We've always believed in saving for our future. I think we've done pretty well. I just saw this article in the Yahoo news and found that we did a lot of what others have done to keep financially sound.
1. Buy things you can afford without going into debt: We save up quite a while before we buy a car. We also make our cars last at least 10 years instead of changing to a new model on a whim.
2. SAVE for the kids education: From the time our children were born, Art had a part of his salary deducted to buy savings bonds for the kids' education. Even when I went back to teaching and could pay for the kids' education with my salary, he kept saving. (I could pay for it because the kids went to the University of Illinois which is a state school and reasonable.) Tif's college fund was handed over to her when she got married as a little nest egg. Jon wants his dad to keep handling his nest egg which is maintaining it's value and isn't doing too badly even in this horrible economic climate.
3. SAVE for retirement: We always maxed out my 403b tax deferred savings plan from school. We regularly contributed toward our IRA. Art made sure the kids did, too. If they couldn't quite afford the $2,000 a year Art would invest it for them.
3. Live Under your means: We rarely bought our kids new clothes or toys. I went to a ton of rummage and garage sales to get their school clothes. Why buy new toys? Kids usually tire of them so you can get beautiful almost new toys everywhere. And books! Especially books! I had over 500 books for the kids always sitting on their shelves for them. When they outgrew the books, I used them in my classroom. We also bought our furniture at garage, house and estate sales, not to mention household items. Thus our furniture style would be what we call eclectic. My son says it's mix matched. My daughter just shakes her head.
4. Make your own lunches: Art always brown bagged his lunch and made mine also.
5. Avoid eating out: We rarely ate out at fancy restaurants, but found the cheapest eats we could. Actually, we do now have our own personal chef since my mother likes doing the cooking... and gardening, too.
6. Cut your own hair: I cut everybody's hair until the kids got to be teenagers and refused to allow me near their heads with sharp objects.
7. Do your own home renovations: I was lucky. Art could do most of the home renovations himself. I can caulk and paint, even though I HATE it.
8. Clean your own house: I always cleaned my own house. It may not have been as clean as those who had maid service but it was good enough. I think. Now that my eye sight isn't so good, my house is even cleaner.
9. Keep track of your finances: Art always made sure he knew what the state of our finances was and keeps an efficient record. We had a financial consultant who also worked with us once a year to review the stocks and bonds we purchased.
10. Diversify your savings: That's what Art keeps telling me. He's got stuff in banks, stocks, bonds and heaven knows where else, because (don't scold me) I don't know.
11. Discount coupons: Definitely!
12. Avoid movie theaters: We try to watch stuff on the VCR or DVD player. Art still refuses to do cable, but I am rather liking Netflix.
13. Buy books second hand: Don't get mad at me, authors out there. However, books are expensive. We either buy them at second hand book sales or borrow from the library.
14. Research before you buy: This drives everybody crazy including me, but we wait a long time before buying anything, researching, asking, checking every store in a 30 mile radius.
15. Donate wisely: We always gave a percentage of our salaries to charity through work. We also made sure we donated wisely. We accumulate all the charity mail throughout the year, organize them alphabetically, check their expenses and do our contributions at one time so we don't do 50% of our contributions for only breast cancer which is easy to do since they advertise heavily.
16. Plan our driving: We try to save up our driving so we can take care of several errands at once instead of doing a lot of trips; saves on gas, saves on pollution. We'll even pick stuff up for relatives and neighbors if we're going a distance to get something.
17. Farmers Markets: We are mindful of food sales. My mother has prices memorized at all the stores. We go to farmers markets and Art does feel a twinge of guilt when he goes to Foodland supermarket and comes out with only the watermelon that was on sale. OK... it's true, sometimes he comes out with TWO watermelons.
18. Clothes: I needed some new Hawaii type clothes so I have bought new pieces for my wardrobe; All on SALE. I never pay full price. Well... I did one time. It was my Mother of the Bride dress at Macy's. Wouldn't you know it? I saw it at Nordstom's Rak for a third of the price the following year. Arrrghhh! This brings me to Outlet Malls. LOVE THEM!
We've done a ton of stuff that aren't and haven't been financially sound. Buying my mother's house in a modest neighborhood and building on top so that our kids and friends would have a comfortable place to stay was crazy. We felt we needed to do this because my mother did not want to leave her neighbors who were so kind to her. Everybody warned us it was insane, unwise, etc., including the lawyer/estate planner. We have sunk more money into this house than it will be worth in another 50 years, but we're not sorry. It's always ready for our guests. If any of our family is having their house termite tented they know they can come stay with us. However, we had the contractors only do the outside. We're doing the inside finishing ourselves... just as we did on the mainland. OK, OK so I'm living with construction debris all over the house (and will be for another 2 years or more)... Oh well.
