2 posts tagged “frugal living”

I've worked my budget so that I have aalmost $800 a month to pay towards my credit cards.  Now, that's some serious frugal living.  How awesoime will it be when I have $800 extra dollars a month to just put into savings?!?!?!?!!!!  Anyway, I'm now paying off my Washington Mutual (evil people) card.  Hopefully that will be completely gone in another 2 months.

So far, the cat has been put on lower quality food.  It bothered me at first, but them I reminded myself that our family cat lived almost 19 years on Friskies and she was just fine.  The dog, however, is still eating the $1.79 cans of Merrick.  But I am switching to making my own dog biscuits/treats, which are ridiculously easy.  Chicken livers/giblets are only .79 at the supermarket.  So I just cook them up or add some flour and bake them and he gobbles them up.  I'm still going to splurge every now and then for a Flossie, though.

I can't begin to tell you how much $ I've saved by bringing my lunch and not buying Starbucks.  It's a strange feeling to go through an entire day and not spend any money.  It's quite easy to do.  I'm sure millions of people have been living financially responsible for years and this is no suprise to them.  But to me, it's all still new.

I'm still selling on eBay (check out my stuff I'm girlandadog).  Right now I'm pretty much just trying to sell off all of my books.  Over the weekend my father gave me some old books to sell to see if I could get anything for them.  My parents have been inspired by my leaf turnover and are beginning to "downsize" themselves.  My father must have 1,000 books (and he's actually read them all).  All hardback.  I'm pricing some of the antique/rare books, but so far I don't think I'm going to get much for them unless I start the auctions at .01, which is always kind of risky for something that is actually worth something.

Still selling my clothes at a nearby consignment shop as well, although that really doesn't make any money.  I've basically been using whatever cash I get as my weekly cash (which I'm actually not spending, but it's cash on hand in case I need it).

The only major expense I've had is a medical expense - I finally had my appointment at the headache clinic, which had an out of pocket uninsurable cost of $400.  I'm okay with it, because the headaches have gotten really serious.  The neurosurgeon feels that I may have an avm.  Best case scenario is that one of the major nerves leading to the brain is inflamed/pinched.  I have an MRA scheduled this week.  In the meatime, he gave me a nerve block (needle inserted into my brain stem area, FUN), which didn't really help that much.  Hopefully it won't be the worst case scenario, which would mean I'd have to go out on disability for awhile and only get 60% of my pay.

I'm worried, but I'm more relieved that I finally found a doctor who took me seriously and didn't just brush me off saying that my "migraines have changed." 

Lots of changes have been happening.  It's really amazing how many other things in my life are starting to settle down and fall into place now that I've decided to get my spending and debt under control.  Maybe because I feel such a sense of relief I end up creating good karma or something.

So, the additional changes I've made:

1.    Walking to work instead of taking the bus.  Saves:  $78 a month.  It's about a 20 minute walk if I go really fast.  I have a FSA account where the $ can be deducted for public transportation (last year I had the full amount deducted).  This year I dropped it to $20.  Instead of buying the monthly pass, I'm walking and saving them up and  I'll just buy tokens to use only when the weather is bad.  Otherwise, I'm hoofing it.

2.  Quit the gym.  Saves:  Okay, I did that one awhile ago.  But with all of the walking to and from work (plus the dog 2-3 times a day dog walk), I'm getting enough exercise.

3.  Dropped the dog walker services.  Saves:  about $80 a month.  I feel bad making the little guy wait at home all day, but he is paper trained and he can hold it.  So now we go for an extra long walk in the morning (45 min - 1 hr) and an extra long walk after work, and a quick one before bed.

4.  Lowered cable package.  Saves:  $60/month.

5.  Bringing my lunch to work and not eating out for dinner.  Obvious.

6.  Making my own coffee.  I slipped 2 times last week and bought coffee out, but that's a huge improvement over my daily (sometimes 2x daily) habit.  I also will pop over to ING and make a deposit because then you get a free cup!

7.  Saving electricity.  Savings:  to be determined.  I'm a big leaving-all-of-the-lights-on kind of gal.  I get kind of depressed when it's all dark in my apt.  But I'm now making an effort to turn the switch to off when not in use.  My electric bill is usually only about $30 a month.

8.  Cell phone.  I did check to see if there were any cheaper plans, and there aren't right now.  I don't go over my minutes, and I don't have a land line, so until there's a better offer out there I have no reason to switch.

9.  Ebay and Buffalo Exchange.  Raised:  over $100 so far, which has gone right to the credit card payment.  I've sold yarn, craft supplies that I don't use, knitting books I don't look at anymore, clothes I no longer wear.  Buffalo Exchange doesn't really give a good rate of return, but it's better than nothing.

10.  Loose change.  I no longer pay with coins.  Any cash I've spent (total last week was under $20) I've used bills.  The change goes into the loose change jar.  I deposited $69 last week in change!

I'm still in search of that part time job.  I'm following up on a few leads at some private firms, although I'm really not crazy about the idea of it.  I can live on my income if I just get control over my spending.

Unexpected expenses this week:

That damn dog, who is by far the most expensive "investment" I've ever made.  He ran out of his heartworm medication this month, which put me $28 in the hole.  Oh well.  It could've been a lot worse, he could have actually had heartworm, right?