No Money Challenge - Would love to hear if others have similar accomplishments!

[Friday]

One of the challenges I'm having is learning about how much I can make vs how much I can consume. I live in an apartment with the world's smallest fridge/freezer, so storing lots for later isn't super practical.

Is your apt big enough for a baby-deep-freeze?

It doesn’t need to live in the kitchen. Any room with an outlet to plug it in.

It’s a spend-money-to-save-money… but my first baby deep freeze was (one of) the best $80 I ever spent. Saved nearly 10k the first year, by being able to shop restaurant supply (roughly 75%-95% off of retail prices). But is DOES mean that $20-30 of gyro meat, or chicken wings, or burgers, etc. are in 15-40-75lb. bags/boxes

 

[Defaultxlove]

I enjoyed a book I read “Money Saving Secrets of the Amish”

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

Is your apt big enough for a baby-deep-freeze?

Haha not at all, not at all. That is definitely not an option, unfortunately.

 

[Friday]

I enjoyed a book I read “Money Saving Secrets of the Amish”

LOL…Step 1. Live in a culture where every person is bringing a pizza to the table to share, instead of taking a slice of the 1 pizza that has to stretch to feed everyone?

((There’re actual scientiffery technical terms for that flipped paradigm, when the bigger your family/community, the more prosperous your family & your community is; that was largely killed off during the Industrial Revolution. Well, killed off in places that had abolished tenant farming, serfdom & slavery. Working for others, instead of you & yours, seems to always have been a recipe for poverty, & scarcity.) I cannot remember for the life of me what either of those terms ARE.))

(And google is no help. As -apparently- academics are overly fond of pizza analogies.
…… LeSigh.)

Haha not at all, not at all. That is definitely not an option, unfortunately.

Drats!

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

Made the chili tonight. Onion, potato, canned tomatoes, dried beans and spices. It’s a good and cheap option, but simmering it means I have to run my air-conditioner. So win some lose some?

 

[enough]

favorite way to “ save” money at this stage in my life?
“buy nice stuff or buy stuff twice”. Thats a quote from my guitar salesman friend.
Basically, a 3k martin guitar will likely be a 3k martin most if its life, but a 1k yamaha/epiphone/etc. will soon be a 500 dollar guitar and thats what it will always be. playable, worth its cost, but not a chance it will ever appreciate and never worth fixing if it has troubles, whos going to drop 400 bucks on a repair for a 500 dollar guitar?
Love knowing that my martins might be free to me if they never have issues and only cost me the price if a fix if they do, thats what i spent on all those other guitars the day i bought them, I just didnt know it till i tried to sell them.
Moral? try to buy stuff that will be worth fixing if it breaks. If it doesnt, compared to the cost of replacing the cheaper stuff that did makes it feel almost free!

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

favorite way to “ save” money at this stage in my life?
“buy nice stuff or buy stuff twice”.

I agree with this. But I'm not in a financial position to go for the best option, so I'm often left with buying the latter. I try to compensate by buying used when I can; cheaper, and at least I'm giving it a second life instead of contributing to environmental issues with fast fashion/fast everything.

 

[Rose White]

I think I’ll just never cut my hair again, don’t see the point of paying upwards of $100 (or $40 to f*ck my shit up) and I can trim.

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

@Rose White if you have long hair, you can do a ponytail haircut! I've been chopping my own hair this way for more than a decade and it always looks halfway decent. There are some good tutorials on youtube and it's hard to mess up.

In other news, my vacuum has taken a turn for the worse and now needs yet another, different duct tape repair. I'm starting to feel like this is a never-ending battle. How many times will I repair this monster before I finally buy a new one? And if I'm going to have to buy a new one, should I just buy it now? At what point is putting the purchase off helping?

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

So, it occurred to me today (after being horrified at my food shopping bill) that part of the problem may be that I eat outside my home most days a week. I always bring my food with me instead of purchasing, but I tend to go for food that's easy to pack. For example, this week, I would have saved money by taking my chili or a soup with me, instead I packed up vegetables and other easy "dry" lunch items. I'm thinking I'm going to invest in a good leak-proof food container and start to bring soups, stews, etc with me instead of more convenient items.

 

[Rose White]

Just have to say that I really love this thread

Did you check out the Buy Nothing App? Or if you use Facebook they have groups for it

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

@Rose White Not yet. I didn't know that there was an app - I'm not on Facebook and have no desire to join that site again. But I will check it out.

When I look at my budget/finances, my biggest expenditure each month (after rent and credit card payments) is food, so I've been focused there for now. If only I could just not eat, or be happy with non nutritious food! But alas.

I think another thing in cutting the food budget down will be to prepare snacks ahead of time, so when I get home and I'm so hungry I could eat my hand there is something in the fridge waiting.