Recently we made a radical decision and decided for me to give up my job. I’ve blogged about this before. In the midst of some of the most difficult economic times, I decided to give up a job that delivered a fat paycheck while inflicting a huge personal toll. Of course I still go to the office one day a week, but I am finding that time goes fast and I have successfully been able to instill and maintain good boundaries. However, I will admit that I am still adjusting to the 30% reduction in our income, especially since the last 2 years we have amassed a mountain of debt due to that special thing called 'uninsured medical expenses'. And let's not forget the one kid in college and another in private high school.
It is very true when they say that the more you work, the less you pay attention to what is coming in and going out. I’m the one that every January sits down and realizes that I haven’t entered the checkbook entries on the computer since the PREVIOUS January. It has become my own version of Russian Roulette (let’s see how many debits DIDN’T get written in the checkbook this year???–oops, that was a big one *BANG*). After I get everything entered and categorized it is always a bit daunting to see where the money has gone. The last five years the major bulk has gone to medical and related expenses, followed closely by the over-mortgaged house (again medical expense related) and of course food. While we can do nothing about the medical, I have been quite stoked to have the time to plan and prepare food. Having more time on my hands has allowed me to plan meals from a completely different perspective. Whereas before I would plan out the weeks’ meals based on a variety of take-out offerings and meals that could be prepared in 10 minutes or less, now I have a whole variety of meal options to choose from.
I’ve learned that I have TIME to use coupons, and I don’t mean the kind that Macy’s sends me every other week–although I will admit I have used 2 of those the past week to purchase a Tolo dress for a high school senior that lives in my house. I look forward to the grocery fliers. I peruse the discounted offerings, clip the coupons, and plan my meals around what is on sale. For instance, did you know my grocery stores offers a buy one/get one free meat special each week? AND, they are those cuts of meat that you usually can’t justify but when you are talking 2/1 suddenly you are in heaven. I even have time to frequent the grocery outlet store. I did a quick tabulation this morning and I found that I have cut our food expenses by almost 60%. Its shocking and the best part is, we are eating better than we did before.
The other thing we have discovered from a different perspective is the consignment and second hand store. While I have always enjoyed the thrill of the hunt at these types of establishments (and in fact I have 2 adorable new living room chairs and a secretary desk which were fun projects this summer), we have shifted into making these emporiums our FIRST stop. This past week we were able to get the girls 3 pairs of jeans for $20 TOTAL. The best part, they LOVE their new jeans. My favorite part, we went there FIRST and thoroughly enjoyed our shopping experience and they hope to go back the next time they have a clothing need.
We have slashed other fiscal expenditures. The family health club membership–GONE. The cable tv and cable internet–GONE (although I must admit we still get 13 stations and we aren’t sure why???). In exchange we have more time to read and DSL internet at a mere fraction of the cost. We even figured out how to appease my addiction to ‘On Demand’...’Netflix’. It’s a beautiful thing, so much so, that we instilled a Friday-Sunday night only tv watching rule for fear I would watch movies and old TV shows 24/7. Sure we break the rule once in a while, but isn’t that what rules are for??? Bottom line, when I think about it, I think that the ‘living on less’ mantra is a huge misnomer.
For well over a year now we have been living credit card free and boy has that ever changed our purchasing habits. But honestly we love it! I thought we would feel "deprived" but that has not been the case so much. Instead, not having debt hanging over our heads has been so liberating that it more than makes up for any negative feelings. It's forced us to get creative in coming up with ways to reduce expenditures so we can still do the things we want. And that has led to many changes that had we not been forced to do, we would have thought it would make us unhappy. But instead we've actually discovered that these changes have brought a lot of joy into our lives. Pretty cool overall!
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