To correct past financial faux pas, and because we weren't taught to, and now realize it's the right way to do things. In our opinion of course.

Your money goes so much farther if you have a plan for it.

Oh and because from a moral standpoint our consumer driven fast paced psycho American lifestyle makes us sick, and we want to choose something different. Simple living that is.

 

Because for generations, my family has made pennies scream and I know no other way. But it is nice to think of lot of what I was taught in living frugally is really also helping me live a bit greener without thinking about it too much.

 

My husband and I made some really dumb financial decisions in our younger days and have had to work *really* hard to become debt-free. We've manged to do this on one income and while maintaining a pretty nice lifestyle in our opinion. Now that we no longer need to pay off credit cards, yet are used to living on much less money because of the debt pay down, we place the money into savings so we hopefully will never need to turn to credit in the midst of a desperate situation again. Having a big pile off debt hanging over my head and living paycheck to paycheck was a terrible, stressful reality to live in and one that took a toll on me. Something big and awful could always happen to put us back there again, but I would prefer it not to be my/our own stupidity should it happen again.

My husband & I also value giving money to worthy charitable causes and living below our means allows us to "pay God" first, followed by our savings account. So many people have been very generous to us through the years and now we have the opportunity to give back just a bit that was given to us.

:

Also, being "forced" to live a more simple lifestyle to accomplish this goal made me open my eyes to many small pleasures that I wouldn't have otherwise and now I cannot really imagine reverting back to my former frivolous self and truly being happy with that. We gave up television, junky food, silly electronic video games & things galore and instead learned to play chess, took up geocaching & hiking together and I fell into many now beloved (and some even very useful!) hobbies that I wouldn't have otherwise. To me, living more simple and frugal forces you to think outside of the box, brings out the creativity in you, and helps you cultivate a life that is more meaning than the one I tried to buy at the store on credit years ago.

 

I didn't read the other thread, but this is DH and I.

To be honest, I don't know why we are this way. We just are. I think our families have a lot to do with it. DH's family is very frugal - waste not want not, etc. My grandparents were all this way and then my dad went way in the opposite direction. I never knew how much but I always knew they had cc debt and I felt their stress even as a kid so maybe I've avoided that because of those feelings? And I have also seen how having the latest gadgets and the nice cars and the inground pool didn't make them one bit happier.

We also have a long-term goal to be 100% debt free - no mortgage, car loans, etc. and this is a big motivator. I want to own my stuff, not be owned by it.

 

Because I am just tired of the excess.

 

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what are your reasons for keeping a trim budget?

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Because I am just tired of the excess.

Sigh...yep.

I can tell you we keep a trim budget right now because that's all we have. We kept a trim budget before now because it was what kept us going, and able to save some. I can tell you i'm glad we did, because now with this economy, we're hurting, bad. Had we not done what we did, we'd be much worse off. Still, I don't know what our future holds, and i'm scared. We've done everything right, budgeted, saved, lived to a minimum, no excess. And with the downfall of the economy, we're still hurting. Please, to those of you who can live more frugally than you have to, please do. Because you never know when you'll end up like this.

 

We haven't been amazingly frugal lately, but that is going to change for a few reasons:

1. We want to be even more insulated from the economic situation and whatever follows it. So, we're looking at paying off our house faster since it is our only debt.

2. I want my kids to learn frugality as they are growing up so that it is natural and easier for them. I don't believe anyone has ever had a time spending 'extra' money, but it can be very hard to have to adjust downward if you don't know how.

3. I want to be less consumeristic. At heart, I'm not, but my actions don't always match that and I'd like to do better.

4. My Dh is going into ministry and we most likely won't have a ton of extra money when he is in his first call, so I'd like to be used to that standard of living when that time comes.

5. I'd like to give more to causes I believe in. We give embarrassingly little right now, and I want to put my money where my beliefs are!

 

1. We are paying off debt.
2. We are wanting to buy a house with a yard.
3. We will not always have my second (small) income.
4. We will not always have DH's income - we want to retire someday.
5. It is easier to learn to cut back "for fun" than it is for survival. Doing it now makes it a way of life, and not a punishment to be endured when lean times come.

 

We are also tired of the excess. Neither of us sees a need to keep up with the Jones'.

But, we also like having the money to splurge on occasion (go out to a nice dinner, see a play, buy a video game, take a vacation, etc.). And for the long term we have things we would like to do... renovations on the house, traveling, being a SAHM, retiring out in the country someday.

