Cheap Cost Living: The Ultimate Tip of All Time

Here’s the dealio—first of all never use a word like “dealio” again…you have labeled yourself as “dork” as soon as you do. But anyway, if you really want to master cheap cost living, there’s one ultimate tip that I can give that’s actually deceptively simple, but yet in today’s world, hardly anyone is following it. Violating this tip is why nations are saddled with multi-trillion dollar debt (ahem—America—ahem). Not obeying this tip is why families are under severe financial pressure and strain, which most of the time causes them to lash out on each other. Ignoring this tip is why businesses fold quicker than a cheap umbrella. It’s simply this…

Spend less than you earn.

What? Didn’t catch that? I’m going to say it again:

Spend less than you earn.

There’s no better way to exercise cheap cost living than that. There’s no better way to lay a foundation for true financial stability than that. It’s really a simple concept, and anyone who has passed 3rd grade math should know it to be true, but violating this principle has become the norm in our society, to the point where people actually think that it’s “normal” to be up to their eyeballs in debt. I’m constantly amazed by that, and even in my own life for a time I was caught up in the snare of debt. I am proud to say that I have whole-heartedly changed my ways. There was a time in America (right before the Great Depression) where anyone who had debt was considered to be a person with whom things were not going well. Even mortgages were rare during that time; it was customary to pay houses off with maybe two or three large payments. It wasn’t a norm for people to carry debt as just a part of their everyday existence.

Fast forward about 80 years and now we have a situation where people just assume that you are going to be in debt, and they assume that you actually need to go into debt to buy cars, houses, and other big-ticket items. It’s to the point now where you’re almost seen as an anomaly if you don’t have debt. I’m not trying to slam debt, because when used properly and with great discipline, it’s an okay thing, but let’s get real…how many people are actually disciplined enough to use debt properly? Not many. Most of the people I know (myself included) have abused debt, and it has brought great strain and stress on their lives (again, myself included). And the basic premise behind debt is very simple…you’re trying to spend more than you earn.

So I encourage you to examine yourself and your financial habits. Spending less than you earn is actually just plain old common sense. Yet, when emotions are involved, our desires cloud our judgment and we become great salespeople to ourselves, so that we can buy our own idea of why we should have this or that thing, even if it means getting into more and more debt. We rationalize it and excuse it away by saying “as long as I make the minimum payments, I’m good to go.” Very rarely do we take the time to think about the fact that we’re probably going to pay for that item about four times over once we pay off the debt by making only the minimum payments. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of mathematical sense to spend more than you earn, although it’s wildly popular nowadays. Lemme tell you, MasterCard, Visa, Discover, and American Express thank you from the bottom of their hearts.

So again, take the time to ask yourself why you feel the need to spend more than you earn (if you’re doing so). Be bold enough to be honest with yourself about it. Resolve to discipline yourself so that you won’t fall into that trap of selling your soul to your creditors every month. Spend less than you earn…there’s really no better cheap living tip I can give you than that.

Cheap Living Ideas: Shopping on Overstock Kicks Butt

Yes, it’s time for some more cheap living ideas, this time in the form of shopping at Overstock.com. Although their television campaign promoting the “Big O” had most people’s minds going in a direction that wasn’t really shopping-related, they are definitely one of the best places on the Web to find good deals for mad cheap, many times at steep discounts off the retail price.

Overstock has a wide range of items, from furniture & home décor to children’s clothes. I’m a personal fan of their watches; you can really get some killer deals on Movado watches, Kenneth Cole watches, and the like. It’s also a very good place to shop for engagement rings and other jewelry. The only disadvantage to Overstock is that it’s a lot like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx—once they’re out of something, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to replenish it, because they’re working a lot with closeouts and the like. A cool thing you can do, though, to get the “breaking news” on new inventory and sweet deals is to sign up for their “O-mail” email newsletter, and they’ll send you alerts via email so that you can be one of the first to jump on the latest deals.

Again I say, as Mr. T would also eloquently put it, I pity the fool that pays retail. You really don’t have to. Some people would argue that it’s inconvenient to shop online because you have to pay shipping. Well, right now, Overstock is actually offering free shipping for the holidays, and if I’m not mistaken, they have changed their shipping prices so that during non-holiday times, you pay a flat rate for your entire order. Pretty cool.

Overall, I’ve been pleased with shopping on Overstock.com, even though it can be tedious at times hunting for deals. But, when you’re living on the cheap, that’s the whole point—you have to dig a while before you strike gold. Over and out.

Redbox DVD Rental: Ninja Techniques for Cheap Living

You know, it’s often been said that dogs are man’s best friend. That may be true in the companionship department, but let me tell you, Redbox DVD Rentals are man’s best friend in the entertainment department. Talk about a deal! For those who may not be aware, Redbox is basically a DVD rental kiosk that can be found in at least a few of your major local retailers. I know that Redboxes have been spotted in the wild at my local Wal-Mart as well as the Kroger down the street from where I live. The beauty of the Redbox DVD system is that you can rent movies for only $1.00. Folks, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Well, there are a few catches to this system, so I would be remiss if I didn’t explain how to get the full benefit from Redbox. You have to really make sure that you’re a disciplined person, disciplined enough to return the DVD within 24 hours of the time you rented it. See, that’s the deal with Redbox—you have 24 hours to return the movie from the time you rent it, or the DVD will self-destruct. Just kidding. But, if you’re late returning it, you will be charged another dollar, and then a dollar a day for every subsequent day that you forget to bring the doggone thing back. So, as with harnessing electrical power, it’s a great thing when used correctly, but potentially dangerous when not.

Basic Redbox operating instructions: You go up to the kiosk and use the touch-screen to select what type of movie you want to rent. I can say that for the most part, they have a decent selection of movies, but of course the New Releases won’t be quite as new as if you were to go to Blockbuster or some other major movie rental chain. But, they usually have at least 5 movies per category (Drama, Action, etc.) that are worth watching. I’ve been surprised at some of the titles they’ve had available at times, so you should always be on the lookout for those “hidden gems” at the Redbox…the thrill of scoring a cool DVD is almost as great as getting the secret decoder ring inside a box of Cracker Jacks.

But anyway, once you select which movie you want to rent, you are required to swipe your credit card. This will place a charge of $1.00 (plus tax) on your card. You get your DVD, go home, and enjoy it. Now hear me loud and clear: Don’t let the next day go by without returning the doggone video! You will miss the whole point of the Redbox. Every subsequent day that you forget to bring it back will be charged to your credit card until you bring it back. One dollar a day is the charge, and believe me, this can add up. I have found that if I don’t discipline myself to return it the very next day, I’ll delay another day, and then another day, and the next thing you know, I’m paying more for the Redbox rental than I would have paid at Blockbuster. That SUCKS!! My worst-ever case of this was with a dumb movie that my wife & I both hated, but we kept forgetting to bring it back to the Redbox, and ended up paying over $9.00 for that foolishness.

You can actually get some great deals (including free DVD rentals) from Redbox if you sign up on their email list. They’ll send you weekly promotional deals, and you can actually get a free rental just for signing up. Here’s the sign-up link: http://www.redbox.com/Help/Signup.aspx. Also, if you want to go much deeper into the rabbit hole, check out this site devoted solely to Redbox promotional stuff: http://www.redboxcodes.com/

So yeah, again, Redbox can be a blessing or a curse, but it’s all in how you use it. Remember, friends don’t let friends return Redbox DVD’s late.

Guide to Living Cheap: Shopping on eBay ROCKS!

Being that this website is designed to be a guide to living cheap for average peeps, I would be remiss if I did not talk about using the Web to find butt-kicking deals. There are actually so many ways out there to cut costs, save money and be frugal in today’s climate, especially with the Web at our fingertips, that in my mind you’re a bumbling idiot if you still insist on paying retail for things. It’s really not a secret at all that the Internet is a wonderland of awesome deals on shopping, saving, and so forth; all you really have to do is just commit to doing the research (with a heaping helping of help from Google—yeah, that was a lame phrase) and you’ll be well on your way to saving money and obtaining killer goods at dirt cheap prices.

