Frugality

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about frugality...something I haven't necessarly been good at but want to make a bigger effort to strive for. Maybe what got me thinking along these lines was that in living with a bunch of other people (and especially kids) leads to a lot of clutter and "stuff" (add up 5 households that were fully furnished before and what should you expect?). Well, i've found myself actually feeling anxious about it and wanting to at least reduce what I own and use to as little as possible. I did a huge weeding of my books and clothes and other items and am now trying to think much more before any kind of purchase of something that is not absolutely necessary that will take up space (since we do not have a lot of it). So, anyway, I've been reading some frugality blogs which is really fun (http://frugalupstate.blogspot.com/ is one of my favorites) and doing some reading, but mostly just thinking...so that's why I figured I'd blog.

I also have been thinking about my finances and why most people my age seem to be stuggling A LOT. I was trying to pin down the choices Austin and I have made that have helped a lot. First of all, I have started a bit frugal minded thanks to my parents (and my mom who asks for a small plastic cutting board for Christmas! and parents who go frequent garage sales, and wait, yes, did make me wear black snowpants from a thrift store as a child to my dismay). So, here are some things that have made all the difference....

1. Cars. Where to start...Austin and I have never had a car loan and don't intend to ever have one...and have decided to avoid ever buying a new car. How did we do this? (especially since austin loves cars???). Well, it involves a deal of searching. We very rarely have looked at dealerships because the cars always are overpriced and you could never sell one the next day for what you bought it for. Our first car together did come from a tiny dealership, but it was a decent price ($5K), a 1993 Honda Accord with $125,000 miles and did I love that car! In fact, it's still running now out in Seattle, being driven by a good friend of ours and I think it'll go to 250,000 miles, if we had not reduced to one car I would have driven it until it died. Ok, but I'm getting off track. Our next three cars were from private sellers and we made offers less than the bluebook value, and yes, they got totalled (another story there), but we have ALWAYS gotten more insurance money after driving the car for a year than we paid for it! We've looked in a search radius of about 2 hrs to find these deals, so it does take a little effort. And our current car (although it is a bit nicer than our other ones) was also a great deal ($3K) under the bluebook value :-). And from the insurance a bit extra we paid it in full when we got it. I can't understand why more people don't do this? But, you must be careful not to get too cheap of a car either...if it costs under 2K there is probably a reason, and you'll spend 3K a year fixing it. So, in our experience, buting a car with around 100K miles for about $5K works best: it will last you several years without significant repairs.

2. Student Loans. Well, we've just been mostly fortunate in this category because our parents paid most of our undergraduate costs (my parents made significant sacrifices to do this and I'm very grateful- once again, maybe that frugality paid a part :-). As for graduate school, I had to go for 3 years so I chose the cheapest way to do that- state school. I still ended up with a large chunk of loans, but about 1/3 the amount of many of my peers and we are making an effort to completely pay off the loans over 3% interest in the next year.

3. Apartment/Condo. Well, we can tell you horror stories about our trailer and cheap apartment in college, but assuming you don't want to go there we still made some choices that worked out excellently. We started looking for an apartment before I started grad school but found out we could not afford the $900-1000/month most of the one bedrooms costed in our area. So, we looked into buying a condo, and too our surprise, it was affordable. We were able to get a MASSHousing Loan at 5.1% interest and find a nice little 1bedroom condo near my school for $80K (it did take a lot of searching to find this price, a lot of commuting for austin). But with this condo we were able to pay only $700/month in total costs (including taxes and condo fee). And, we re-capped all that $ when we sold it- we highly recommend people buy affordable condo's if possible becuase in only owning it 2 years it was very worth it. Now we own a house, but again, we searched for a good mortgage (www.naca.com) and bought in a low priced area with low taxes.

4. Lunches. It may not seem like a big deal, but we have tried very hard to bring our own lunches to work/school. Austin of course is not hard to please with his 15 years of eating 2 balognia sandwiches with chips, and I change a lot, but it ranges from left-overs to soup to wraps. I've seen people spend a lot of money on lunches and not realize how much it adds up to. We do meet friends for breakfast 1x/wk, but we would rather spend money doing that then on a lunch.

5. Clothes. Well, we don't spend a lot of money on clothes, but maybe it's just because we don't care about them much. We wear our $1 thrift store t-shirts the most and I've discovered that if I don't love something when I try it on, it will just spend years in my closet. I NEED to be comfortable, so I just wear the clothes I love A LOT. I'm also trying to go more with basic items that won't go out of style. So if I don't feel great and look great, I don't buy it. And I'm picky so those items don't come around all that much :-).

Well, I've been writing way too long, but this is something I want to spend much discussion on. I want to pay off the rest of my student loans and need to be frugal and smart in order to do that. So, please share your great $ saving and space saving tips with me. I have some problem areas such as eating out: I LOVE it (and I love to meet friends for dinner)! Austin and I have found some ways to help, like we love to go to Boston Market and split the 1/2 chicken (comes out to $8.49 total!). We also spend a lot of lunches at Friendly's (but that's getting more expensive). I always get water, but can't convince austin to do that and sometimes get appetizers for the meal...any other suggestins?

Thanks for reading :-)