# 9 - Save A Lot, Shop n Save, Costco, and a produce market when our garden isn’t in. We also hunt and fish.

Being as I do the most of the grocery shopping myself, I know exactly how much we spend. We make a menu each week, base a shopping list off of it, use coupons when available, and don’t buy useless, overpriced items like bottled water, junk food, or name brands. We buy produce that’s whole and in season. The prepackaged and washed stuff is a rip-off. It’s really not that hard to peel a carrot or tear up a head of lettuce.

As our kids grow older the costs will obviously increase, but our strategy for staying on a budget won’t.

Logus #5: “Frugality and common sense will see most anyone thru even the worst national economic slump. And a little economic hardship every now and then is good I think for teaching a little humility and wisdom to the general public to concerned with self-interested pride and desire.”

Pretty good teachable moment here. I am concerned and my personal situation is pretty good. Debt is what I think about. But I made the decision to buy an old house and invest my money there. I don’t regret it (in fact, I love my house and south city neighborhood), but I didn’t realize the commitment that it is. Huh, they aren’t kidding when they say “for better or for worse.”

Ryan, some debt is good debt and on average, having a mortgage is traditionally good debt. As long as people don’t get starry-eyed when they’re looking to buy a home.

Heh, we just bought a used car. It’s not what we really wanted, but it will work better than not. We’d looked around for a while and decided to scale back what we were looking for. The same day that we were going to look at the vehicle we bought, I’d seen another vehicle for sale that made me drool. It was within our budget and probably in nicer condition, but it was higher miles, an older model and a European vehicle as well as being just a wee bit too small for our needs. We decided it would be our fallback if the car we looked at didn’t cut it. I knew we could afford to buy the BMW, but I also knew it might be too small for our needs and more importantly that any future repairs would be quite a bit more expensive than for the Taurus we bought. As it is, I get to tinker with a non-working heater and a nonworking door glass on the Taurus. And lastly on cars, my dream has always been to own an early 70s MGB, but common sense and our budget tells me that we’ll have to shelve that desire for quite a bit more, if not disregard it altogether.

When we first started looking for a home we considered our dream of owning a large piece of land out in the country. In fact it looked budgetarily feasible, but we were never satisfied with what was within our range (a lot of ratty doublewides! yech). Thus we reorganized our plans and are working on a “step” plan. In this way we hope that in 5-7 years the market might be good enough as well as our financial standing that we can sell this home and then not only afford our dream, but get something that we can accept and like.

Hopefully you don’t wind up spending more money on the house than it’s worth, but even then, as long as you’re satisfied and enjoy what you’ve put into it, so what! As long as you realize that you might not be able to recoup some of that expenditure. If you look at some of your spending as for personal pleasure instead of future investment, it might not matter so much. Instead of buying that big screen tv, you want a marble countertop instead of formica, even though you might not be able to recoup the cost if you sell the home… if you can afford it, it fits in your budget and it makes you happy, so what?!

I would be happy if Democrats would stop lying to the American people. On Sunday two weeks ago, I watched as Democrat politicians avoided direct questions about their presidential candidates’ qualifications, etc., but said we need to talk about how the American people are suffering with high food and gas prices and can’t pay their mortgages. So what did the Democrat presidential candidates do? You guessed it. They had just voted to raise taxes on the middle class. Thanks Democrats. Does that make any sense? The political mouthpieces forgot to mention that.

Obama’s AGI was $983,826 and he got a $40,856 refund which he applied to next years taxes. Nice. Gotta love America. Wonder how the dems will spin this? Come on, tax the rich.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/files/obama_2006_tax_return.pdf

I got back $80 from the feds, paid the state $28 and had to pay the city $86.

The economy is just fine for me. I’m pretty well insulated against down-turns, inflation, etc.

Others are not so fortunate. Look at the credit-card debt the average family has. It is horrendous, Some 30 percent are 90 days in arrears, and 20 percent of borrowers are making the minimum monthly payment. What were they thinking?

That will be our next crisis.

I share some of your views about frugality and moderation. I don’t waste money. I live out on the peninsula of a beautiful lake, lake view in 3 directions, in a home I have built with my own two hands. It is solar heated, and geothermal cooled. It is a 1400 sq foot house. My cost to date is $38,000..

If is plenty big enough for my Lady of Interest and I to live in and entertain. > Entertainment is an essential part of her position with the central office of a Banking mini-conglomerate. (Banks in 3 states)

At the bottom of out steps down to our dock is a 52 foot houseboat That has a 200 hp gasoline powered engine. Everything else is solar powered. for heat, and cooling.

#11, no offense, but you boasting that you only spend 100 dollars or less on groceries is a giant crock and you know it! It you are eating 3 meals a day, at least 6 days a week like we are, you have got to be spending more. The only day we fast food is Sat. mainly because I need a break. My husband brown bags it for lunch my kids eat breakfast and dinner everyday at home but have a choice of eating lunch on campus or at work. Most times they brown bag it too. Being that we don’t hunt and fish I guess I am justified in adding on a little more to my bill there and I sure do like my cleaning products. Have you included the gas money you are spending running all over town to save the 10 cents on the generic mac and cheese box? Have you included the fast food money you spend instead of eating at home? Have you included the cost of your kids school lunches? Don’t judge until you really sit down and honestly figure out not only what you are spending at the grocery store but add in all the extras.

Gina,

I doubt he is including several expenses, like the cost of eating out to cover meals he and his family don’t prepare themselves (including work lunches). He also is probably leaving out basic essentials that are purchased at the grocery store, but aren’t food – like toothpaste, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. I live with 3 women (my wife and two daughters) and let me say, the cost of TP is not insignificant. But then again, maybe he and his family eat like birds and live like Sheryl Crow (wipe with one square).

But I agree with you, $100 a week in groceries for a family of 4 seems low. I know my family and I go through about 4 gallons of milk a week (we don’t drink soda) and that’s $13.2 (at $3.30 a pop) alone.

PS – about Carlton at #3 – he makes the assertion (and I am paraphrasing) that he’s not concerned because he has SS benefits coming, and they will be paid to him because the old people have political clout and will ensure that the working people are taxed enough to cover his expenses. He then goes on to assert that the working people should learn to be more frugal, rather than ask for a raise to cover increasing living expenses.

To this I say, You can tax the workers as much as you want, but if they don’t make diddly squat, then the tax revenue will only be diddly squat. In other words, If your plan is to live off money taken from those who work, it behooves you to ensure that those who are working actually make some money.

Hey Fish.
Your a real renissance man, just the fact that you have all that time to shop and hunt every week , oh and buy the way once your kids are old enough to read the days of the no-name products goes right out the window! Your story dosn’t hold bottled water……………….but you do seem to be pretty proud of yourself! Oh and grow your own food I forgot about that ! Are you a farmer? Something smells well Fishy.

Is it really necessary to call me a liar Gina? The other things you list, like meals out, gasoline, the kid’s school lunches, non-food items, etc are completely irrelevant. I was talking soley about food we buy and prepare ourselves.

We brown bag too - often using leftovers from previous meals. We don’t drive all over town to save 5 cents. We tend to do as much as possible in one trip. As I’ve stated twice already, I fully expect that average to go up as our three kids get older and eat more.

Chill out a little.