frugality

My Very Cheap Day

05.17.2013

On Wednesday, I was sitting at the library trying to come up with an idea to blog about. Actually, I had a “to blog” list, but none of them struck a chord with me, so I started reading some magazines instead. Luckily, I found an article in Money Magazine that I can comment on – “My very cheap day” by Kristen Bellstrom. (Thanks to Brian for finding the link for us.) It’s not easy for frugal folks to cut expense Her mission was to spend one day trying to cut every expense she encountered. Aha! I already found something to [...]

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Not Buying Clothing Is Very Liberating

04.29.2013
Not Buying Clothing Is Very Liberating

One of my New Year Resolutions is the No New Clothes Challenge for 2013. I figured it shouldn’t be that hard because I have plenty of clothes and shoes. Since I don’t work outside the home anymore, I don’t really need to be that presentable and it will be fine if I just wear some clothes down. Apparel spending is one of the smaller expenses in consumer expenditures so even if you cut your budget here, it won’t affect your expenses that much. According to the US Census Bureau’s data, apparel is only about 3.5% of an average family’s annual expenditure. Free from [...]

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Being Extremely Frugal – Is this entertainment?

04.22.2013
Being Extremely Frugal – Is this entertainment?

Last week, I got an email from someone who is casting for a TV show. They are looking for extremely frugal people and the tips they can share. Even with the amount of money we save, we aren’t really that frugal. To me, the things we do to cut expenses are probably not going to make a entertaining TV show. For me, being frugal largely means NOT buying a lot of stuff we don’t need. It’s simple, really. We don’t have or do a lot of things that regular middle class families take for granted. A big house 2 nice cars Smart [...]

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Can You Retire Comfortably On $31,722 per year?

03.25.2013
Can You Retire Comfortably On $31,722 per year?

Can You Retire Comfortably On $31,722 per year? Last week, I wrote an article about minimizing tax on Social Security income after retirement. Basically, if you receive $15,000 of Social Security benefit and withdraw $17,500 from your IRA, then you will pay very little income tax. Using the standard deduction and exemption, you will only pay $778. That’s a 2% effective tax rate and you’ll have $31,722/year of after-tax income to spend in retirement. Anyway, this article was syndicated on Yahoo! and it received a bunch of comments. A bunch of whiners There were the usual complaints about Social Security [...]

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