Ideas For Spending Less

[FunInTheSunParticipant 8283]

I calculated that I could have $10,000 in savings if I controlled my spending and saved about $280 a month for the next three years—so I’m feeling motivated to live as frugally as I can. It’s a difficult challenge to go through the day without spending money. Sometimes I don’t drive anywhere just to avoid the temptation.

Here’s my plan:

1. Eat cheap meals. Sometimes I eat vegetable soup and bread for dinner. It’s inexpensive and fills me up. I bought some discounted bread at the supermarket and it’s lasting the whole week. Most supermarkets have a discount rack with cheap food. Bread and lunch meat is still inexpensive despite inflation. Fresh fruit is also cheap.

2. Use coupons. I get coupons in my mailbox each week. I like to go to fast food restaurants and use the coupons that are 2 for 1 specials. If there’s something that I want to buy, I’ll wait for a sale or try to print a coupon from the internet.

3. Limit my road trips. I love scenic drives in the mountains, but I can’t afford to spend $20 to $30 on gas. Those long road trips will be taken a few times a year.

4. Turn the lights off when not in use and monitor the thermostat. I use the AC to quickly cool my apartment and then I shut it off. This super hot summer is almost over, so my utility bills will be lower.

5. Shop at discount stores.

Would you like to share your ideas? What do you do to save money or avoid spending too much?

"I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win-and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was ‘No.’" (Atlas Shrugged)

[experiencedParticipant]

Don’t date 🙂

"It seems like there's times a body gets struck down so low, there ain't a power on earth that can ever bring him up again. Seems like something inside dies so he don't even want to get up again. But he does."

[WallyParticipant]

1) don’t join a gym, workout at home, saves money and time.

2) kill the cable TV, I try explaining to friends Netflix is 8-10 dollars vs I don’t even know for cable since its been so long but at least 60 dollars a month.

3) I’m not all that into fashion but dress up when it’s needed however when a free t shirt is offered I take it.

"what a waste of a life, to marry, give up your freedom, just for the hope of not dying alone. Don't get married Son."

[HitmanParticipant]

Save.
Buy bulk..
Freeze fruit before it spoils and use it for smoothies. .
Use the freezer!
Cook some chili..freeze individual portions. .
Freeze bread..toast It to warm up. .
Waste nothing.
Build soup from scraps..look at recipe’s on line. .
No TV.
No cable
No home phone
Yes hunger.
It’s o.k to be hungry and not eat..train yourself.
Sell or donate anything you haven’t used in the last 2 years.

[Soldier-MedicParticipant 2566]

Allocate money in advance for investing. Have it come directly out of your paycheck at the same time every month.

The money is gone, therefore already spent.

If you invested a dollar a day ($365) starting at age 18 at a 8% interest rate, you would have $165,308.56 by age 65. A pittance really.

If you invest $280/month from the age of 18 to 65 you would have 1,739,465.66. At a 5% draw down each year, this is an additional $85,973.28 per year or $7,247.77 each month.

given that the rate of inflation in the us is at about 4%, this means that the value of a dollar is halved every 18 years.

I recommend that you contact a reputable investment advisor and get started today and not at age 55 when a lot of men really start considering it.

Can any of really not afford to invest?

Edit.

I also highly recommend that all of us purchase a Texas Instruments BA II Plus business calculator and learn how to use it

. It takes exactly 15 minutes for a person to master the most needed functions and can be used to calculate compounded interest on investments to reverse calculating the cost of a car that you can afford based upon the monthly payments that you can afford.

Learning how to use this simple device has radically expanded my personal power to make important financial decisions, and make long-term financial plans.

One last thing. Everything else that has been said here are also very good ideas.

"I asked you a question. I didn't ask you to repeat what the voices in you head are telling you" ~ Me. ........Yes I'm still angry.

[Anonymous 3]

+1 on gardening. Learn how to can, pickle, etc.

Drive a cheap car that lasts forever and is easy to fix. Former Crown Victoria police cars are wonderful. Same for mid-90 Hondas. AT 300,000km, they’re just being broke in.

Go intermittent fasting. Eat in an 8 hour window, fast for 16. You’ll not only feel better but you’re pressuring yourself into eating better when you can only fit in a small window.

[Anonymous 16]

ME?
Starting a new job in a week, gonna move to two bebroom house, small garden, common pool. 1km away from beach 445 e month.
No TV, No internet.
GYM is a must… sorry i need that.
food, i never ever save on food. No sir, i eat what i want. Dont give a f~~~ about price.
Clothes.. i wold dress on rags if it was socially acceptable.

i hope to spend like maybe 1200 e a month on living. maybe less we will see.

[BoarParticipant]

Join a bicycle cooperative and learn basic bike mechanics. Then pick up a decent used bicycle and use that as much as possible.

