Suddenly Single and Feeling Frugal

$$$Money$$$

Keep More/Spend Less

Money is obviously a very big topic but one of the issues with money is how to hang onto it and so after I watched a couple videos, it dawned to me that being frugal is one of the best ways to hold onto what you have and these are just a few ideas that occurred to me that I’m actually doing. The first is to look at what your expenses are which essentially our food, clothing, shelter, and entertainment where and how can I save money in each of these broad categories? With food, I make large crockpot meals so whether it’s ribs or chicken or Boston butt, I can make a ton of food that’ll last me a week for maybe 30 or $40. Boston butt was my first and absolutely most favorite. I didn’t mention this in the podcast, but I started making Boston but after my sister-in-law made it for the holidays one year and it was the most delicious feast of food I’ve ever had. I started making it to feed the family on Christmas and they loved it now as suddenly single I make it for myself and as I said it can last up to a week. Other ways of saving food is to simply eat it when I go out for dinner I bring home the leftovers and I eat them for the next meal when I buy food I can make other things like spaghetti and meat sauce which again can last for you know several days I also started eating rice which I have given up all carbs for the keto diet, but I found out that that’s not such a great healthy thing either keto emphasizes all fat all the time I did it. I lost weight. I started gaining weight back. I went back to a more normal diet

OK, enough about food. The next thing is clothing. Well clothing is by quality clothing and it’ll last a lifetime. I’ve been buying some Amazon essentials, which actually appear to be reasonably good quality clothing, especially for sweatsuits and even a jacket that I bought her a puff coat that I bought that I wear every single day when it’s cold enough. I really have to clean out my closet right now and give away a lot more clothing that I never or rarely wear so I think the key to close is just by good quality and then wear it.

Shelter… in my mind and for my generation buying my home was the first priority. We started with a very inexpensive home that we could afford. We lived in it for several years and we sold it for a profit and moved into a bigger house. We did this three or four times I also bought A townhome for my daughter to live in I arranged for her to pay me rent Well, I paid off the mortgage this way she learned the responsibility of paying rent which eventually turned into a mortgage. 

Transportation, I lease my cars and this way I keep a new car at a lower monthly expense and eventually I have paid off the car And now I own it. In the early years, I always bought used cars. Sometimes I had good luck many times I didn’t I used car starts to go bad. You never have something for nothing so instead of paying a monthly fee for a new reliable car you’re paying for this old junker to keep it on the road in my mind. It’s it’s better to lease.

Entertainment that’s where a lot of your money slips away we used to get cable cable got very expensive. I started getting streaming services and after a while if you don’t watch it streaming services can become very expensive right now I get Netflix, which Netflix has a lot of good shows on it I get Amazon prime Basically if it’s not on Netflix or Amazon, I don’t watch it sometimes I buy the film on Amazon people have question this I don’t go to the theater. I haven’t gone to to the movie theater in several years. There are just one there were just a few shootings. Well that’s enough for me. I can watch any film in the comfort of my home on my big screen TV and I can watch it in spells I can watch it you know 15 minutes a time or an hour at a time with the whole movie but I have that option plus if I like the movie I can watch it again so to spend 12 or $15 on the movie from Amazon to me is a pretty darn good deal.

Insurance… Insurance is something that you only need it when you need it beyond that it’s a huge waste of money so just keep that in mind… I have homeowners insurance. I have Flood insurance. I have car insurance. I look to get bigger deductibles with lower payments. I try not to have accidents or things that I have to make claims on. It seems ridiculous but it’s true. You can only really use insurance when you have somewhat of a catastrophe otherwise it’s cheaper just to pay it off yourself. I’m gonna look at my insurance. I might just keep liability. I might stop collision altogether. I haven’t had an accident in over 40 years with my luck. I’ll have one next week the week after I cancel my collision and insurance, but with any luck that won’t happen. To avoid tickets and accidents I try to stay under the speed limit. I drive carefully and I avoid driving at night and in bed weather and of course, don’t drink and drive.

So all these things are very common sense there’s nothing no great secret nothing truly profound. It’s very simple but not necessarily very easy. I think that’s what they say about Christianity so the point is keep it simple and just make saving money a game that you play make being frugal a game that you play how can I save money here or there do I really need it? Can I wait a week and think about it And as I mentioned I do like to go out for dinner occasionally and I like to get good food when I do what I didn’t say in the blog, I’ll say it here when it comes to giving tips. I say give a good tip. Appreciate the work that other people are doing. My simple rule of thumb is round up the bill And then multiplied by three I have watched people who appears to have much more money than I do calculating the tip as I said round up multiplied by two is a 20% tip multiplied by three is a 30% tip that should do it.

OK last but not least save save save my dad said spend a little save a little… again, so simple so true not necessarily so easy every time you get a paycheck there’s things you gotta use to buy to spend it. Try to save a little try to live within your means and invest when I think about it, the stock market is probably the greatest invention ever made. I’ve been putting this money in the stock market for let’s just say 50 years. I don’t have any financial planners. I don’t have any financial advice other than common sense most brokerages were managed to count are trying to beat the index. The index is an index for a reason it’s it’s the average of the best companies and the value that they have in the stock market. The main indexes are the fortune 500 and then NASDAQ personally, I choose NASDAQ and it has paid off in a big way now within the NASDAQ you have the top companies so I also invested in those top companies and again it’s pretty simple and really actually pretty easy so you look at the NASDAQ you look at the top 10 or 20 companies and say which ones of these can I buy and then you do it it doesn’t take a financial planner to do that so Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Apple these are my big four they’re also the countries big four maybe even the world‘s big four now they could stumble and fall and again I’m not giving advice to anybody but myself but one thing you might avoid is paying a managed fee account of 1%. It’s better to get financial advice once or twice even a year or maybe every five years then pay one percent of your assets every year it doesn’t sound like much 1% doesn’t sound like much one percent of $1 million is $10,000.10 years is $100,000. That’s a lot of money to spend on financial advice for Management that you could’ve saved and you could have invested or kept invested in the actual stocks rather than in your manager‘s pocket.

So financial advice in a nutshell; By your home, Lease your car, Wear your clothing, Eat your food, Buy a big TV and watch movies at home.

Oh, Avoid Credit Cards like the Plague but have just One that pays you points and Pay it Off Every Month!!!

There have it now just do it🤣