Monday, September 15, 2008

$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!


6 comments:

Zaphod said...

EEEEEEAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!
Eak! Eak! Eak! Eak!
Eak! Eak! Eak!
Eak! Eak!
Eak!

Okay. But what are we going to do will all of our extra money? Give it to the kids?

EEEEEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK!!!!
Eak! Eak! Eak! Eak!
Eak! Eak! Eak!
Eak! Eak!
Eak!

I'm tired

Anonymous said...

Yeah...We have budgeted for eating out, but it hurts my feelings everytime they say how much we have to pay for the piddly amount of food we get. blah...YEAH! Save the money and give it to your kids! That is an EXCELLENT idea! You need to let go of some of those books Dad...Like all those smutty sci-fi and fantasy books that have the half-naked chick being eatten by the giant bug with the gun. You have a LOT of those.
"Zucas" the name of the giant gun-toting bug with the half-naked chick under his arm.

DebbieLou said...

I totally agree with you on that! I was just barily able to convince Dave to start going to our library, as it has an excellent collection of DVD's and books on CD(which is about all I can get him interrested in). Furthermore, unlike the one in Oxnard (who collection was pitiful by the way) there are no late fees. They also have e-books, movies, music etc... that you can download from home for free that will automatically erase themselves when your time is up. So, you never have to return the darn things either! Now is that convenience or what?

Anonymous said...

wow. I wish our library did that...dumb backward Utah library..

Chris said...

Hey, those smutty sci-fi novels will be bequeathed to me sometime in the future. Do you want Dad to sell your future inheritance to someone else? Punk? Besides, he would only get a pittance for those books.

xuloger - a person that buys your inheritance for a pittance

Zaphod said...

I do not have smutty sci-fi novels in my library with half-naked chicks on the cover. I have some regular science fiction novels with completely naked aliens on them.