It might be possible to bicycle commute to work. You may need to do multi-modal (ie bus) for part of the trip.

Crockpots are a fantastic way to save money on food and they do not use a lot of electricity. And they can be faster than a restaurant. Prep before you leave for work and when you get back, open the lid and have at it.

Untamed wrote: Quit complaining and Go Your Own Way in whatever manner suits you best.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

FunInTheSun wrote:

I use the AC to quickly cool my apartment and then I shut it off.

It would probably suck less juice to just turn it up a few degrees and let it run all the time. It takes more energy to cool an area down than it does to maintain it.

Soldier-Medic wrote:

I also highly recommend that all of us purchase a Texas Instruments BA II Plus business calculator and learn how to use it

They got free calcs for everything on line these days. I like playing with this one…

http://www.market~~~ch.com/retirement/tools/retirement-planning-calculator?showsmscrim=true

[Enjoy The DeclineParticipant 1719]

FunInTheSun wrote:

1. Eat cheap meals. Sometimes I eat vegetable soup and bread for dinner. It’s inexpensive and fills me up. I bought some discounted bread at the supermarket and it’s lasting the whole week. Most supermarkets have a discount rack with cheap food. Bread and lunch meat is still inexpensive despite inflation. Fresh fruit is also cheap.

Looks good, but make sure you eat a lot of proteins, because if you don’t, you are going to lose muscle mass pretty fast. They say to maintain your weight, you need to eat like a 0.8 gram of protein for every kilogram you weigh. So if you weigh about 220 pounds, which is about 100 kilograms, 100 x 80% = 80 grams of protein to maintain your muscle mass at least. Here is a link for proof of what I said: link. Not saying that you are not eating enough protein and I am also not saying that you are not eating complete proteins or even good proteins. I just wanted to point this all out.

"Question everything" - Albert Einstein

[Anonymous 3]

FunInTheSun wrote:

Sometimes I eat vegetable soup and bread for dinner

Bad idea. Bread is bad for you, it is just empty calories. Do not risk your health, you may die an early heart attack due to junk food like bread. I do not eat bread, and at the rare times I do, I only eat brown bread (full wheat or rye, not made of white flour). Instead, just put a lot more vegetables in that soup!
And cut off sweets, drink tap water instead of that full-of-sugar soda or expensive mineral water full of those stupid bubbles, making it hard to drink.
Spare: a few dollars a day

FunInTheSun wrote:

Limit my road trips. I love scenic drives in the mountains, but I can’t afford to spend $20 to $30 on gas.

Get a bicycle for commuting, and a good lock. (not some cheap s~~~ department store bike, but something worth above $500 will be reliable quality) I wrote a lot about this here: /forums/topic/the-bike-needs-replacing-damn/#post-290900
spare: all the gas for few-mile everyday trips, amortization of your car (do you know, on short few mile trips the engine does not heat up to normal operating temperature, and it gets worn a lot more. Especially diesel engines, and the clean-burning of their particle filter won’t work on short trips too, and it will get filled.) Extra expense: less than 300$ of general big repair every few year, and few tear and wear parts sometimes (10 bucks a month, lets say)

FunInTheSun wrote:

Turn the lights off when not in use

Buy some LED or energy-sparing light bulbs. They are getting cheaper, and LEDs are having an almost infinite life time.

Wally wrote:

kill the cable TV

Agree. At my place, there are DVB-T broadcasts freely available on an antenna and a TV tuner card in PC (or stick for laptop) and then you can watch the news and weather forecast for free, (and maybe some good 10+ year old action movies too.)

FunInTheSun wrote:

I use the AC to quickly cool my apartment and then I shut it off. This super hot summer is almost over, so my utility bills will be lower.

I have a very big fan (more than 20 inch diameter, metal blades and 100 watt motor) that I put into the window at 10 pm, and blow cold air into the room for a few minutes. It did cost much less than an AC, and consumes much less power. Also, when you leave the flat, close the curtains or the shaders, do not let hot sun into the room over the whole day. I’d rather sit in the half-dark with my lights on than let the heat in the room.

[FrostByteParticipant 19005]

Anonymous wrote:

Bad idea. Bread is bad for you, it is just empty calories

I like my bread in liquid form.

If you rescue a damsel in distress, all you will get is a distressed damsel.

[ResidentEvil7Participant 9543]

Don’t spend on something you don’t need. I mean does anyone really truly need an iPhone, Android, Smart Phone or whatever when all phones are meant for is making and taking calls; a TracPhone does all what you need it to do. I have a SafeLink phone from the government because I have SNAP and Medicaid and the SafeLink gives me 350 minutes every month. The most amount of minutes I use a month on those phones is just a few. My point is you don’t need those multi-hundred dollar fancy phones along with their expensive plans when a TracPhone will do what you need it to do for less expense.

