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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Per Early Retirement Extreme, the biggest outlays are housing, transportation, and food. That's where to focus on if you want more money left over.

By extension, our biggest frugal move was to buy a house that was the equivalent of 2x our projected salary when we moved to the area. Salary increased and we paid it off in 3 years. Everything else pales in comparison. However, we also make it a point to only buy used cars and in cash. On the food end, we spend more due to aiming for fresh this and that, but we also rarely eat out and don't buy soda / beer / etc. The healthy eating is also much cheaper in the long run due to reducing odds of all kinds of health issues when we're older, so we see it as long term health insurance.[/quote]

'Early Retirement Extreme' must not have kids.  [b]For a lot of parents[/b], the biggest expenses are childcare for kids under 5 or [b]private school for kids over 5[/b].  Food is just a rounding error compared to the cost of daycare.  Sending my kids to public school is one of my frugal actions, having only one car and using public transportation to commute to work is another.[/quote]

You are so fantastically out of touch it would be funny if it weren't so sad. The overwhelming majority of parents in the United States do not send their children to private schools. Similarly, your private helicopter expenses are also irrelevant to what people are actually spending money on. Housing, transportation, and food are the primary expenses for 99% of households; this isn't new information. [/quote]

Since when is childcare a helicopter expense?  Ask any dual earner family without a SAHP on this forum--childcare expenses can be as high as a mortgage payment.  This article from the Urban Institute can give you some actual data.

http://www.urban.org/research/publication/child-care-expenses-americas-families

[quote]Nearly half of America's working families with a child under age 13 have child care expenses that consume on average 9 percent of their monthly earnings. Working low-income families, single parents, and families with younger children spend a considerably higher share of their earnings on child care. Families with earnings below the federal poverty level who pay for child care spend an average of 23 percent of their monthly earnings on childcare. The average dollar amount that a family spends on child care in a month varies widely across states, reflecting differences in state costs of living, but the share of earnings that a family spends does not.[/quote][/quote]

The point isn't that childcare is expensive; no one is arguing with that. The point is that it's a very *[b]temporary[/b]* expense compared to the actual 3 top outlays, which are lifelong. You never stop needing a place to live, and most people are either lifelong renters or take 30 years to pay off mortgages. You never stop needing transportation, and most people do it through cars, which are money pits. You never stop needing to eat.
[/quote]

Agreed! I have a 5th grader and a 2nd grader. My 2nd grader gord to aftercare and that is $550/mo. My 6thh grader lets himself into the house. Total daycare costs $550/mo. No where ner my mortgage, food, or transportation.

At the PEAK of our daycare expenses, one a baby and one 3.5, our costs were $2600/mo +350 for PT preschool. That lasted about 2 years. Yes it sucked, and it was temporary.

I will say, I'm playing major catch up with college. Contributing at a clip of 30k/yr. Only saving 100k for each kid. [/quote]

What about summer camp?  I was looking forward to saving money after DS started kindergarten but I'm looking at $600/month for aftercare plus at least 10 weeks of summer camp at around $400/week.  That is not much of a savings compared to what I was paying for all day preschool.  I'm assuming he'll need summer camp at least through elementary school.[/quote]

We take 2 weeks vacation in the summer, 2 weeks with the grandparents (one week each), 3 weeks of sports camps (expensive!) And 3 weeks of a sitter. Total summer costs ~ $ 2400+ 1800= 4200. The sports camps are truly elective. With 2 kids the babysitter is the less expensive option.

If we were on a strict budget, we'd do the program through casa that costs $150/wk pwr kid for full time summer "camp".[/quote]

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