Anyone who is familiar with shopping online to any degree probably has, at one time or another, been introduced into the world of eBay. For a long time, I steered clear of eBay, because I thought it was just an online yard sale, and I didn’t think that it had much use unless you were trying to sell some rare set of postage stamps that your dear old great Grandmother bequeathed to you in her estate. But come to find out, half the doggone WORLD shops and sells on eBay (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration). The latest numbers I have (which aren’t very recent) report that eBay received over a billion (with a “B”) visits in 2007—that’s a ridiculous amount of traffic. But you can literally find just about ANYTHING on eBay, and even some stuff that you don’t want to ever find at all (such as exotic skeleton thongs or something).

I encourage anyone that hasn’t signed on with eBay to go ahead and do so…there are a ton of websites (including eBay itself) that can teach you exactly how to bid and buy on eBay. A simple Google search will provide all the sites you need to figure it out, and I’m much too un-motivated to look them up for you and put them here. I personally like (and almost always use) the “Buy It Now” feature—I’m just not one for much quibbling about auction prices, and I hate getting out-bid by some last-minute idiot. You can search for whatever you want and sort by price, and let me tell you—you can find some RIDICULOUS deals on the site, just by doing a little research. There are people who are so devoted to living on the cheap that they refuse to shop for clothes and so forth anywhere outside of eBay. I can see why—I’ve seen deals on clothes where people are getting Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirts for only $8.00 and so forth. Again, with some of this stuff, you have to see it to believe it. One thing to keep in mind: Almost everyone on eBay facilitates purchases via PayPal, so it would be very useful for you to get a PayPal account as well.

There is, however, an even better way to shop on eBay…a way where you can shop and get CASH BACK for shopping on eBay!!! It’s a site called “Big Crumbs”, and they will literally pay you a percentage of cash back (via PayPal) from every purchase that you make on eBay! So think about it: If you’re buying something from eBay and are already getting a sweet deal on it, once you sign up with Big Crumbs, you can get the additional cash back, making your net expense even lower. Good stuff.

So in conclusion, one of the cornerstones of learning how to live cheaply is definitely getting familiar with eBay. As you will see once you get on the site, it’s not all just old junk and used items; there are quite a bit of big-name retailers that have set up a presence on eBay, so many of the items sold there are brand new. I will be going into the other side of eBay, which is selling, in a future post, so you can get more info on how to earn a little extra chingy in the pocket by selling stuff around your house. Rock on, and keep living cheap!

Shopping at ALDI

If you’re just now discovering this blog about cheap living and you wonder why I’m even devoting an entire post to the subject of shopping at ALDI, let me say that grocery shopping at ALDI is Jedi-Knight-level frugality in action. If you’re not familiar with ALDI stores, let me first of all say that I feel sorry for you, almost to tears. If you are familiar with ALDI stores but yet don’t have one in your area, I honestly don’t know which is worse—to not know about ALDI at all, or to know about it but not be able to taste the fruit of frugality that so plentifully drops from the wonderful tree known as ALDI.

For the uninitiated, ALDI is a grocery store that offers probably the cheapest prices of any store around. They can do this because they eliminate a lot of overhead by keeping the store somewhat bare-bones—there are no fancy decorations, no bag boys (yes, you bag your own groceries as a rule), and no frills whatsoever—but, they keep the prices so low that you really don’t give a crap. As of this writing, a gallon of milk at the ALDI in my area is $1.49—that’s almost unheard of for today’s times. Even during the summer last year, when food costs were skyrocketing and a gallon of milk would cost $4.29 at the local big-name grocery store (well, it did at mine anyway), ALDI still beat the crap out of everyone else by offering milk for $2.99 a gallon. Everything at ALDI is cheap, and everything they offer is quality. They have a lot of private label products that you can’t find anywhere else, but the quality is really good. Their produce is the bomb as well—again, speaking of my local ALDI.

I happen to really like their oatmeal and cereals there…I actually think that they’re of a higher quality than the name brand stuff at the regular store. And again, the prices are awesome. A box of Kidz Crunch (a Captain Crunch ripoff, but tastes just as good, if not better) at ALDI is only $1.89, but the Captain’s gonna charge you about $3.00 for the same amount of cereal. I could go on & on with other price comparisons, but suffice it to say, EVERYTHING is cheaper at ALDI.

So again, if you are able to partake of the privilege of shopping at ALDI, for your own sanity and for the love of everything sacred, please do so.

Here's the link to locate an ALDI store near you.