Do you have another savings strategy?
1. Buy things you can afford without going into debt: We save up quite a while before we buy a car. We also make our cars last at least 10 years instead of changing to a new model on a whim.
2. SAVE for the kids education: From the time our children were born, Art had a part of his salary deducted to buy savings bonds for the kids' education. Even when I went back to teaching and could pay for the kids' education with my salary, he kept saving. (I could pay for it because the kids went to the University of Illinois which is a state school and reasonable.) Tif's college fund was handed over to her when she got married as a little nest egg. Jon wants his dad to keep handling his nest egg which is maintaining it's value and isn't doing too badly even in this horrible economic climate.
3. SAVE for retirement: We always maxed out my 403b tax deferred savings plan from school. We regularly contributed toward our IRA. Art made sure the kids did, too. If they couldn't quite afford the $2,000 a year Art would invest it for them.
3. Live Under your means: We rarely bought our kids new clothes or toys. I went to a ton of rummage and garage sales to get their school clothes. Why buy new toys? Kids usually tire of them so you can get beautiful almost new toys everywhere. And books! Especially books! I had over 500 books for the kids always sitting on their shelves for them. When they outgrew the books, I used them in my classroom. We also bought our furniture at garage, house and estate sales, not to mention household items. Thus our furniture style would be what we call eclectic. My son says it's mix matched. My daughter just shakes her head.
4. Make your own lunches: Art always brown bagged his lunch and made mine also.
5. Avoid eating out: We rarely ate out at fancy restaurants, but found the cheapest eats we could. Actually, we do now have our own personal chef since my mother likes doing the cooking... and gardening, too.
6. Cut your own hair: I cut everybody's hair until the kids got to be teenagers and refused to allow me near their heads with sharp objects.
7. Do your own home renovations: I was lucky. Art could do most of the home renovations himself. I can caulk and paint, even though I HATE it.
8. Clean your own house: I always cleaned my own house. It may not have been as clean as those who had maid service but it was good enough. I think. Now that my eye sight isn't so good, my house is even cleaner.
9. Keep track of your finances: Art always made sure he knew what the state of our finances was and keeps an efficient record. We had a financial consultant who also worked with us once a year to review the stocks and bonds we purchased.
10. Diversify your savings: That's what Art keeps telling me. He's got stuff in banks, stocks, bonds and heaven knows where else, because (don't scold me) I don't know.
11. Discount coupons: Definitely!
12. Avoid movie theaters: We try to watch stuff on the VCR or DVD player. Art still refuses to do cable, but I am rather liking Netflix.
13. Buy books second hand: Don't get mad at me, authors out there. However, books are expensive. We either buy them at second hand book sales or borrow from the library.
14. Research before you buy: This drives everybody crazy including me, but we wait a long time before buying anything, researching, asking, checking every store in a 30 mile radius.
15. Donate wisely: We always gave a percentage of our salaries to charity through work. We also made sure we donated wisely. We accumulate all the charity mail throughout the year, organize them alphabetically, check their expenses and do our contributions at one time so we don't do 50% of our contributions for only breast cancer which is easy to do since they advertise heavily.
16. Plan our driving: We try to save up our driving so we can take care of several errands at once instead of doing a lot of trips; saves on gas, saves on pollution. We'll even pick stuff up for relatives and neighbors if we're going a distance to get something.
17. Farmers Markets: We are mindful of food sales. My mother has prices memorized at all the stores. We go to farmers markets and Art does feel a twinge of guilt when he goes to Foodland supermarket and comes out with only the watermelon that was on sale. OK... it's true, sometimes he comes out with TWO watermelons.
18. Clothes: I needed some new Hawaii type clothes so I have bought new pieces for my wardrobe; All on SALE. I never pay full price. Well... I did one time. It was my Mother of the Bride dress at Macy's. Wouldn't you know it? I saw it at Nordstom's Rak for a third of the price the following year. Arrrghhh! This brings me to Outlet Malls. LOVE THEM!
We've done a ton of stuff that aren't and haven't been financially sound. Buying my mother's house in a modest neighborhood and building on top so that our kids and friends would have a comfortable place to stay was crazy. We felt we needed to do this because my mother did not want to leave her neighbors who were so kind to her. Everybody warned us it was insane, unwise, etc., including the lawyer/estate planner. We have sunk more money into this house than it will be worth in another 50 years, but we're not sorry. It's always ready for our guests. If any of our family is having their house termite tented they know they can come stay with us. However, we had the contractors only do the outside. We're doing the inside finishing ourselves... just as we did on the mainland. OK, OK so I'm living with construction debris all over the house (and will be for another 2 years or more)... Oh well.
