $80 for a year's service, and that includes a new phone if we want one. We've never run out of minutes, and if I need more texts it's $5 to add them.

Max out your 401k, it's pre tax. My employer matches 25 percent of every dollar I put in, not going to find that rate of return anywhere.

If you have the option, use an FSA account. Again, money you don't have to pay taxes on. I put the maximum I can in, so any co-pays, prescriptions, and other medical out of pocket expenses can be paid with pre-tax dollars.

 

[shawthorne44]

We have used Tracfone for a decade, $60 to $80 for a year's service, and that includes a new phone if we want one. We've never run out of minutes, and if I need more texts it's $5 to add them.

We do that too, and it is amazing. We get the plan that includes data, so ours is a little more. But, I still pay less per month than what I used to pay just in taxes and fees.

 

[shawthorne44]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet. PlayOn software. It is DVR recording software. It makes cord cutting luxurious. I don't know how people deal with all those commercials in the streaming shows.

I built a HTPC (Home Theater PC). You can buy them but I always build our computers. You just need a PC with really good video. Then you buy the PlayOn software. We bought the lifetime subscription that includes eliminating the commercials. Then you add the channels and either download shows then or subscribe to new episodes of shows. Once you subscribe to a show, the software watches for new things in that location on the website and then records them. It records them by playing the show in the background in real time. You tell it what time frame it can record and people generally do wee hours of the morning when no one is on the internet. Since it is real-time, no one can tell that you are recording. Then, (this is the brilliant part) when you watch the show, it strips out the commercials. I can not tell you how happy that made me. Also, there is no buffering problems. Other advantage is that if your service removes the show while you are watching it, you don't notice because you already have all the episodes. I also like that it puts everything we watch into one location. We still have subscriptions to Disney+ and something that has OnePiece on it.

 

[FQLover]

We have I-phones, but I use Boost Mobile as the carrier. We get very good reception and unlimited everything for two phones is $80 a month, tax included. It's the family plan, so I think that adding a third family member phone's would only be another $20 (but I am not 100% sure on that).

It's not as good a savings as TracFone, of course, but it saves big over some other similar plans by Verizon, AT &T, etc.

 

[808blessing]

That's a good one....I'll have to check it out.

So you actually have to create it and title it Checkbook. It’s not an app.

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

I meal plan before grocery shopping so we don’t end up with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that still needs other ingredients. We have a 15 year mortgage. Never buy brand new cars. Automatically have money put into savings each month. Snowballing our debt reduction. Limit eating out. We got rid of cable and just have a couple streaming services.

 

[AlohaNow]

Max out your 401k, it's pre tax.

True, unless it's a Roth 401k.