Lessons Learned, Money Saved

Here's a bit of money-saving inspiration from "The Simple Dollar:"

48 Things Frugality Has Taught Me (thanks to Cheap, Healthy, Good for the link)

This is a fun list. I especially like the items that go "_________ isn't nearly as scary as it sounds." It's so true. A lot of times we spend money to get out of things that really aren't that bad.

What have I learned from trying to save money? Here are a few things, in random order:

1. It's fun to create money strategies and then watch our progress.

2. You realize a lot of things are completely unnecessary after you've put off buying them for a while.

3. Some things cost more to upgrade than others. For example, we could rent a tiny house (here in the bay area), or we could stick with our apartment and stay at the Four Seasons twice a month for the same total cost.

4. I love beans.

5. Buying things isn't as much fun as doing things. See this post.

Unemployment and Faith

In this article from the August issue of the Ensign, A. Brent Hammond writes about how he and his wife got through unemployment. Things eventually worked out for them, and they managed to do a lot of good in the process.

Faith in the Face of Adversity

Priorities in the Congo

Nicholas Kristof has written an article about his experiences talking to some incredibly poor people in the Congo Republic.

In his article Moonshine or the Kids he makes a similar point to what I wrote a while ago in Priorities, where I describe a poor Armenian man who said his top priorities were his family and his health, but spent huge sums of money on liquor and cigarettes.

Grocery Buying Thought # 4: Use the Step-Down Method

In the spirit of being overwhelmed...

Looking back over my posts about grocery buying, I realize some of it sounds a little extreme. Budgeting should not stress you out. If you hate cooking, it probably isn't worth it to make everything from scratch.

So, what can you do?


Use the step-down method! (See my original post about it. I love this.) You don't have to go from buying all the finest groceries to all the cheapest. You just have to take a few steps down, and keep doing it until you are within budget.

What do you really care about?

Prioritize. If you love gourmet butter, buy it. But that might mean you need to buy store-brand on a few other items. Keep the things you really want, and step down on the things that don't make as much difference. You'll hardly notice (but your budget will).

Improve your plan. Have to have deluxe frozen pizza? You could decide to buy only when it's half price. Or you could start buying it half as often. That counts as stepping down too.

See, we really don't have to do everything. Life is good.

Things as They Really Are

Any sort of addiction can be a major obstacle to self-reliance. An addiction can result in spending a large amount of time and or money on things that get us no closer to (or even drive us away from) our personal goals.

Elder Bednar focused in a recent talk on a newer, but quickly growing, addiction - to virtual worlds, computer games and social networking.

Things as They Really Are

It reminded me of my earlier post: Priorities

When I was younger, I finally figured we only had so much time in this life, and there wasn't much point in spending a significant chunk of it in a virtual life. As one website put it, get a first life in a real-time, 3D analog world with no lag and 6.5 billion users.