Reply to What is the most frugal (or cheap) thing you do to save money?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "What is the most frugal (or cheap) thing you do to save money?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Wow this is awesome. Twenty-something here. You sound a lot like my parents down to the 40k at marriage and entertaining around the clock on what dcum would consider a modest salary. I aspire to model my own life the same way! Thanks for posting.[/quote]

Good luck! Entertaining round the clock happens relatively inexpensively because I have the infrastructure and experience to cook large amount of food at home, and can easily serve food for 50-70 people at a time. I buy booze and raw ingredients  from Costco and other food warehouses.   We have lived all our lives on  one salary, and saved and invested 30% of it.  When we had two salaries, one salary was 100%  invested. At the very minimum we have always saved enough to get the maximum company match.

At one time we were in debt and were able to come out of it within one year. We had to cut down on the %age we were saving, but we did not stop saving.  Since we are immigrants, we had to build up our credit history from zero.  Always live on 70% of your salary and invest 30% for retirement.  If you want to save for your kids college or a house, save for that from the 70% that you live on and do not touch your retirement savings.

Remember that 100 K is a very large annual HHI.  Your mortgage payment should not become a financial cross for you to bear.  If you have student debt, eat ramen noodles but pay it off in a year or two. If you need to stay with your parents for a few years to not take the student debt in the first place or save for the down payment of a house - do that.  If you need to carpool or take public transport - do that. Nix that Starbucks habit.

I do not believe in being a mooch or being miserly.  I take pride in being an attentive and generous host.  I take pride in the fact that our household is run so well that we can accommodate guests and have people over.  I appreciate the people who are supporting us to make life easier for us.  I like the fact that we have flexibility and leisure time for our family, friends, causes, hobbies etc.  All this came from having  financial freedom, and that happened because we made some very good decisions about living within our means, saving for our retirement, paying off debt ASAP, having a low cost structure.  Frugality is not being miserly. It is not dumpster diving or not using more than one small scrap of toilet paper. Live well but live way below your means.  Be generous to others. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics