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Cheapskating One Day at a Time
In late November I uploaded a video to our YouTube channel, called How We Can Afford Our Lifestyle.
We may live on a budget, but we live a very good life on that budget, a much better life than quite a few folk we know who have much higher incomes than ours.
How do we do it?
We live the Cheapskates way, one day at a time.
It's become habit for us now.
That means that every day we are consciously thinking about how we live. We have a plan to achieve our goals, and we work that plan. It's broken down into small chunks that are easily achievable so we can stay on task.
But what we do best is simply live the Cheapskates way.
We don't waste anything - food, water, power, money, fuel, even time isn't wasted.
Waste costs and you get nothing in return.
If waste is holding you back, do something every day, just one thing, to stop it. Make sure the tap is turned right off. Don't put leftovers in the fridge and forget them - keep a whiteboard (you can easily make one from paper and contact, you don't need to buy one) on the fridge and list the leftovers, and date them, so you know what you have to use up. You could even get a night off cooking by the end of the week and have a mufti dinner, or you have lunches ready to go. Turn power points off at the wall. Combine trips in the car. Stick to the shopping list.
Being aware of potential waste and turning it into something else can save you around $1,000 a year.
We also have our budget set up so that we save something every pay day. Remember the 10-10-80 Rule? Well the 10% for saving is automatically transferred to our saving account each pay day. We don't even have to think about it, and we don't miss it because we don't see it in our working account.
If you're having trouble saving, set up an automatic direct debit from your pay straight into a savings account. You don't need to deposit a lot into it, if you can only afford $5 a pay, then set it up so you are sure to save that $5 each pay day. If you save $5 every week, at the end of a year you'll have $260. You may think it's not a lot, but it's $260 more than you'd have if you didn't deliberately save it!
Often the little savings are ignored, and not thought worth the effort.
Have you seen Mary Poppins? Do you remember the scene where Jane and Michael are at the bank with their father and he is trying to convince Michael to save his money? Do you remember the song ""If you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank/Safe and sound/Soon that tuppence safely invested in the bank/Will compound"?
Well you can save a lot of money once, quite easily. Haggle the price of a new car or a new house for example. But that's a one off, that won't be repeated regularly, so it won't have a chance to compound, or rather grow.
But if you practice living the Cheapskates way, and remember the little savings - turning off the lights, not wasting food, only running the washing machine when you have a full load - and do them over and over and over, the savings will compound. Little savings once, while still a saving, are little.
But repeat those little savings every day as a part of your lifestyle, and the savings will grow every day.
And that's the benefit of Cheapskating one day at a time.
We may live on a budget, but we live a very good life on that budget, a much better life than quite a few folk we know who have much higher incomes than ours.
How do we do it?
We live the Cheapskates way, one day at a time.
It's become habit for us now.
That means that every day we are consciously thinking about how we live. We have a plan to achieve our goals, and we work that plan. It's broken down into small chunks that are easily achievable so we can stay on task.
But what we do best is simply live the Cheapskates way.
We don't waste anything - food, water, power, money, fuel, even time isn't wasted.
Waste costs and you get nothing in return.
If waste is holding you back, do something every day, just one thing, to stop it. Make sure the tap is turned right off. Don't put leftovers in the fridge and forget them - keep a whiteboard (you can easily make one from paper and contact, you don't need to buy one) on the fridge and list the leftovers, and date them, so you know what you have to use up. You could even get a night off cooking by the end of the week and have a mufti dinner, or you have lunches ready to go. Turn power points off at the wall. Combine trips in the car. Stick to the shopping list.
Being aware of potential waste and turning it into something else can save you around $1,000 a year.
We also have our budget set up so that we save something every pay day. Remember the 10-10-80 Rule? Well the 10% for saving is automatically transferred to our saving account each pay day. We don't even have to think about it, and we don't miss it because we don't see it in our working account.
If you're having trouble saving, set up an automatic direct debit from your pay straight into a savings account. You don't need to deposit a lot into it, if you can only afford $5 a pay, then set it up so you are sure to save that $5 each pay day. If you save $5 every week, at the end of a year you'll have $260. You may think it's not a lot, but it's $260 more than you'd have if you didn't deliberately save it!
Often the little savings are ignored, and not thought worth the effort.
Have you seen Mary Poppins? Do you remember the scene where Jane and Michael are at the bank with their father and he is trying to convince Michael to save his money? Do you remember the song ""If you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank/Safe and sound/Soon that tuppence safely invested in the bank/Will compound"?
Well you can save a lot of money once, quite easily. Haggle the price of a new car or a new house for example. But that's a one off, that won't be repeated regularly, so it won't have a chance to compound, or rather grow.
But if you practice living the Cheapskates way, and remember the little savings - turning off the lights, not wasting food, only running the washing machine when you have a full load - and do them over and over and over, the savings will compound. Little savings once, while still a saving, are little.
But repeat those little savings every day as a part of your lifestyle, and the savings will grow every day.
And that's the benefit of Cheapskating one day at a time.
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