Your Money or Your Life support thread - Page 2

[MamaMonica]

:LOL I skimmed a lot of the parables. I figure, it's a great concept-and some people might find the info. completely new and maybe it would help them?

I'm all for the down and dirty do the steps work, though

I did the yard sale price on everything, too- trying not overestimate. Went to Edmunds.com to get the car values.

On to step 2! Next Tues. I can figure out if we saved money this month- I did from March 21 onward.

I'm full of tightwad ideas this week after calculating how soon we can pay off the mortgage if we can spend less.

Dh is stringing a clotheline in the basement for drying clothes on rainy or tree-polleny days.

[daylily]

I've started step 2. And I sent dh to an SPCA rummage sale to get a lawn mower, something we truly need, and I gave him strict instructions to buy a lawnmower and ONLY a lawnmower, and he did! He found one for $15, but he was sulky for a few hours b/c of the ban on uneccesary purchases.

Meanwhile, I skimmed ahead to step 3. I was amused to see that in the budget category, "recreation," two of the sub-categories are "drugs" and "booze.":LOL

[MamaMonica]

Great about the lawnmower!

We're purchasing a tent soon to make our vacations cheaper (camping), and definitely don't want a used one after my experience in the REI rental tent (soaked from leaks and the zipper didn't close).

Anyway, a big purchase coming up... I gues our recreation is tamer than "drugs" and "booze" more like rugs and snooze...

[SpiralChrissy]

I have a really hard time tracking my spending. I'm not sure I can commit to that one. But, I'll go thru the book w/y'all and try to cut out spending too. Is that o.k.:

I've decided to set goals for myself around $ each week.
This week I will:
find something cheap to do for date night (if our babysitter isn't sick again )
order cheap items on the menu when I go out to eat with my friends
limit grocery spending as much as possible (this is a hard one for me. I love food)

Anyone else want to set spending goals for the week??
Chrissy

[daylily]

I wanted to share one thing I've observed about my spending: the more I use my library card, the less I spend. This has nothing to do with saving money on *books.* What I see happening, is that I feel a craving to bring stuff into the house, and a bag full of library books seems to satisfy me as much as a cute new shirt. Just think: you can take out home decorating books and look at everyone else's knickknacks and antiques without buying any for yourself. Or you can look at craft books and dream about future projects, etc.

I'm reading chapter six, although I'm still on step 2.

This killed me:

"Frugal, man." That's the cool, groovy way to say "far out" in the nineties. Surfers will talk about frugal waves. Teenage girls will talk about frugal dudes. Designers will talk about frugal fashions. Mark our words!

:

"Hey dude! That's a frugal car!" I suppose, in the nineties, people started with the "f" sound, but got derailed and went with "phat" instead of "frugal."

[MamaMonica]

I feel the same way about the library! Always have lots of books and they seem to satisfy me the same way without any long-term clutter.

Dh always has a book going as well.

The kids love it, too- we don't buy toys much because there's always some new books to check out. Right now I'm checking our books on voluntary simplicity :LOL

[MamaMonica]

Tonight is the big night to do step 3. I have all the categories labelled and totalled ready to calculate life energy as soon as I figure out how to hook the computer into the printer.

[indie]

All of the copies of this book at the library are checked out so I'm on the waiting list. Once I get a copy I'll join up.

[MamaMonica]

Glad to have you joining, indie.

Well, I calculated all my totals and how much of dh's life energy went for each category. Unfortunately, I can't get dh very excited about this.

Back to step 2 for another month!