How We Saved $10,000 in a Year Giving Up Nothing We Knew About

Times are tough.  People are losing their homes at record pace, sinking further and further into debt.  Auto repossessors are making a killing as car loans drop like flies.  But the truth is that things aren’t nearly as bad as we seem to think.  We perceive it as such because we are, in short, an utterly wasteful and gluttonous society.  Even those who constitute the low income households waste more money in a month than many people in the world will see in a year.  I know, I know.  This is the part where we stand up and talk about just how frugal we are.  And for the most part, we believe it.  There are hundreds of little ways we pour our money down the drain every single day.  Don’t believe me?  Here are a few.

Electricity 

How much electricity do we waste in a month?  Do you leave a light on outside at night, or have a motion light?  Or leave the bathroom light on, or the little light over the stove?  Have two lights on in the living room so you and your spouse can both read?  My neighbor told me a while back that he keeps all of the electronic components in his entertainment center…T.V., DVD player, Cable Box, TiVo, surround sound.. hooked up to a power strip, which he turns off at night.  I tried it, and it saves about $8.00 a month.  In fact, the average electric bill in America is just over $90.00 a month, of which it is estimated a third is blatant waste.  This isn’t secret information;  you can find it in the little pamphlets they hide out in the open in utility company lobbies.

Your Growing Backside 

Gas has receded a bit from the $4.00 a gallon crisis, but at $2.50 or so, it’s still not cheap.  It’s called a bicycle, or, even more archaic, our feet.  All of those cliche little words like ‘conservation’ and ‘carpool’ are there because an estimated 70% of the driving we do is unnecessary.  Ever run to the store because you were almost out of something, or just go for a drive?

Stupid Shopping 

My wife buys Kraft shells and cheese.  $2.49 a box.  If it was me, I’d get the store brand, at $1.99 a box.  It’s a small difference, but it’s indicative of how we shop here.  And it isn’t just food.  We spend $40.00 for a shirt from a mall department store when the same shirt with a different label can be had at Wal Mart for 12 bucks.  We smoke brand name cigarettes at $7.00 a pack when we could roll them for half the price.  It’s a collective disease that affects every aspect of our shopping habits.

Plastic Addiction 

I read that the average American has 11 credit cards.  This amazes me, because I can’t even name 11 types of credit card.  If you aren’t and electrician, you don’t need a Radio Shack card;  Not a contractor?  Why the Home Depot card?  And no one needs a Kohl’s card.  I won’t even bore you with a list of why credit cards are bad.  If you own more than one credit card (and you probably ought to put a cap on that one) you most likely have too many.  There used to be an adage… if you don’t have the cash for it, you probably don’t need it.

SUVs 

Something like 80% of the people who have them absolutely don’t need them.  And even if you do have 4 kids, a mini van, while not nearly as impressive to look at, is far more efficient.

Coupons 

I know, who has time to clip coupons?  My 11 year old, that’s who.  He clips, my wife sorts them on the way to the store, and we save anywhere from $10 to $50 a week.

ATM Fees 

Sound trite?  The average American uses them three times a week.  $2 a pop…. $300+ per year.  Sure, there are emergencies, but that often?

Batteries 

A package of 8 rechargeable batteries at Wal Mart is less than $20.00.  A 4 pack of Duracells is just over $4.  Do the math.

Now these are just a few, and are meant to illustrate a point.  I don’t do all of them, much as I should.  The point is, we really don’t have any idea of just how much money we really waste.  So take part in a little experiment, just to see if you’re near as thrifty as you think you are….

For thirty days, monitor your spending.  It isn’t nearly as difficult as it sounds;  every time you spend a penny, get a receipt.  Have the other members of your family do the same.  Put them all in a box, and at the end of the month, take an evening and go through them item by item as a family.  (I know, it sounded lame to me, too, but it was actually a surprisingly fun evening)  I guarantee you will be stunned by what you find.  While I had considered us a rather frugal family, here are some of the wastes we discovered for the month:

• We started with the groceries, and picked out the items right off the bat that we didn’t care about replacing with less expensive alternatives.   $115.00
• We also monitored our driving; kept a notebook in our cars and kept mileage log.  Estimating miles per gallon, wasted gas…      $70.00
• We discovered additional small charges on our cell phone and cable bills that we were unaware we even had or simply didn’t use;  I was paying $4 a month fora package of channels that included church channels, the game show network, and some shopping networks.     $55.00
• We ate out 9 times.  Eating at home would have cost a third of what we spent, and been healthier.  $100.00
• We payed a little bit each month to have our bills directly withdrawn from the bank.  Along with unnecessary bank and ATM fees….  $30.00
• I was paying $8.00 a month for a $25,000 life insurance policy from my mortgage company;  If I die, my wife will already be loaded.  I was also paying $1.75 a month to my auto insurance carrier in case of earthquake damage (I live in Wisconsin) and $0.65 a month in case I struck and killed someone’s animal.   $20.00
• I was paying an annual fee of $22.00 for my cat and $33.00 for my dog to license them… they never leave the house, and if they do, they have the little GPS chips in their ear.  $5

And there were countless more.  All told, we found $840.00 in waste just from simple things that wouldn’t affect our lifestyle in the slightest…. almost 10 grand over the course of a year.  Give this thing a shot.  You’ll probably find yourself doing what we did;  giving up unnecessary frivolous things we not only didn’t need, but for the most part, didn’t know we had.  It’s worth the effort.