Living on $100 / Week

 

Our penury began in September of 2012.  We had decided to take the early retirement offer from HP which would begin November 1st, but that was going to mean 14 months without any income since I couldn't start collecting my retirement until the month after I turn 55.  We decided to start living on our minimalist budget a couple of months before actually retiring so we could practice.  Historically we have planned on $100 / day for all the miscellanea of our lives including things such as:

• Food
• Fuel
• Clothing
• Entertainment
• School lunch
• etc.

This category doesn't include housing, insurance, utilities, taxes etc.  Those are more in our fixed expense categories and we have a budget for them.  "Miscellaneous" by this definition are day-to-day living expenses.

I said that we had been spending an average of $100 / day, but since we would be living off our savings for over a year we had budgeted only $100 / week.  I love a good challenge so Linda (my far better half) put me in charge of the miscellaneous budget category with the new lower target.

I learned in business that you "get the results you measure" (I know, the grammar is bad but you get the idea).  I'm a geek so the first thing I did was to download an iPhone app to track the expenses.  I chose Budget Envelopes because it was cheap, simple, effective, and highly rated.  Having it on my iPhone made it easy to set up a budget and then record the expenses as they occur.  The app decrements the amount remaining in your digital "envelope".  If you end a period with a balance it rolls it over to the next period.  An actual envelope with cash would work too but then we'd be limited to using cash and we really like the frequent flier miles we get for using our Delta Skymiles Card.

Here are some of the things we did to radically cut our expenses:

1. Cooked our food from scratch - no pre-prepared meals, sodas, chips etc.  Our shopping lists contained ingredients (e.g. flour, sugar, cheese, milk, fruit, eggs, meat, vegetables etc.) rather than  prepared foods.  The result of this was that we ate more delicious and nutritious food, that we ate together more often, and that we saved a lot of money.  Buying "ingredients" and making meals means that we don't need to bother with manufacturer's coupons.  We just spend our money on staples.  BTW, I've also lost an additional 10 pounds since we started without hunger.
2. Grow, can, and preserve our own food - We buy food when it's cheap and preserve it in jars, freeze it,  dry it, or store staples in airtight food buckets.  It is remarkable how much better our home-made tomato sauce tastes when we grow the tomatoes ourselves and can them at their peak ripeness and flavor.
3. Drove less and walked more - I was fortunate to have a job that allowed me to work from home much of those last few months, and now that I'm retired I get to choose when and where to drive.  We also drive my 2002 Honda Civic GX whenever possible because it runs on CNG which only costs $1.49 per gallon equivalent.
4. Entertained ourselves on a shoestring - Rather than eating out, going to first-run movies etc. we have found ways to enjoy ourselves for free or for very little money.  Examples include:
   - Evening trips to a local state park to walk and enjoy the sunset
   - Visiting free local art museums
   - Reading books together that we check out at the library
   - Exercising by walking together around the park or in the mall when it's cold
   - Feeding the ducks at the park with our grandkids using expired bread we buy very cheaply
   We don't have cable TV (we seldom waste time watching TV but what we do watch comes over free broadcast TV using an inexpensive antenna).  We do have a fast internet connection so we can stream most of what we want to see.  Finally, we have a second-run movie theater where we can watch movies on the big-screen for $1.50 each if we are just patient enough to wait for the first-run in the major theaters to end.
5. Consolidated our communications costs - We shut off our home phone service and replaced it with a service called Ooma which gives you "free" phone service for life (you actually have to pay the $3.95/month in taxes) for life when you buy their system (ours was $125 at Costco).  It requires an internet connection but we budget for that along with our utilities because being connected to the net is one of the best bargains on the planet so long as you use it wisely.  We consolidated our mobile phones onto a single family plan that saves us money.  Shop around because the deals are constantly changing.
6. Shopped for clothing at local thrift store - The great thing about buying clothing used is that, if you are selective, you get better clothes for way less money.  For instance when a pair of pants still looks good on the rack at a thrift store you can tell it will wear well because it already has.  This requires some simple tailoring skills.  For instance after stopping by the thrift-store a few times without finding what I wanted I found a very nice wool tailored suit that looked new.  The jacket fit great but the pants were too big around the waist and too short.  It was only $20 so I bought it and tailored it myself.   Now it fits me nicely and I've worn it comfortably to high-powered business meetings with my clients' senior executives.  Even if you won't learn to tailor something yourself you can buy good clothing cheaply and have it altered by a local tailor and still save money.
7. Made our own cleaning supplies - Since retiring I've made my own laundry detergent, dishwasher soap, and hand soap.  The ingredients are cheap and the resulting quality is high.  You can also control what goes into your cleaners (e.g. commercial cleaners have harsh chemicals, perfumes, and even plastics that harm the environment) so they're better for you, your clothes, and the environment.

These are just a few of the many ways we've found to save money, spend more time together, lose weight, be healthier, and have fun in the process.