Frugal Living/ Simplifying Life

[Seeking Refuge]

I need advice.
I know many of you have made the decision to love more frugally in order to stay at home with your children or because of the negative impact consumerism has on our children and society.

I am at home with three children and am fairly thrifty already but I need to take it to the next level. We may be having a fourth child but in order to do that we are going to have to buy a bigger house. It is feasible to do this but we are really going to have to tighten our belts.

If anyone has any suggestions, advice or resources that might be useful to me please let me know. Thank you so much.


Steph

[3boys4us]

There is another thread about simple living in Personal Growth. I highly reccomend the Tightwad Gazette. It has saved my life.

A big tip for me was if you can't pay cash for something, don't buy it. I use our checkbook for everything. It helps me keep a detailed list of where the $ went and I know exactly how much I have left to spend.

For a bigger house look for a fixer-upper. We bought one. It allowed us to buy a home in a good school district and in an area that's very good. We did a lot of the work ourselves although we did have to hire contractors for certain work.

[Seeking Refuge]

Thank you, I saw the thread on simplifying your life after I posted this. I think I have cleared a fair amount of clutter. Now I am looking for money saving ideas. I like your idea about a fixer upper but there is a limit to what we can do. We are pretty dumb when it comes to that kind of thing. I have good leads on a couple of houses I think we can handle.
Have a good day.

[3boys4us]

I like your idea about a fixer upper but there is a limit to what we can do. We are pretty dumb when it comes to that kind of thing.

Trust me - you can learn real fast when big $ are involved. I never held a hammer before but now ....... One thing we learned from is if the house is true fixer-upper and has been on the market for a while, negotiate. This sounds awful, but lowball them with an offer much less then the market price. They may be so desperate, they'd listen.

[Seeking Refuge]

Thanks for the advice. It came just in time. the realtor just e-mailed me and we have appointments to look at the houses on Saturday. I will be a little more courageous.

Steph