What are people doing to save money in this insane economy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

Another immigrant, I do exactly the same thing ( except solar panels).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

Another immigrant, I do exactly the same thing ( except solar panels).

Both Indians, right? Sounds exactly like my in-laws’ lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

You were lucky your kids were out of high school before pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep my house much hotter in the summer than I would like and much colder in the winter than seems normal. It sounds vaguely Soviet, but the truth is, doing this saves me $200 to $300 every month.

(I set the air conditioning to 80° in the summer and the heat is 60 or 59 in the winter)

"saves me $200 to $300 every month."
Your mansion must be huge.

? My 1912 house is 3000 sq ft and wood / uninsulated with a lot of old, large windows.

And before anybody says it, the bids to replace my windows and retrofit the house with insulation come in around 200,000. So, no.

Sounds like my house. We keep thermostat around 68 in winter and I’m always freezing. Our last gas bill was over $900.

WTF, how big is your house? Our row house is 2500sqft and expensive cold months are $150. We keep it at 70 day and night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep my house much hotter in the summer than I would like and much colder in the winter than seems normal. It sounds vaguely Soviet, but the truth is, doing this saves me $200 to $300 every month.

(I set the air conditioning to 80° in the summer and the heat is 60 or 59 in the winter)

"saves me $200 to $300 every month."
Your mansion must be huge.

? My 1912 house is 3000 sq ft and wood / uninsulated with a lot of old, large windows.

And before anybody says it, the bids to replace my windows and retrofit the house with insulation come in around 200,000. So, no.

Sounds like my house. We keep thermostat around 68 in winter and I’m always freezing. Our last gas bill was over $900.

WTF, how big is your house? Our row house is 2500sqft and expensive cold months are $150. We keep it at 70 day and night.

DP here. We have a house twice that size and top out at $250 if we’re not paying attention.

We had an older house years ago in DC that was rated a “barn” by an energy efficiency guy. It was small and also very leaky. Maybe the PP lives in a similar home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

Where do you live? We are in DC and make a ton on SREC credits (like $3,000/year), but never have Pepco sending us $$$s even when it shows we produced far more energy than we used. We still pay at least $20/month just for being hooked up to the grid.

[Anonymous]

i used military discount for business class ticket

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

Another immigrant, I do exactly the same thing ( except solar panels).

Both Indians, right? Sounds exactly like my in-laws’ lifestyle.

No, Eastern Europe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

These things are all obvious. I’m already doing most of this (except solar panels). Like a PP said, these are just common sense. There are just a lot of unavoidable expenses.

[Anonymous]

no better cost savings than my mortgage with a low rate and low balance. 4BR, 3.4BA @2% PITI $1940/mo. we almost upgraded to a much larger, much nicer house during xovid and aim very glad we didn’t. income has only gone up. I don’t really feel like this economy is “insane”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

Another immigrant, I do exactly the same thing ( except solar panels).

Both Indians, right? Sounds exactly like my in-laws’ lifestyle.

No, Eastern Europe

No way. I'm from NE Europe. I wouldn't mention most of the stuff, because it was the norm growing up. As an immigrant, you should take it to another level.
There were only public unis for example. Coffee outside of a home didn't exist. Few people owned a car and it was definitely used. Spa? What the heck is a spa?
Fine. You are probably younger than I. Easy to go back to SU days. Saves a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

This is a statement that someone can make only in hindsight. If you live in the close-in DMV, it also means you bought a home in 1995 which was the bottom of the market since like 1983, as close-in areas didn't even go down during the 2007/08 financial crisis, but simply maintained at levels much higher than 1995.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

This is a statement that someone can make only in hindsight. If you live in the close-in DMV, it also means you bought a home in 1995 which was the bottom of the market since like 1983, as close-in areas didn't even go down during the 2007/08 financial crisis, but simply maintained at levels much higher than 1995.

Agreed. I made the mistake of buying a small home that won't meet our needs forever in 2020 (kids share a room, bedrooms and bathrooms are upstairs so bad for aging, among other things), thinking we'd start with the lowest possible mortgage and eventually upgrade like my coworkers who were 5-15 years older. We had NO idea home prices would spike the way they did and make the "property ladder" approach impossible. So pat yourself on the back if you want but hindsight and timing matter as much or more than how smart you are.

[Anonymous]

So I am retiring early and have given this a lot of thought! The changes we are making or considering making after many years of spending fairly freely:
-library books instead of buying books (we all read a LOT)
-no more dip/gel manicures (I've been wanting to give this up and go for a natural look anyway)
-spacing out hair color/cuts significantly
-letting our biweekly house cleaner go with a lot of warning and a bonus - may pay for an annual deep clean
- as everyone here has said, way less eating out
- way less make-up, clothing, skincare, impulse purchasing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As immigrants and somewhat informed people, we had realized that USA cannot sustain being the land of plenty for all decades ago. These things were being discussed even then. So over the years, we had lived as if the economy was bad and we prepared for the future -

- Cooked healthy meals at home. Good for wallet. Good for health.
- Bought a nice, large home at the bottom of the market in an average but convenient neighborhood. Have a great mortgage rate too.
- Send kids to public schools, and public in-state universities for in-demand STEM degrees. They are in good jobs and even with AI, they should be employable for next 15-20 years.
- Extensive solar panels and EVs. We have not had electric bills for years now. In fact, Pepco sends us $5 or $7 dollars sometimes.
- Bought Toyotas mainly and very less repair and maintenance.
- Make our own coffee.
- We continue to eat organic foods.
- Do all spa treatments (except my haircut) at home.

Except for solar panels, this is basically what we have done. We wanted to do solar panels but we it is not feasible for our yard. Depending on the line, we are third through the upteenth generation.