$aving $$$

I just read an article from the October 2008 Reader’s Digest called “My Family’s [No-Buy] Experiment.” The Hochman family’s experiment was to see how much they could not spend in a month. For 30 days, they bought only what they truly needed—basically just fresh fruit and milk. Other essential outlays were: mortgage and utilities.

A few of the things they did were: (1) They claimed that they read and returned the neighbor’s newspaper before he woke up. (2) For entertainment for their 4-year-old, they went to Costco and ate the free samples. (3) Instead of calling a plumber for a backed-up shower drain, they found a cheap solution at thriftyfun.com – a kettle of boiling water with Dawn in it.

Some of the things they stopped spending money on: DVDs by mail, ebay and Amazon purchases, lunches out (restaurants in general), car washes, parking, toys, clothing, toiletries, and gasoline (they could get around by riding bikes).

They ended up saving more than $2000 in a month by being cheapskates.

I think I read this article because at 4 a.m. I was obsessing over the food that gets wasted at our house. It’s a crime. I’m of a mind (or maybe half-a-mind) to hunker down on homemade soup and baking powder biscuits until Spring!

It’s also a crime (at least in MY book) that we waste money on books and DVDs at Costco or WalMart. The public library is FREE—HEL-LOO-ooo!!. We could see a movie at the $1 theater or rent a DVD at Albertson’s for $1.00 if we really, really NEEDED to see it. At one dollar for each viewing, I could probably save at least $15 per movie (since, the majority of movies which I’ve seen, I only “needed” to see once). I think in the last year, there have only been a couple of movies worth the money ($1).

And speaking of ebay and Amazon, I think its time

we started SELLING

our zillion books and stupid DVDs!!!!!

HELLO!

LET’S GET REAL:

STOP W A S T I N G MONEY!