Do you have another savings strategy?
You and Art are on the same page, financially, as Ken and I are. We've always been frugal. I was brought up to be frugal; Ken has had to tolerate it and even give in and practice it himself. I buy only what I need; I don't like a lot of clutter and have never been one to rush out and by the latest fad. I was thinking just yesterday, though, that I think it's time I had a "Salad Spinner. Gee, I'm 64 years old. Isn't it time I treated myself to a Salad Spinner instead of drying washed lettuce on a towel? But I've got my 20% off coupon to use when purchasing it today, you betcha!
ReplyDeletewow you guys are the experts!
ReplyDeleteVery wise, Kay! You could write a book!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I had to buy a new car every year. I did and then woke up one day and realized that I was never going to go anywhere in this world with debt. So after getting over that and later, the credit card, blues, we are scrupulous. We own our house, car, and everything else. I do owe for last months electric and natural gas as we are billed for that. I could not and would not go into debt ever again for anything. It is a waste of time--working to pay off somebody I don't even know.
ReplyDeleteI buy muumuus every 2 years and nothing else, so I save that way.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we do tend to spend quite a bit on entertainment -- brand new HDTV and restaurants.
Unlike you and Art, we do not travel that much -- maybe every 2-3 years.
As David's paycheck has been cut drastically, we are now challenged to save every which way we can.
Wow, that sounds like how we live too -- mostly from necessity because the money has just never been there. We always thought we could depend on two incomes: who expects to have a special-needs child, much less two?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I can add to your list is producing our own food, with a vegetable garden and hens. And, constantly recycling things onto eBay, to get some small change back. Any 'fun stuff' I buy, like books or toys for the kids, I 'earn' first by getting rid of stuff on ebay to raise the funds.
Speaking of books, there's a strong argument that second-hand books do authors no harm at all: most people can't afford to read much if every book purchase is a $27.99 hardcover. BUT if they buy lots of used books and use their library, there's more chance of them taking a chance on an author they hadn't read before, or a debut author, and adding to word-of-mouth popularity -- and, when someone discovers an author they like in this way, it's possible they'll head to the bookstore to buy other books from him/her. I do wish that used book sales or library loans could contribute to authors somehow, but --
I don't go into debt either. My parents always saved up for the best quality they could afford, then took care of it to make it last. It works!
Kay and Art are great examples of living within your means. We went to a lot of garage sales together and even the gigantic Wilmette sale held once a year. She wore me out. \
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I are often on the same page as far as financial decision that are made and comparing prices is a lot easy now since the internet was invented.
PS I sure Hope Tif and family will be able to visit . Keep us updated.
PS thanks for the great comment that you left on my blog! You're just the best!
Wow. You are even more frugal than we are. We never had any discretionary income as long as the kids were home. I worked as a classified employee to put the kids through state colleges. We had almost no savings during those years, but we did have state pension plans and good medical benefits. We ran our cars until there was almost no trade in value left.
ReplyDeleteAfter I went back to work full time and the kids we gone, we finally were able to eat out once in a while and buy a few extras. We've never spent much on clothing, shopped sales, but never rummage or thrift shops. we added or replaced furniture only as needed.
Our best move was to have everything paid off before we both retired. Now we live well on pensions and SS because we are debt free.
You are examplary. We just scraped by for many years but got some windfalls later on.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is an expert at handling our finances, and he keeps me up to date on what he is doing.
We have created college funds for all our grandchildren.
Amoeba puts a set amount of money in our household budget every month and has for ages. The other day he asked me how much money I had and I told him. He was floored. I generally spend less than half of what he gives me. If I can't get something used or on sale, I don't get it. Even our meals are planned around what's on sale.
ReplyDeleteWe bought a brand new queen sized bedroom set and a gorgeous dining room table with 6 chairs for $500.00 (total) at a bed and breakfast that was going out of business. We had a patio table in our dining room for 3 months while we looked for what we wanted. Saving isn't so hard if one is patient.
I've watched my money for years because if I didn't, I wouldn't eat. Frugality is the norm on my income.
ReplyDeleteheh. I think I clicked too many times? Sorry!
ReplyDeletewalt
My husband is my saving strategy as I am not as frugal as he is...
ReplyDelete