Spinoff: How do you live below your means?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

We don't take sandwiches, we take leftovers. So it's a hot meal every day at lunch, and I see plenty of my BigLaw coworkers doing the same based on the break room refrigerator. But if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. However, it is strange to say "why do you want to live like this" as though not going to Au Bon Pain twice a week is a rights violation.

+1

This week my work lunches included black bean soup, caprese salad, Spanish tortilla with salad and baguette, roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo on focaccia, fruit salad.

Soggy sandwich indeed.

But is this any cheaper? Probably not by much.

Not that PP, but yes, taking leftovers is much cheaper. You don't have to do it, but pretending it doesn't save money to make food yourself is silly.

Pp with the soggy sandwich here - Yeah I don’t think i would do this, because then I’d have to make something else for dinner the next night. Robbing Peter to pay Paul as we don’t cook that much or in big batches. But I’m impressed with the organization and planning. Maybe when our kids are a little older and I’m packing their lunches anyway I’ll give it another try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

You could DEFINITELY pack lunches a lot more cheaply than $200 a month PER PERSON.

There's a great little sandwich calculator here if you want to see (as of 2016 prices) how much a sandwich costs to make (ballpark figure)

http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/sandwich/sandwich_calculator.shtml

About two dollars for a basic cold cut and cheese sandwich with a few trimmings. Pack the mayo, mustard or sub sandwich oil on the side in a reusable container; slice the tomatoes and put them in a ziplock; then just assemble when you are ready to eat (takes less time than walking to the sandwich shop).

Add another $ worth of extras that you like (my kids enjoy chips or cookies. I like a deli pickle and an apple) and you have a nice meal for $3 a day. This saves you $7 a day or $140 a month, about. Times two people = $280 a month x 12 months = $3360 a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

We don't take sandwiches, we take leftovers. So it's a hot meal every day at lunch, and I see plenty of my BigLaw coworkers doing the same based on the break room refrigerator. But if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. However, it is strange to say "why do you want to live like this" as though not going to Au Bon Pain twice a week is a rights violation.

+1

This week my work lunches included black bean soup, caprese salad, Spanish tortilla with salad and baguette, roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo on focaccia, fruit salad.

Soggy sandwich indeed.

But is this any cheaper? Probably not by much.

Not that PP, but yes, taking leftovers is much cheaper. You don't have to do it, but pretending it doesn't save money to make food yourself is silly.

Pp with the soggy sandwich here - Yeah I don’t think i would do this, because then I’d have to make something else for dinner the next night. Robbing Peter to pay Paul as we don’t cook that much or in big batches. But I’m impressed with the organization and planning. Maybe when our kids are a little older and I’m packing their lunches anyway I’ll give it another try.

You can buy a rotisserie chicken and come salad greens. Take a portion of the chicken in one container and a portion of the salad in another. At lunchtime, if you have access to a microwave, heat up the chicken and have the salad cold as a side. No microwave, just top the salad with the cold chicken and add some dressing, ask from home. That would easily give two adults four lunches and would cost @ $12 total, much cheaper than the $12 per lunch that I see around my office.

FWIW, my DH and I do this, although we typically just bring dinner leftovers. Just takes a small amount of planning.

Also FWIW, this allows us to live on $180k with two kids and have a net worth of $1.5m.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For whatever reasons, we are simply not into big cost items. We don't need (or want) a big house, don't really want expensive cars, vacations...etc. We are completely happy living just "normal" life. We probably spend about 60k (certainly no more than 70k) per year. Probably about 25-35% of what we make.

Where do you live? I cannot imagine spending 60-70k per year and living anywhere within reasonable commuting distance with decent schools for the kids.

We’re pretty similar to you with the not needing big cost items... except when it homes to housing.

