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From Cath's Desk - April 2018
Hello Cheapskaters,
Welcome to the April edition of The Cheapskates Journal. It's full of good stuff, as always.
Quite often I'm questioned about our lifestyle, and if we truly are debt free, cashed up and laughing as we live this Cheapskate's way. The answer is always the same: yes, we are debt free. Yes, we have savings in the bank and a fully-funded emergency fund. Yes, we live frugally, as per the budget I posted over on my blog. Yes, we live beneath our means. Yes, we shop around for the best prices, we haggle when we can. And yes, we laugh as we live this Cheapskates way.
Then I take the answer a little further. No, it wasn't easy to become debt free - we worked and worked to earn the money to pay down our debt. We went without things our friends and family were enjoying while we did this, and sometimes it was hard to see them going to a nice restaurant for dinner or taking their children to a theme park during the holidays. It was hard making do with our old furniture when we really wanted nice new furniture.
Sometimes living frugally was just plain hard work - doing landscaping ourselves, pulling nails out of used timber so we could use it to build the extension to our home, painting when it's not a favourite chore.
But we knew it was for just a short time, in the grand scheme of our lifetime. And we chose to make a few short-term sacrifices so we could live debt free for a long, long time.
When I'm speaking at workshops, I tell everyone they can become debt free and cashed up, 15 minutes and $1 at a time. It's easier to take a lot of baby steps to climb that mountain than it is to take one or two giant jumps. Take 15 minutes every day or so to go over your financial goals, then save every $1 you can as soon as you have it, and before long you'll see debt disappearing, savings growing and you'll realise you are laughing - and all because you live the Cheapskates way.
Have a great month everyone.
Welcome to the April edition of The Cheapskates Journal. It's full of good stuff, as always.
Quite often I'm questioned about our lifestyle, and if we truly are debt free, cashed up and laughing as we live this Cheapskate's way. The answer is always the same: yes, we are debt free. Yes, we have savings in the bank and a fully-funded emergency fund. Yes, we live frugally, as per the budget I posted over on my blog. Yes, we live beneath our means. Yes, we shop around for the best prices, we haggle when we can. And yes, we laugh as we live this Cheapskates way.
Then I take the answer a little further. No, it wasn't easy to become debt free - we worked and worked to earn the money to pay down our debt. We went without things our friends and family were enjoying while we did this, and sometimes it was hard to see them going to a nice restaurant for dinner or taking their children to a theme park during the holidays. It was hard making do with our old furniture when we really wanted nice new furniture.
Sometimes living frugally was just plain hard work - doing landscaping ourselves, pulling nails out of used timber so we could use it to build the extension to our home, painting when it's not a favourite chore.
But we knew it was for just a short time, in the grand scheme of our lifetime. And we chose to make a few short-term sacrifices so we could live debt free for a long, long time.
When I'm speaking at workshops, I tell everyone they can become debt free and cashed up, 15 minutes and $1 at a time. It's easier to take a lot of baby steps to climb that mountain than it is to take one or two giant jumps. Take 15 minutes every day or so to go over your financial goals, then save every $1 you can as soon as you have it, and before long you'll see debt disappearing, savings growing and you'll realise you are laughing - and all because you live the Cheapskates way.
Have a great month everyone.
