Just curious who else is living super frugal

[HeatherLynn]

Mortgage free really is the best thing we can do for ourselves. Its hard to see family buying homes they will struggle to pay off for the next 30 years. I have a SIL who has refinanced now like 4 times. If they keep refinancing over and over at 30 years they will never pay it off. What happens if one of them becomes disabled? Its pretty scary.

I was working on floor plans tonight for our house. We plan to start building this spring on land my parents gave us. We should have a pretty large chunk in the bank to start out with, and then its build as we can. That part is scary. Should be able to still finish it off in a year. Really working on the most efficient, effective and comfortable plan we can come up with. The house won't be as big as some think it should be but will be pretty spacious to us. Right now all 6 of us have taken up temporary shelter in my parents attic. Crowded does not begin to cover it. I think we have put more planning into this house than we will actual building time. We have been tweaking these plans for a couple years now. I think once our home is built I may look for more land to buy so the kids can do the same when they are older. If they can avoid school loans and mortgages they stand a pretty good chance at having some security.

 

[primalchick]

HeatheryLynn > I think you are doing it right! For sure. That is exciting you are going to start building soon. My in-laws built a house, cash, and did most of the work themselves and it took them less than a year. My dad built his house cash as well, same situation as you he got land through family. Your family is going to be so happy with all the extra room. Land is always a good investment if you can afford it, and nice to have something to pass down to the kids to help them out.

It is expensive in our area so we are being frugal and just looking at small 5-10 acre acreages. That need fixing up. Most are older, smaller houses but we are okay with that, we live in a small home now. We have enough cash saved by being frugal to put down half plus pay cash to renovate and fix the place up. We have lived in a cheap, older trailer, in a tiny hamlet of 190 people, for 4 years to lower our cost of living and save up enough to do this and I don't regret it at all. Like you said, being mortgage free is one of the best things to do for ourselves! We want to get into self sustainable living and with 5-10 acres we should be able to raise all our own food. Which means I can get more chickens!!

We see so many people just financing themselves to death. Huge mortgages, expensive (financed!) toys...heck we know people who even financed a couch and a TV. I just can't imagine that stress. To me, being debt free = financial freedom. My husband works away from home and works hard, we don't want him to have to do that forever. Being mortgage free in 3-5 years, plus being largely self sustainable, will allow him to either work a lot less or take on a regular job where he is home every evening. That is our dream!

We would love to get off the grid eventually as well. We've been looking into solar pannels and turbines. Expensive to start out with but I think it saves you a lot of money in the long run.

 

[Raiquee]

I haven't been frugal. Well I have in some ways, and not in others. So let's start with how I've been frugal. Grocery shopping! I go a little out of my way to this 24 hour grocery store which has great prices. Their meats can be hit or miss, but everything else is way cheaper. I go after work, so I end up not getting home until 2 ish in the morning, which sucks, but oh well. And now that I got a reserve going, I really only buy on sale. Also got the spring garden in, so that's a money saver too.

Now the not so frugal, but rather exciting news. You can all see in my sig that for awhile now I've been wanting a hobby farm. Well our home is now for sale and we have been just shoveling money into it so that it sells quick. Why? Cause we accepted a sellers counter offer on this gorgeous home on 5 acres. It costs more than our current house, buuuut I do plan on putting us on a strict schedule of paying it off in 15 years. It's on contingency that we sell our home so we are running to make sure no one buys it out from under from us.

I haven't been feeling too frugal about it though. What I will be able to do on 5 acres will make me feel frugal tho!

 

[albert w]

We have a large veggie garden, laying hens, two freezers so we can stock up when we find a sale, clothesline (rather than dryer), shop at the "scratch-n-dent" store, re-use, use up and recycle.

 

[primalchick]

I haven't been frugal. Well I have in some ways, and not in others. So let's start with how I've been frugal. Grocery shopping! I go a little out of my way to this 24 hour grocery store which has great prices. Their meats can be hit or miss, but everything else is way cheaper. I go after work, so I end up not getting home until 2 ish in the morning, which sucks, but oh well. And now that I got a reserve going, I really only buy on sale. Also got the spring garden in, so that's a money saver too.
Now the not so frugal, but rather exciting news. You can all see in my sig that for awhile now I've been wanting a hobby farm. Well our home is now for sale and we have been just shoveling money into it so that it sells quick. Why? Cause we accepted a sellers counter offer on this gorgeous home on 5 acres. It costs more than our current house, buuuut I do plan on putting us on a strict schedule of paying it off in 15 years. It's on contingency that we sell our home so we are running to make sure no one buys it out from under from us.
I haven't been feeling too frugal about it though. What I will be able to do on 5 acres will make me feel frugal tho!

How exciting! I'm so jealous Like I said earlier, we are hobby farm shopping right now too! Looking at 5-10 acre properties. Congrats!!

 

[momd29]

Living frugal has been very important to my family and I over the past 2 years. We've had to make sacrifices and learn to live on a budget in order to survive. We have had a really rough 2 years due to my DH losing his long-time job and only being able to find jobs through temporary services (which are just that, temporary). He would work for about a month (sometimes longer if he was lucky) and then he would again be laid off. We were struggling to make bills and to keep food on the table. I learned to use coupons and shop wise really quick. We bought generic everything (unless we had an awesome coupon that made the name brand stuff super cheap). We collected aluminum cans to recycle and to gain a little extra income. I even put some of my talents to use and made home made crafts to sell for some extra cash. It was really hard for awhile, but now that my DH has a full-time job we still find ourselves cutting corners and living frugal. That is one reason we decided to raise chickens so we could have fresh meat and eggs anytime without having to go to the store to buy them. We are also planning on growing fresh veggies and fruits in our garden this year so that too can be frozen or canned. In addition, shopping at Goodwill and consignment stores are a big plus when your trying to save money. You can usually find some really awesome buys at these types of stores. It does take some getting used to to start living frugal but overall it is well worth it in the long run.

 

[chickachee]

We are trying our best to live frugally. No house payment, wood boiler for heat, clothesline in the basement to save on using propane in the dryer, and a large garden for most of our produce. It is very rewarding to get in the groove (sorry if that sounds like the 60's!) and make some headway in this economy. Good luck to all!

 

[Raiquee]

Quote:
How exciting! I'm so jealous Like I said earlier, we are hobby farm shopping right now too! Looking at 5-10 acre properties. Congrats!!

Thanks! I wanted a big home, it's always been my dream. I'd rather have a big home than a big wedding. DH wanted to buy properties with much smaller homes on them, then add on later. That was fine with me, but we went to go see this one on a whim. I didn't like it in the pictures, but in person it's breathtaking. My favorite part of the house is the mudroom with attached laundry room...and the kitchen....and the walk in attic (never seen one before!)...and the apartment downstairs for the inlaws....and the jacuzzi in our master bath...and the balcony off the master bed..l.ok ok ok I'll stop!!!! I can't help it! I realize this is all sounding NOT very frugal of me at all. Now if I could just get our dumb house to sell... Good luck on your property hunt! It's fun and frustrating all at the same time! Lol.

 

[HeatherLynn]

I failed at frugal today. I ended up using 130 of our savings and bought myself a hoover windtunnel. New even. I just could not take the barely functioning vacuum anymore. It took doing the same thing over and over and over just to make a difference and I knew it still wasn't really clean. So today I had it, made a quick run to Walmart and bought the thing. Love it. So much easier to clean with. I will find something else to be frugal on to make up for it. I told my hubby it was worth mothers day, birthday and Christmas to me. So I failed at frugal but won at cleaning.

 

[halo]

Which model did you buy?