[Anonymous]

We buy three-year-old Hondas and drive them for seven years, trade in and repeat. And we send our kids to public school. Just taking these two steps means that we don't have to worry about how much we spend on coffee or lunches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

We don't take sandwiches, we take leftovers. So it's a hot meal every day at lunch, and I see plenty of my BigLaw coworkers doing the same based on the break room refrigerator. But if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. However, it is strange to say "why do you want to live like this" as though not going to Au Bon Pain twice a week is a rights violation.

+1 The kitchens at my office are well used. In addition to leftovers, I regularly make batches of soup/chili and keep it in the freezer in individual portions. Easy to grab it to have for lunch. Also works for those nights when I just don't feel like cooking. I aim to limit buying lunch to once a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We buy three-year-old Hondas and drive them for seven years, trade in and repeat. And we send our kids to public school. Just taking these two steps means that we don't have to worry about how much we spend on coffee or lunches.

Why trade them in after 7 years? They rarely need work besides oil changes and tire rotations etc. my Honda is 17 years old. Only big work I did was a timing belt for $1000. I bought it used for $6K with 130,000 miles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We buy three-year-old Hondas and drive them for seven years, trade in and repeat. And we send our kids to public school. Just taking these two steps means that we don't have to worry about how much we spend on coffee or lunches.

Why trade them in after 7 years? They rarely need work besides oil changes and tire rotations etc. my Honda is 17 years old. Only big work I did was a timing belt for $1000. I bought it used for $6K with 130,000 miles.

I am still driving my first car out of college which is 19 years old. That said at the 7-10 year mark i did have a few years of 3-4k repairs so I csm understand folks not wanting to go that route. We've had to replace the transmission back in 2014 and got ripped off by the cost of it ($5k) which hurt. Since then nothing major. I yhink my limit these days that I would pay on repairs is $1k but haven't had to pay more than $900 since 2014.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our #1 is never paying someone to do work for us. Mow your own lawn, lay your own wood floors, paint the walls yourself, put your own brakes on (dh learned through YouTube), install your own light fixtures, clean your own house. We have a well maintained, beautiful house with new kitchens and baths we did ourselves. We only hired out what was mandatory under code (like gas lines). We've saved tens of thousands.

This is assuming you want to sacrifice family time for these things. We are firmly in the camp of not worth it. Plus i don't want to have a bunch of tools around the house. We just had our HW floors refinished and it took 3 guys 5 full work days to do our floors. That's 120 man hours. That would take us months to complete.

My dad use to spend Saturdays mowing the lawn when I was a kid. My siblings and I would play outside while he was doing it with my mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

We don't take sandwiches, we take leftovers. So it's a hot meal every day at lunch, and I see plenty of my BigLaw coworkers doing the same based on the break room refrigerator. But if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. However, it is strange to say "why do you want to live like this" as though not going to Au Bon Pain twice a week is a rights violation.

+1

This week my work lunches included black bean soup, caprese salad, Spanish tortilla with salad and baguette, roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo on focaccia, fruit salad.

Soggy sandwich indeed.

But is this any cheaper? Probably not by much.

Of course it is. I made it all at home. Eggs, potatoes, dried black beans - you can buy all three for $5 at Aldi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

We don't take sandwiches, we take leftovers. So it's a hot meal every day at lunch, and I see plenty of my BigLaw coworkers doing the same based on the break room refrigerator. But if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. However, it is strange to say "why do you want to live like this" as though not going to Au Bon Pain twice a week is a rights violation.

+1

This week my work lunches included black bean soup, caprese salad, Spanish tortilla with salad and baguette, roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo on focaccia, fruit salad.

Soggy sandwich indeed.

What the PP listed doesn’t sound like leftovers.

But is this any cheaper? Probably not by much.

Not that PP, but yes, taking leftovers is much cheaper. You don't have to do it, but pretending it doesn't save money to make food yourself is silly.

Of course it does, unless you think a brown bag lunch has to be PB&J. You think she made a separate black bean soup in the morning to take for lunch?

