I love reading frugal blogs, articles and books. The pages of my Tightwad Gazette
While I always encourage people to look for ways they can save money, I would caution against trying to do everything frugal at once. It would be difficult to one day wake up and decide, you are never eating out, making all meals from scratch, using cloth napkins and rags (which will be hand made), walking to work, turning your thermostat down to 62 degrees, cutting your cable, getting rid of your cell phone, and making all of your own clothes.
While all these things are all good ways to save money, for many people trying to completely change their lifestyle overnight can lead to failure and discouragement.
If you are looking for ways to save money I would suggest implementing one idea at a time. Perhaps you realize that your family spends way too much money on fast food. Take a 30 day no fast food challenge and see how much money you save (and how much healthier you feel). Are your electric or gas bills high? Lower your thermostat a few degrees and see if you notice a difference. Try cutting $5 or $10 off your grocery bill each week. Challenge yourself to lower your bill by 10% each month if you are over spending in this area.
If you start slow, the impact will be less and you will be more likely to stick with your plan. Trying to make huge sweeping changes all at once will probably shock your family and you will be met with resistance. Granted, the financial impact will be less too, but I think that smaller changes over time lead to habit forming behaviors in the long run.
Our journey to debt free living was a gradual one. We started slowly chipping away at our enormous grocery bill. We lowered our bill after several months, then we stopped eating fast food, then came phone bills, and car payments. We slowly changed our lifestyle and have been able to stick with it for a few years.
This month we are focusing on going green and reducing our dependence on paper products. We did not quit napkins and paper towels cold turkey, but rather began using cloth napkins and rags more frequently. We added two recycle bins and started a compost bin. We involved the kids in these changes in order to encourage them to be happy participants. By slowly incorporating these changes I hope to create a lasting effect that will carry through not only in our family but in my children once they grow up and have families of their own.
What small change can you make in April to save money?
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It’s so funny that you mentioned paper products. I didn’t buy any paper towel, and thought, “I’ll try rags.”
Wrong move with lots of kids. Within an hour, the kids took the baby chicks out and they pooped all over, dog in heat was dripping blood, and my Sams Club BULK size soy sauces spilled ALL of the refridge. I threw the rag away and was really wishing I had paper towels. I bought some the next day.
I agree that starting small would be easier to stick to. This will come in handy soon. My husband is going from youth pastor to pastor, with a pay-cut and a move. I’m going to have to do some serious belt tightening. Thanks for the tips!
I haven’t bought paper towels in a year just because we don’t HAVE the extra money. No napkins, paper plates, disposable cups, anything like that. I really don’t have any idea HOW we’ve gone without, but we just have simply because we don’t have the extra money! I guess if we’ve spilled something, I’ve just grabbed a towel or some article of clothing that was already dirty and blotted it up! I didn’t even really notice til people started talking about it! Good luck on your journey!
I agree with your starting slowly!!!! Amen Sister!!
I teach classes and that is one of the main things I stress in my classes! When people try to work to hard at it too fast, they get discouraged quickly and quit… starting slowly helps the whole family get acclimated to the changes, some of which are never noticed when done slowly!
Great post!
Great suggestions!
We are reprogramming the thermostat! We just bought one and installed it about 2 weeks ago, and its obvious that it needs to get warm sooner in the morning, and it can get cooler earlier in the evening…plus i am going to try and decrease the heat by 2 degrees…we shall see if all that sticks (and it had better since its going to be warmer in April)
That’s a good post. We have done the baby steps for a while and it does work well. Our latest thing to include in our frugalness is hanging out clothes. We are also still working on lowering our grocery bill.
I have been taking baby steps like this for quite a while, and now I am at the point where the only “non essential” item I spend money on regularly, is coffee. About three bucks a week for a Fair Trade, Rain-Forrest Alliance brand. Well, and toilet paper which I guess is not essential, strictly speaking.
I have a question, though, and if you’ve answered it before, I apologize. Do you and your husband ever disagree about where your money should go? I sometimes have a hard time reconciling the very different things my husband and I think our free money should be spent on. He can’t LIVE without energy drinks, for instance. And I think he should just go to bed earlier.
PS–I love your blog!
I love the Tightwad Gazette! We have added rain barrels this month and I am hoping next month our compost bin will be completed!