Learn to fix things yourself when it breaks. I saved myself and my dad by teaching myself how to fix our computers, my bikes, VCRs, basic plumbing. Learn to fix things and not let expensive repairmen do something you can do yourself. I mean if a repairman is capable of fixing your broken things, you can too.

Shop at an inexpensive grocery store like Aldi. There you can get 2 chicken breasts for $2.50 ($9 at Wal-Mart); $1.49 for gallon of milk; $0.49 for dozen eggs (my dad bought 5 dozen last week); $5 for 2 pounds of tilapia. My Aldi location has food so cheap, it’s almost as if they’re just giving it away. Not counting this week ($75), I usually spend $45 for 2 week supply. It only coasted me more this week because I bought a ton of meats and poultry. I love protein rich foods.

If you can ditch the car and go bike riding, do it. Even with gas $2.09, it’s still money spent on it, when bike riding costs nothing. Besides, bike riding is healthier, cheaper, and environmentally clean. The only downside is that bike riding is slower than driving, but give yourself time; don’t be in a hurry. Drive only on bad weather days, or long distance.

Don’t date, marry or even get suckered into the female species. It’s been stressed a lot on MGTOW that woman are money pits.

In the winter, use a space heater instead of a gas furnace, because electricity is cheaper than gas. Unless your home feels like India in the summertime like my room does with no AC (98 degrees in my room), open the windows and let a cheap fan blow the outside air in. In fact, I tried this and it worked; at night when it’s about 65, put the fan in an open window and let the air blow in back when my AC was broken. Believe me when my used to get to about 100 with high humidity, that fan at night worked, but I couldn’t be in my room during the day because it was THAT bad and I had to live in extreme bedroom heat for many years in 2 houses. My dad is cheap to turn on the house air on.

Just like I said with the fancy phones, the same concept goes with tech in general. If you can physically live without something to power on, don’t spent big bucks on it.

I have so many money saving examples, because when you’ve been out of work and having to live on limited assistance, you teach yourself how to save and learn how to spend properly.

https://themanszone.webs.com/

[Anonymous 3]

FrostByte wrote:

Darth Peter wrote:

Bad idea. Bread is bad for you, it is just empty calories

I like my bread in liquid form.

Me too. Too bad I just realized, that alcohol has the same amount of calories as fat or olive oil (it is not just “metabolized” by liver, but calories are generated from it), plus it makes more appetite for junk food, and kills testosterone and blocks fat metabolism for hours. and creates beer belly that generates estrogen that makes man boobs. I did not know that a few weeks before. Compared to that, an occasional hangover is nothing. So I put alcohol down for a while, to see if anything changes.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

ResidentEvil7 wrote:

I mean does anyone really truly need an iPhone, Android, Smart Phone

This is a great example. I know so many people that swear up and down they need it, and they pay out the ass for such phones…like they’ll literally drop several hundred dollars a year upgrading phones, 100+ a month on a data package, and more for phone replacement/insurance. I spent like 50 bucks on my phone 3 years ago, laughed when they offered to sell me insurance, and pay 50 bucks a month for unlimited talk/text…I literally save 1000-2000 a year compared to what some of my friends are shelling out for their cell phones. My friends that can’t do without their expensive smart phones…what the f~~~ do they do with them? Pokemon and Facebook lol. I’d love to move to a cheaper plan, but last time I tried I learned the service from the discount providers around here is terrible…not really worth saving 20 bucks a month if I drop calls while I’m sitting at my desk and get s~~~ service in random places and can’t even send texts.

They’re fun little toys and if people don’t mind spending the money and want one, whatever, its their money…but its hilarious how many people I know that act like their student loans are crushing them while they constantly seem to have the newest smart phone and expensive data plans totally clueless that even a simple change like downgrading phones and putting that money towards their debt can literally cut years off their payback time.

Wally wrote:

2) kill the cable TV, I try explaining to friends Netflix is 8-10 dollars vs I don’t even know for cable since its been so long but at least 60 dollars a month.

This one too. I used to have a buddy who had to work two jobs to make ends meet because he loved to go out and spend money. He paid 180 a month for cable because he wanted the fancy HBO package…but between working two jobs and going out every chance he got, he was never home to watch it lol. With the amount of time he watched it in an average month he probably spent about 30 dollars an hour on it. 10 bucks a month for Netflix would have saved him a fortune. In his mind he wanted that premium package so he had to work more to pay for it…he never followed the logic through that working more to pay for it meant he wasn’t home to watch it. 20 something hours a month after taxes at his 10 dollar an hour side job would go right straight to his cable bill…I’d rather have just worked 20 hours a month less and had more free time, or work the extra 20 hours but invest the money instead to improve my situation down the road.

[Author]

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