Two More Cheap Living Tips That Kick Butt

Notice in my title I put "Cheap Living Tips That Kick Butt”…I really mean it. I won’t (and can’t) say that these types of tips won’t cost you a little something, or that they won’t be hard to swallow, or that they won’t hurt a little bit, because some of them will. But it’s going to boil down to how serious you are about getting a handle on your finances. If you’re willing to just continue on in a direction that permits you to be haphazard with your finances, then so be it…but don’t complain when the crap hits the fan, or when you’re 20 years out and absolutely NOTHING has changed about your financial picture, or even if your financial picture is worse. Folks, anything in life worth having is worth putting in the hard work and “sweat equity” to really see it happen. This will require something of you—and that’s self-discipline. Again, this is not the most popular thing to say, but it is something that can bring measurable results.

As you can probably tell, I have been pretty heavily influenced by a guy named Dave Ramsey. To me, he’s one of the most straight-shooting, common-sense people I have ever heard speak on money matters. I’m a big fan of his; he has a lot of wisdom in financial matters, and he’s not afraid to tell people the painful truth. The funny thing is, the type of methodologies he teaches as far as money management goes seem to be “revolutionary” or cutting-edge, but actually they’re several centuries old…he even uses the Bible as support for some of the financial principles he teaches. The reason why is simple…common sense never goes out of style. But enough about Dave for right now; I will definitely talk more about him in future posts. Let’s get back to some cheap living tips that can help you right where you are…

Cheap Living Tip # 6: Buy Generic Brands at the Grocery Store

I learned this one as an “insider” way back in the day. I used to work in a grocery store a long time ago, and I found out from the managers in the store that the generic products that they sell that are comparable to the name-brand products (and usually sitting right beside the name-brand products on the shelf) are actually most of the time being manufactured by those same name-brand companies! I always crack up at the cheesy names they come up with to try and imitate the name-brand products—for instance, instead of Apple Jacks, they’ll have a box of “Apple Joes” sitting close by on the shelf. Too funny to me. It was even more funny when I found out that the same company that makes the Apple Jacks makes the Apple Joes too! (Just an example; I can’t remember if this is true for that particular product or not). So I said “To heck with it!” and started buying generic oatmeal, cereal, bread, soft drinks, and all the other stuff they offer that’s similar to the “real deal” name-brand products. You’ll find yourself saving a ton of money by making this one small adjustment, as the generics are almost always significantly cheaper than the name brands.

Cheap Living Tip # 7: Never Go to the Grocery Store Hungry

I’ve found this out the HARD way several times. Just don’t do it. It’s a splurge getting ready to happen. You’ll find yourself buying cans and boxes of stuff that you wouldn’t normally even look twice at in the store on a regular trip when your stomach is full. The Bible talks about how to a hungry person, every bitter thing is sweet (Proverbs 27:7). In other words, when you’re hungry, even things you don’t normally care about all of a sudden look appealing to you. You’ll walk out of that store with about 30 to 50 bucks of extra crap that you’re probably never going to eat. Avoid this like the plague. Make sure you go to the store when you have time to shop, when you’ve already eaten, and when you have a pre-written list of what you are going to buy. This small adjustment will help you save tons of money over the long haul.

Okay, I believe I’ve shared a couple of very powerful cheap living tips with this post…please remember to use your newfound powers for good and not evil.

More Mostly-Pain-Free Cheap Living Tips

Well, if you remember from my last post, we were talking about some good cheap living tips; ways to save money, exercise some frugality, and get wiser about improving our financial picture. Many times, all you need is a little creativity and some basic self-discipline to change the things that need to be changed in order for you to live on the cheap without feeling like you’re depriving yourself of life’s basic necessities. I think we left off with talking about washing your clothes in warm water instead of cold, and then about using the library as a good place to find some decent cheap entertainment. I’m just going to continue where I left off and roll with it:

Cheap Living Tip # 4: Turn Off Lights When You’re Not Using Them

Yeah, I can honestly say that this one is a hard one for me. I just like having a lot of lights on, and for basically no reason at all. But what I’m coming to realize is that while having all the lights on in my house gives me that comfortable, homey feeling, it’s also costing some serious ching-ching to keep the darn things on. I have begun to get into the habit of turning the lights off when I leave the room, and not just to keep them on for the heck of it. If you (like myself) have a billing plan with your power company where they charge you a variable rate on your kilowatt hours, you’ll find that you may really be running up your power bill to a significant degree, but doing it penny by penny. Lemme tell you, those pennies add up. Some people may say “Well, I’m on a flat-bill plan where I pay a fixed amount every month, regardless of how much I keep the lights on.” Well, don’t forget that those fixed rates are based on an average of your energy consumption over a 12-month period, so by leaving lights on you’re STILL screwing yourself with higher power costs, even on a flat-bill payment system.