The big joke in our house was my man needed to buy stock in paper towels, cause he used almost a roll a day (I know scary!!!). Since I committed to making most of our meals from scratch (and the kitchen clean up) we use maybe a roll every other week. Right now we are working on the grocery budget
Ummm. Just what I needed. Now that I am going to be staying at home and our income has dropped 25% (with another 25% drop in August coming up!) we are suddenly on a budget when we never had been before. Of course I immediatly want to scrap everything but the basics and my dh is much more calm (like your post says) about working at things one at a time. So far we use cloth diapers, cloth wipes, cloth napkins and from reading one of your older posts, our heat was turned down 3 degrees a couple weeks ago. We all notice it but are adapting to it!
YOUR BLOG IS A BLESSING BECAUSE IT HAS PRACTICAL STUFF. I need ideas and practical how-to examples and such and between you and the comments from your readers…it’s perfect.
Thanks
We do more then most people could stomach, but the one thing we have never done is swap babysitting with another family. We have worked out the details with another coupe we are friends with and will be swapping one evening a month each.
This will help us to save some money on babysitters and will also help give us a little more adult time.
We are on the road to living debt free (a long road!). We have made many of these changes over the last year or so and are starting to reap the good results! We had one (huge!) cc bill that we are about to pay off! Yeah!
Thank you for the great advice! I was just telling my husband about your family living debt free last night as we were talking out what else we are working towards!
even though we’re a frugal couple by nature, every month we sit down and look at what we over spent on and need to work on for the next month.
i love these posts, very informative and helpful!! and what a great idea!! thanks!!
We eat out rarely and when we do it is usually with a coupon. We also started the cloth napkins and rags a few months ago and trying to stretch meat further.
I’ve also made my own cleaners with things that I normally have around here. It definitely helps to do small steps.
I gave up paper towels months ago and I don’t miss them. I use t-shirt rags for those quick clean-up things I would have used paper towels for, and “bar mop” towels for bigger jobs.
I’m just doing things slowly, one step at a time — sewing, making soap and cleaning products, cutting down on my meat consumption…
Thanks for these great tips!
I’m going to switch to a larger recycling bin and rags. I just bought some fabric for cloth napkins, and I’m going to make more towels soon out of the cloth diaper material (any other suggestions?).
I really want to compost, but I’m in a condo and we’re going to have the outsides of the buildings (including our decks!) redone this year, so there’s no where to put a bin
. Hopefully we’ll be in a house next year.
So, my change is using less paper goods. Hopefully the rags and napkins will get done soon…I already have my husband raid the recycling bin in the copy center at work for “drawing paper”.
Ooh! And I stopped buying cold cereal — even on really good sales — and suddenly I also have an entier cupboard to use for other storage!
We have used cloth napkins for ages and I never notice unless someone asks me for a paper towel in my house. I don’t have any, haven’t for years. I use worn out bathroom hand towels or old burp cloths or old cloth diapers for rags to clean up messes.
We have started composting again this month (we can’t use our composter over winter, but I’m going to figure out another solution for next winter).
In April we are going to plant strawberries. I will be writing about my plans soon on my blog. I’ve never planted strawberries before, but since our son eats a small fortune in fruit, I am gradually adding this into my garden. We also have two blueberry bushes and a raspberry bush. I’m adding a 2nd raspberry bush this year too.
It’s also finally warm enough for me to start hanging my cloth diapers outside again (well, when it’s not raining, like today. boo).
One thing I did at the beginning of this year was to stop buying bottled water. I bought a Brita refrigerator-sized pitcher (which paid for itself the first month – I got it on sale AND had a coupon!). We easily spent $25-30 a month on drinking water! Now we just replace a filter every couple of months, and they cost on average about $4.00 each. Baby steps!
Regarding a couple comments about composting — if you live in a condo like I do, you can still do worm composting. It doesn’t smell AT ALL!!
Compost gives off heat — decomposition is an exothermic process, so you should be able to keep your compost over the winter if you keep it in a container! Some friends of mine have theirs in a big rubbermaid-type trash bin, and some days in the winter you can see steam coming out the holes in the lid!
Great post.
I don’t feel so bad now! I find too that I do really good for a while at living frugally and then sort of fall off the bandwagon.
Baby steps!
Well I still have paper towels but we also use cloth ones. A roll can last a couple of months and w/ a coupon & bought at the DG store its usually about a buck a roll. DH uses them the most for outside stuff. I have taken to also flipping the breaker on the water heater off at night or if we will be gone for most of the day & if we go out of town. i don’t know how well its worked as the month I started was the month they increased our rates so sometimes you can’t win for loosing. But I am still working on dropping that bill.
I love The Tightwad Gazette. Mine is worn ragged too! And I agree, slow & steady wins the race…