Neither of us was raised to be frugal and it's something we had to learn the hard way early on in our relationship when the dot-com bubble burst. He was out of work for 18 months, I was out of work 3 months, and only working PT for the next 12. It taught us a lot about what we really need to survive... it's just kind of carried over.

 

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Originally Posted by Porcelain Interior To correct past financial faux pas, and because we weren't taught to, and now realize it's the right way to do things. In our opinion of course. Your money goes so much farther if you have a plan for it. Oh and because from a moral standpoint our consumer driven fast paced psycho American lifestyle makes us sick, and we want to choose something different. Simple living that is.

Yes, Yes and Yes

We hit financial rock bottom, and will never put ourselves in that position again..

 

1. Material goods need to be cared for, stored, cleaned, and maintained. I now respect my time and space more. I want only that which serves us physically or emotionally.

2. I want more money for intangibles--travel, experiences, self-care, education. that means cutting back in other areas.

3. Security. More money in savings and less debt = more security.

4. Citizen of the world. More money to give to charity = contributing to the common good.

5. Because "enough is as good as a feast."

 

A lot of my frugality comes from a environmental standpoint. Buying secondhand, using cloth for home and hygiene uses, using natural products, etc. are just less wasteful and also cheaper in the low run if not the short run.

I'm pretty cut and dried when it comes to want not, waste not.

Also, I think spending time with my family is far more important than material gains. My husband is going to be quitting his job to go to his internships full time and still have time to bond with the dd we're having in December. I'm going to be a sahm. We have savings to get by, but obviously we could be doing a lot of "fun" stuff with it if he continued to keep his job. But for us pursuing dreams and being close with each other is far more satisfying.

Also I have made mistakes in my past by blythely ignoring my spending habits. The bottom line is that it's a lot of stress to live that way, and I wouldn't want to do that again.

 

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Originally Posted by gurumama 1. Material goods need to be cared for, stored, cleaned, and maintained.

If I bought everything I wanted (fabric for quilting, garden plants, etc) there would be no time in this lifetime to use them.

 

Well, I'm a minimalist anyway ... so, I don't like having a lot of stuff around. That, right away, keeps my spending down to ... well, minimum.

I dislike shopping, never watch TV, and am totally out of the "consumerist culture" loop. So, not spending is natural in that area for me.

Also, as silly as this might sound - I want to get frozen when I die, on the very remote and probably impossible chance that they'll defrost me later on, bringing me back to life. At any rate, freezing myself is fairly expensive. So, there is always that for which to save, lol.

But, in truth, I'm just a minimalist who enjoys living the simple life.

 

because i want be the smallest burden on the environment that i can be:
using cloth instead of paper products
reducing plastic (buying in bulk)
re-using to the full extent before recycling
reducing car and truck emissions (growing my own produce and eating with the seasons, preserving food etc)

because i want my family to be healthy:
cooking from scratch
eating home grown stuff
walking or biking more instead of going in the car
homemade/natural toys
moving to a less expensive and much cleaner area with lots of green.

from a financial and spiritual point of view:
because i don't want my husband to work everyday till he is in his mid 60's. i married the bloke and i want to spend some time with him dammit.
i want our family's finances to be secure. i do not want to be a burden to our children.
i want being frugal to be a way of life for us because like a previous person said, it prepares you for when times are lean. it doesn't seem like a burden then - just the "way we do things around here".
because i want my kids to grow up knowing essential life skills and to be more creative and resourceful and most importantly content with what they have. i want to show them that rolling around on the grass in the backyard among nature can leave you just as content as buying a new product can. i want them to grow up not worshipping the dollar or material goods. nothing good ever comes from that.
dh is using his precious life hours working and his brain and body are every so slowly being used away for good and what are we seeing from it? i feel this is a huge waste. we are stuck into the rat race by default, and now its time to get out of it.

 

I grew up in an upper middle class family and I want to escape the burden of having to replicate that lifestyle.

 

Count us in as being tired of the excess. We honestly don't try to be frugal, we don't like to shop, don't want to surround ourselves with stuff we don't want or need and we try to be environmentally careful. We like to make things and cook from scratch, I love using my clothesline etc. We have everything we want and don't feel at all deprived - it just happens that the lifestyle we choose is frugal.

 

Our primary purpose is to save money for more land/ larger house in the country. We can live very well in our current home with half of our income left every month. But we could not afford a much larger mortgage. We bought this as a fixer-upper. So we need to save our money to pay the difference in cash. Dh also wants to retire early, so we would like to have a fair acreage so that we can raise as much of our own food as possible.