Cheap Living Tip # 5: Don’t Eat Out All the Time

This one’s gonna hurt. You have to realize that one of the biggest money drains known to man is eating out all the time. Again, all of us are great salespeople when we’re trying to convince ourselves of why we should go get that $6.00 Burger King or McDonald’s or Wendy’s meal every day on our lunch hour. Just think, though…if you spend six bucks a day (on average) on eating out for lunch, that’s $30.00 a week, which is $120.00 a month—for most people, that will cover your cell phone bill, or another significant household expenditure for the month. All from cholesterol-laden burgers and greasy fries. When some people sit down to balance their financial books at the end of the week, they may see quite a bit of a drop in their bank balance from the previous week, and they may ask “Where did all the money go?” The sad thing is, they literally ate it.

Well, crud…I have to sign off again, so we’re gonna have to pick this up at a later date. Wanted to write more, but other duties call. Again, all it takes is a little discipline and a willingness to think differently about your money to implement these cheap living tips. Hope you’ve enjoyed them so far…keep on staying tuned in for more to come!

Some Mostly-Pain-Free Cheap Living Tips

Okay…without any further adieu (or adoo or whatever), now for some real-deal cheap living tips, in no particular order:

Cheap Living Tip # 1: Spend Less Than You Earn

I know this may seem like I’m over-stating the obvious, but many people have skipped over this very vital core principle. If you can’t master this one, you might as well forget trying to make sense of anything you’re doing financially. Just think about it…if your kitchen sink was stopped up and you had the faucet running full blast, the water is going to start spilling over the side and onto the floor. You can sit there and mop up water all day long, but if you never turn the faucet off, you have no hope of getting the full mess cleaned up. Just like I’ve heard it said before—“If you find yourself in a hole, STOP DIGGING!” This is an imperative step in learning how to live on the cheap.

What this means is that you’re going to need to start tracking where your money is going. Not only should you be tracking where it’s going, but also track how much you’re bringing in—and use realistic figures when you do so…this means your NET income, not your gross. It’s easy to say “I make $40,000 a year”, but that’s just not reality once you factor in your income tax. So make sure you have an accurate picture of how much net income you have coming in every week, or bi-week, or month, or whatever your payment cycle is.

Also, when I said to track where your money is going, that means keeping track of your receipts. I don’t know how many times I pull up at a gas pump and see a receipt hanging out of the little pump dashboard thing…someone just made a credit card purchase and didn’t bother to track that expense. You have to keep receipts and track EVERY expense, down to the penny, so that you can see where your money is actually going, versus where you think it’s going (I’m going to cover this more in another post). This tip alone will save you a world of trouble. I once heard a billionaire say “The secret to wealth is simple—spend less than you earn.” I can’t say it any better than that.

Cheap Living Tip # 2: Wash Your Laundry in Cold Water

Some people are hot water addicts when it comes to washing clothes…not the kid here. I have learned that it really doesn’t make that big of a difference, as far as how clean your clothes get, whether you wash them in hot water or cold water. The difference in clean may not even be noticeable, but the difference in your power and heating bills will definitely be seen. Simply put, it costs you more money if you wash your clothes in hot water, so switch to cold. Nuff said on this one.

Cheap Living Tip # 3: Use the Library

I know that Barnes & Noble and other bookstores are all the rage right now, and you can really meet some amazingly intellectual people there with whom you can share a Grande MochaSloppy Macchiato Frappa-Latte in the café, but you will also find that your expenses for buying books there (as well as the $35.00 specialty coffee drink) may put a drain on the wallet. So I recommend hitting up your local library—they’re a lot better nowadays about stocking their shelves with books that were actually printed in the 21st century, so it won’t be a waste of your time. You can also, with many libraries, check out DVD movies and/or music CD’s for free—beats Blockbuster by a mile, although the selection won’t be as expansive, obviously.

