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Being a Frugal Family CEO
By 
Mommie | October 9, 2008
So on Oprah yesterday she covered being frugal, or at least living within your means. It kind of floored me, as she had some people on there that honestly had no clue how to save money or tighten the spending belt. So it got me to thinking that really maybe the mainstream American family really has no idea how to do it. So here’s some tips to combat the drip effect, ones that I posted when I first started Mommies Home.net…READ THEM!
The Drip Effect is the accumulation of all the purchases you make, the small ones at least, that add up to be huge amounts. An example I love to use is my husband eating at Burger King 5 times a week for lunch. Not only was it going to make his heart explode, but it was costing us over $1,800 a year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By us switching to him taking his lunches, we are saving over $1,500 a year on just his lunches.
The point is that a $6 meal doesn’t seem like much at the time, but (drip, drip, drip) it adds up to a huge amount over time.
How To Fix the Drips…
- Bring coffee from home in the morning instead of starbucks
- Downgrade your cable (do you really need all those channels?)
- Cut dining out to a minimum
- Pizza delivery only when you must
- Don’t renew gym memberships (are you honestly using it enough)
- Drop long distance phone service and use your cell phone for long distance calls
- Have kids take lessons at the rec center instead of private lessons
- Downgrade internet subscription
- Bring snacks from home to movies (they let you do that now)
- Make higher payments on credit cards (reduces interest expense)
- Downgrade your cell phone plan
- Buy clothing that doesn’t need to be dry cleaned
- Bring lunch to work instead of buying it daily
- Reuse your plastic grocery bags as kitchen trash bags (I haven’t bought trash bags in over 10 years)
- Instead of buying doggie pick up bags, take your dog for a walk where they have bags for your use (a park or trail usually have them)
- Get a programmable thermostat and have temperature fluctuations of only a few degrees. This actually saves energy because you don’t need your furnace working so hard to get to the temperature you want
- Turn lights off. It may seem simple, but you save $$ on electricity
- Wash items in cold water if you can, you’ll save money on the energy used to heat water
- Only run full loads in the dishwasher and laundry
- Turn off exhaust fans, as these can suck all the air out of your home (including the air conditioned and heated air your paying for)
There are many different ways to save. Any type of budgeting and planning that you can do to help your family will do wonders in the long run. Try some of these and see if it saves you!
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Topics: Everyday Mommie |
October 9th, 2008 at 8:26 am
You’re on to something there. A couple of months ago, my wife and I sat down and added up all of our expenses — mortgage, car payment, lunches, groceries, utilities and everything else we could think of. From that analysis, it was clear we had a lot of disposable income.
Where was it all going? Ah, on the small things, of course!
October 9th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Great tips! I missed the episode yesterday, but my brother told me about it. We’ve been living about as frugally as a person can for the past six years, so he was floored to hear these people who were clueless. Wish I had seen it.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
great post as always! it really pays to be frugal, you sum it all up and you end up with the benefits if you really get down to it.
Thanks Mommie for the reminder!
October 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Great tips. It’s always to cut back in hard times. I don’t ever eat out these days. I need nothing drycleaned. I have been using cold water for my washer, and make sure the dishwasher is full. I don’t use plastic bags for garbage bags but perhaps that is next!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Good list!
All these people losing their houses and in heavy credit card debt, should definitely check it out!
It’s so interesting how out of control some families are with their finances.
It really sets such poor role modeling for their kids!
It is such a waste and incredibly stressful on marital relationships.
Maybe they should call their grandparents or great grandparents.
Anybody that lived through the 1930’s Great Depression, could really teach people a lot, too!