To me, one of the biggest pieces of the neofrugal idea is that there are some things that are worth spending significant money on… that getting the most of what you value sometimes means paying more than the minimum possible price: figuring out what is important to you and being unafraid to invest in it.
That’s not where we are, yet.
I’m working for a big company again, with the regular paycheck that entails, but we’ve still got some ground to make up from the past couple of months. Our personal austerity program is still in effect… although I am admittedly eyeing our competing shovel-ready spending programs. It’s time to look at the cutbacks and see what is to be added back in.
We made a lot of choices and changes to make it through, some better than others. I’ve made a few notes on why the methods may or may not be a part of neofrugal.
Home and vehicle maintenance
When it’s not clear whether you can afford gas, you’re probably not going to get the oil changed. It’s never really a conscious decision to put off maintenance, it’s a cumulative effect of looking at the money pile each week and maintenance funds simply not being there. You let things slide, make do, hope it’ll hang together until the pile grows. Obviously this is extreme frugal; frugal taken to a ridiculous conclusion. It was necessary, I’m glad the necessity is passing, and routine maintenance on vehicles, systems, and appliances is clearly a neofrugal value.
Vehicle expense
We were a two-car family, but have been operating with one vehicle for several months. Although we had little choice in the matter (if you neglect your vehicle maintenance long enough, this decision will eventually make itself), there are benefits to acting like a one-car family even if you don’t have to. Having only one car forced us to plan ahead better: instead of being able to run out to the store or a drive-thru if we ran out of something to home, we had lists and minimal regular shopping trips; reducing gas, time, and impulse spending opportunities. We’re definitely going to get a second vehicle running, but we’re keeping the attitude that less driving is best.
Landline phone, cable tv, trash pickup, internet
For a while, we simply cut every service we possibly could. The internet has already made its comeback, landline and cable, not so much. Cutting the landline was completely painless, and the library made cable surprisingly easy to do without, even before the return of the internet brought streaming tv back into our lives. The local waste management center (I guess they’re not “dumps” anymore) is not far away, just off the main loop we already use for grocery, department store, bank runs. We did find that it was a true hardship for us to do without an internet connection at home… even though we both had internet at work and at plenty of local free access points.
Restaurants, brand names, processed foods
Cutting out restaurants and drive-thrus was hard, but made a huge difference in our food budget. We will certainly be adding restaurants back to our routine, Suzy and I are both foodies, but it’s clear there will be some changes in the frequency of particular destinations. I’ve been in it too long to do it anymore: I just can’t bring myself to pay the premium at big chain restaurants. Most of the places we really like to go are the proverbial mom and pop operations.
With very few exceptions, we have found generic and store brand products to be equal quality as name brands. Sometimes a difference is not one of quality, but one of relatively small variations of flavors and textures; we actually prefer the non-name brand product, on occasion.
We’ve also been buying less processed items, more staples. This has made avoiding brand names easier, too, as well as being generally cheaper, healthier, and better.
We didn’t have any choice when we cut these expenses, even though we’d come to think of them as basic parts of our lives. The lean times have helped us look at expenses from the other direction, to examine what we really get from the purchase, and if it’s worth it compared to the other possibilities.