 

we're frugal because we were poor growing up. we saw our parents struggle yet wasting money (both our parents were into heavy drinking/drugs/ consumerism)

we want a different kind of life for ourselves and our children.

we want to own a house! (we just signed papers yesterday, for our first bid!)

it is definitely a moral decision for us as well. being frugal means (for us) being kinder to the earth, kinder to my husband specifically since he actually makes the money and if we save he doesn't have to work in the summer, kinder to me specifically because it's less to keep track of and clean. it's also setting an example for our child and even our friends and family.

 

-we want to save for the future long term, and for emergencies
-we found living "on the edge" financially to be incredibly stressfull
-we have no interest in a materialist/consumerist kind of lifestyle
-we want to be able to give generously to help other
-we want to be able to bless our children and immediate family now and in the future, and money is helpful in that area
-we believe it is good stewardship, and that is an important part of our faith
-we believe it is simply good sense.

 

Honestly?...Because money in the bank makes me feel safer.

Now we have purposeful savings but it wasn't that way before we were married or while we had a lower income. I hate having debt so I paid off my student loans, DH's student loans, and the car loan as fast as I possibly could.

Now I use savings as an experiment. We put into savings what we'd pay for daycare and the health insurance premium for a child. Then if we ever do have a child we won't feel the crunch nearly as much since the biggest budget items are already accounted for.

 

I've just never really had a need to "own" things. It's not what fulfills me. We save so that when we retire (or before then if we need to) we can live anywhere in the world. Not trying to be un-American, but, there are other places in the world that we've lived that aligns with our beliefs better. You have to be independently wealthy usually, to live abroad. Especially in places like Germany where age discrimination is allowed in University.

 

*Financial security.
*I want to retire eventually.
*I want my kids to leave college and start their lives without debt.
*I want to teach my kids that it's possible to live beneath ones means.
*I want to teach my kids that material things don't bring (lasting) happiness.
*I want to teach my kids that it's possible to get from home to where you need to go on a regular basis without a car.
*Having stuff stresses me out.
*Living a sustainable lifestyle happens to be cheaper.
*I hate driving. (and I figure biking to work saves me >$1700/year in parking, gas, insurance, etc despite the fact we still have two cars. I also get paid an extra $27/month for not having a campus parking permit, exercising >15 days a month, and commuting by bicycle.)

 

I am appreciating reading this thread because I often wonder why we are trying to be so frugal. My mind often goes back and forth to being mainstream vs. kind of hippy...at heart I am so hippy, but yet I guess I am vulnerable to "what everyone else does".

I really appreciate hearing all of your goals because they allign so much with my goals...living on an acreage, being more self sustained, getting rid of all the "stuff"

We save, because we work with people who have absolutely no money by the end of the month...we are always broke at the end of the pay period, but that's because our savings account is considered a bill...we deduct 1k a month the same as we do our mortgage...so when I tell my husband we have five bucks until friday, he gets a little nervous, but then I laugh and say well not really but that's all we can spend!

 

We want to save money for our retirement, in our country you will get like a "retirement-pay" every month, but it's not too much. It's enough to get you by, but not with a lifestyle we want. So, we have investments in form of two apartments we own and rent out. They're debt free, no morgage. But that'll be a nice suppliment income, and if we sell one of them/both we'll get money to last us many years on that alone.
But still we have a "retirement-fond" in the bank, for our selfs.
We also save money for the kids. Public chools here are free of charge, even college/uni. But we probably don't want them living at home until they're 25+ and finished with they're degrees, and they probably don't want that either, so we want to help them get an apartment, maybe help them pay for their driver's licence etc. (If they want it, you don't need it in our city, we don't have a car.) Private schools (well, like uni./college) are also very expensive, so if they want that it's nice to help them. They go to private school now too, but now we're talking about 85000 (USD) for a year, not 300.000 (USD) for a year.

It's also about the environment for our sake, we don't want to buy too much stuff. And avoiding consumerism.
We get what we want of foods, w/o concidering the prices, we also eat ecological, non-prossesed foods and that is more expensive. But we choose that.
But we do not want alot of "stuff". We buy new clothes when we need new ones, not just bc we want too. The kids do not get new toys all the time.
We'de also rather spend the money on going to the theater and movies etc. with the kids than buying them new toys every month, and books, we all love books.
Books are the only thing we really want to own and have around us.

Oh, yeah, and we also want to save up money for "a rainy day", nobody knows how the future will be.
We like the thought of being able to get a new stove if ours brooke, I know ppl who couldn't.
We don't have student loans, and we only have three more years on the house morgage before we are completely debt free, bc we are so sensible with money, and we love the thought of it!