And if she made the sandwich separately and it wasn't leftovers -- she still bought the ingredients at the grocery store, and that's significantly cheaper than getting a similar sandwich from Taylor or the like.

PP here, and yes, except for the sandwich, all leftovers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

We don't take sandwiches, we take leftovers. So it's a hot meal every day at lunch, and I see plenty of my BigLaw coworkers doing the same based on the break room refrigerator. But if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. However, it is strange to say "why do you want to live like this" as though not going to Au Bon Pain twice a week is a rights violation.

+1

This week my work lunches included black bean soup, caprese salad, Spanish tortilla with salad and baguette, roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo on focaccia, fruit salad.

Soggy sandwich indeed.

But is this any cheaper? Probably not by much.

Not that PP, but yes, taking leftovers is much cheaper. You don't have to do it, but pretending it doesn't save money to make food yourself is silly.

Pp with the soggy sandwich here - Yeah I don’t think i would do this, because then I’d have to make something else for dinner the next night. Robbing Peter to pay Paul as we don’t cook that much or in big batches. But I’m impressed with the organization and planning. Maybe when our kids are a little older and I’m packing their lunches anyway I’ll give it another try.

Increase the number of servings for the dinners you make, and when you clean up after dinner, separate out portions for work lunches (to be microwaved at the office, or in a thermos).

Easy.

[Anonymous]

We bought a house that had a monthly PITI that was 20 percent of our after tax pay on a 15-year mortgage. Now we have kids and shitty schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work downtown and are desensitized to $10+ lunches every day. A few years ago I tried to cut costs and made lunches for each of us...l.i ate my soggy sandwich and when we were home having dinner DH admitted he couldn’t eat the crappy sandwich and bought something at Cosi. I think it’s really rare to see any professional dc workers brown bag it but I do think we could all save a little money if we did.

We don't take sandwiches, we take leftovers. So it's a hot meal every day at lunch, and I see plenty of my BigLaw coworkers doing the same based on the break room refrigerator. But if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. However, it is strange to say "why do you want to live like this" as though not going to Au Bon Pain twice a week is a rights violation.

+1

This week my work lunches included black bean soup, caprese salad, Spanish tortilla with salad and baguette, roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo on focaccia, fruit salad.

Soggy sandwich indeed.

But is this any cheaper? Probably not by much.

Not that PP, but yes, taking leftovers is much cheaper. You don't have to do it, but pretending it doesn't save money to make food yourself is silly.

Pp with the soggy sandwich here - Yeah I don’t think i would do this, because then I’d have to make something else for dinner the next night. Robbing Peter to pay Paul as we don’t cook that much or in big batches. But I’m impressed with the organization and planning. Maybe when our kids are a little older and I’m packing their lunches anyway I’ll give it another try.

You can choose to be a glass is half empty kind of person but you’re then ignoring all the advice you’re getting on here. The option isn’t a gross, soggy sandwich or Cosi. You can easily bring a tasty, filling, easy to pack lunch daily that saves you a lot of money. Don’t do it if you don’t want to but don’t dismiss it as not possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our #1 is never paying someone to do work for us. Mow your own lawn, lay your own wood floors, paint the walls yourself, put your own brakes on (dh learned through YouTube), install your own light fixtures, clean your own house. We have a well maintained, beautiful house with new kitchens and baths we did ourselves. We only hired out what was mandatory under code (like gas lines). We've saved tens of thousands.

This is assuming you want to sacrifice family time for these things. We are firmly in the camp of not worth it. Plus i don't want to have a bunch of tools around the house. We just had our HW floors refinished and it took 3 guys 5 full work days to do our floors. That's 120 man hours. That would take us months to complete.

Then you must have a huge house. We diy'ed ours and it was not a big deal. The prep work was the worst. We have tons of tools but a floor sander is something you generally rent. We get the kids involved so it is family time. We don't work on our cars but do our house. That's not really living below your means. Living below your means is spending less and saving.