- I once lived off free bagels, water, and a free lunch. I couldn’t eat bagels for years.
- I haven’t been to the doctor in 8 years, because health insurance is broken.
- I let Chicago tow my car, and keep it. Best choice ever. We bicycle everywhere!
- I’ve stopped shaving to protest the culture of shaving and save money.
- I don’t wash my hair, and it’s clean and soft without shampoo.
- I’ve stopped paying the gym… training with my own body instead.
- I’m dying to cancel our cell phone. We never use the thing. Contracts are evil.
- We make my student loan payments even though they are 1/4th of my income. Student loans are bad debt. Don’t let your children get stuck with 25 years of debt.
More Important than How to Save Money?
How we spend money! We get most of our vegetables from a our local CSA. What we don’t get from the CSA, we select organic and try to aim local. Although I did buy my genmaicha (brown rice tea) from a Japanese tea farm. We’ve got a nice yard with room for our garden. We’ve got nice locks for our bikes, good helmets, and nice bike light sets. Money well spent. Thank God Kristen and our son have free health care, or we’d have to choose between paying the doctor and food.
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Comments About What have you given up to save money?
// 3 comments so far.
kristen // June 13th 2010
While not totally relevant: I feel like I have at times had the hard decision to invest in something more “expensive” to replace my “inexpensive” things that I constantly have to replace. Once I replace these things with permanent things, it becomes so obvious and DUHH that they were good choices… like the layer of my consumer mind was so intensely clouded that it boggles me.
Here’s a list of things that I used to buy on a consistent basis that I’ve replaced with permanent items:
napkins –> cloth napkins
, hand-sewn cloth totes, various totes, the milk crate on my bike!
kitchen towels –> large, white, bleach-able dish rags
tampons –> Diva Cup
menstruation pads –> flannel pads
tissue/kleenex –> handkerchiefs
grocery/shopping bags –> Baggus
Kevin // June 14th 2010
Protesting the culture of shaving sounds very high-minded, but I have a beard just because I’m lazy. Shaving is, like, work.
Kirsten // November 15th 2010
It’s not so much what’s been given up as what’s been changed or re-thought. For example:
- cloth over paper napkins
- keeping the plastic knives, forks, spoons and cups used at functions to have own supply, should the need arise
- choosing purchases wisely – think it over for a while before purchasing
- replacing the bulk of meat with pulses and tofu
- using a library and pay as you go rental facilities rather than buying so many books or going to the cinema so often
- walking rather than using the car
- cancelling gym membership as soon as I stopped using the child care facilities there for a couple of hours to myself 3 times a week
- buy at the source (milk for the milk drinkers of the family, vegetables, fruits, honey for the honey eaters …. all from our local farm shop and the weekly market)
- make your own versus buy ready made – especially food.
- be content with less in your life and in your home.
In fact, the list could go on for several pages …
Nice food for thought though. Thank you.
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