Okay, I just realized that I’m turning this post into a thesis or something, so I’m going to stop here and pick up with more cheap living tips in a coming post. Again, only if my attention span will allow it.

Living for Cheap: Discipline is Required

Is there really such a thing as living for cheap in today’s world economy? I know that here in America, unemployment rates are in the double-digits in many states, people are mostly up to their eyeballs in credit card and other consumer debt, not to mention being saddled with un-payable mortgages, rising healthcare costs, rising food costs, and gasoline costs that are going through the roof. A lot of people unfortunately have had to choose between whether they were going to buy groceries or have health insurance, and there’s something deeply wrong with that in my humble opinion. Of course, many of us are living in self-made messes, brought on by our own greed, selfishness, and hyper-consumerism, so it’s not like we can only blame external factors, but at the same time, we can’t act like those external factors are not there either.

But back to my question: How does one go about “living on the cheap”? Is it even possible in today’s economic climate? The good news is that there are TONS of resources to help you do just that on the Web. This is what I hope to do with this blog, is to give people a central location on the Web where they can find all the resources they need to live comfortably without having to break the bank to do it. A lot of what we go through financially is a result of our spending habits, and what I mean by that is the type of things we do with our money without even thinking about it. And our spending habits come from the general mindset that we developed over time, going all the way back to our childhood and how we saw our parents or other significant figures in our lives deal with money. I’m not trying to go all “release your inner child” on you, but it’s important to know what your general attitude is about money. Do you see it as something you use to grow more money with (i.e., investing), or do you see it as something you use to buy whatever you may have an impulse for at the time, with no thought of how that purchase may impact your overall financial picture? These are some of the questions and issues we’ll (hopefully) be tackling with this blog, if my attention span will allow me to do it.

But living for cheap really boils down to making quality decisions with your money. You can carry out living on a budget without making it feel like a form of torture, you just have to be wise about where and why you spend, and really take the time to think about what you’re doing with your money before you allow impulse spending to kick in. One thing you’ll learn as we go along with this blog is that frugal living is really just a state of mind, and one that requires that ugliest-of-all-ugly-words: DISCIPLINE. Yep, it’s really as simple as that. But we’ll talk more about some specifics on living for cheap in our coming posts.

Cheap Living - My Ranting Introduction

Well, as you’ve probably gathered just by doing a little reading, this blog is all about cheap living. In this crazy economic climate, we have to learn how to make each dollar stretch, and make each dollar count, because frugality, however unpopular it might be, is still a golden key to financial stability, no matter what the markets may be doing. It’s blaringly obvious that we can’t depend on the government to figure anything out, so it’s up to you and I, the ordinary citizens, to make our own way and figure things out for ourselves. That’s the main reason I started this blog, was to figure out every possible way I could cut costs and implement some good old fashioned cheap cost living into my daily life, and hopefully improve the quality of my life at the same time…I know that sounds like an impossible feat, but every step out of debt and out of overspending is a step towards financial stability, and that’s one thing that almost every nation on the earth is lacking right now.

After talking with several people who are much older than me, the consensus is pretty much the same—this is the absolute WORST they’ve ever seen it. I think only the Great Depression can rival what we see around us in these days and times, and although it’s probably not as bad as it was then (I wasn’t around, so I don’t know), it has never been as worldwide as it is now. We’re talking EVERY nation on the earth has pretty much been affected by this depressed economy. The main reason why is because that’s the other side of the two-edged sword of globalization. But before I get on my political soapbox, which I really don’t have one but it sounded good to put it there, I just wanted to emphasize the fact that I’m going to be focusing on “living on the cheap” in today’s economy, and hopefully provide some good tips for whoever wants to read them on how to live frugally, cut unnecessary expenses, and make better financial decisions so that we can not go down the tubes with everyone else that’s been trying to “keep up with the Joneses” for the longest.

So welcome to the Cheap Living Gazette! I truly want to turn this blog into a guide to living cheap. Please keep checking back as I’m going to be adding more articles with some good cheap living tips and so forth in the very near future. So stay tuned…