1. Buy a personal hair cutter/shaver and give your boys military crews. This thing paid for itself with the first haircut.
2. Shop resale/consignment. I've gotten real fur coats for $50, designer clothes for a fraction of the cost, and brand name expensive bags for a song.
3. Craig's list for furniture. Solid antiques are selling cheap, and last a lot longer than modern furniture.
4. Join the YMCA. The entire family can go, they are free babysitting, and offer a variety of very inexpensive classes and programs.
5. Instead of video rentals and video games, have family game nights instead. Your kids will enjoy spending time with you!
6. Trips don't have to be expensive. Visit museums instead and pack a cooler with pastries and donuts for breakfast, P&B and bread for lunch, and drinks and snacks. Our family of 5 took a 3-day trip to Norman Oklahoma and spent less than $300 for the entire thing. The most expensive part was the hotel, but we got a fabulous package price on-line. The kids LOVED it.
7. Get into gardening. You can supplement your table with veggies and fruits right from your own backyard.
8. Visit the library. Great brain food for free.
9. Get involved in your church. Lots of churches host wonderful events that are free or cost very little. Get your kids involved in volunteering; will build great character.
10. If you don't need it, don't buy it. If you can do it yourself, do it. I recently recovered my dining room chairs for less than $25 worth of excellent fabric on clearance. Made my set look new.
11. Cut everything. Do you need your house phone? Drop it. Cut your cable package to the minimum. Cut up your credit cards and pay cash.
My family was devastated by medical bills. I've learned, out of sheer necessity, to live the frugal life just to hang onto my house. These habits haven't gone away now that we are financially stable again.
I’ve done a lot of those. Another thing I have done is to evaluate all of the clutter and excess stuff that has appeared over the years. There is a fair amount of redundancy and fluff. A lot of that meets CL, Amazon, and maybe Ebay. If none of them work, off to the thrift store if it is anything in good condition.
Also, garage sales can be awesome, like thrift stores. I've been known to cruise by at the start of a sale, see something I'd like (but can live without) and then I wait till the sale ends and they are packing up. I come back and if that item is still there, I can usually get it for a fraction. I saw an oil painting once that they wanted $80 for (it's West Hollywood.) I came back five hours later as they were hauling stuff back in and got it for $20.
Thanks for posting.
Either have one or go to them. Mrs. panax and I have been doing this for 30 years and have accumulated LOTS of gold and silver jewelry, coins, flatware etc. This morning she picked up a brand new silk blouse with the original store tag price of $45.00 for only a buck. Also, two heavy sterling necklaces for .50 each. I weighed them up at 36.5 grams, which is about $20.00 for scrap price.
Yard/Estate sales have allowed us to have really nice quality items that we normally could not afford. Last week I bought an old oak clawfoot dining table w/3 leaves for $40.00. That weekend before I purchased a Honda XM1800 generator for $60.00 (runs perfect), ran it in the paper for $225.00. When we arrived home I had 4 calls on it already. The paper just came out this morning!
I have picked up incredible ammounts of ammo and old guns throughout the years. I sell what I don't need and keep the best ones.
We do love our Yard sales.
We’ve been living like that for several years. It can be fun to find ways to stretch your income. I can take one chicken and some veggies from the garden and make three to four meals for our family of 7.
Unfortunately, one of our children has a chronic medical condition so our “living like no one else” isn’t getting us past baby step #1 of the Dave Ramsey debt free plan.
Excellent post at #5. That’s the true American spirit. I admire you and your family for hanging tough and applying a sensible solution to a problem, instead of whining about it and looking for an easy way out.
The great things about Craig's list furniture is that you can get your protein needs met by learning how to cook the bed bugs.
Why don't you just buy a vacation package for Las Vegas? Great bargains nowadays plus they give you free play.
How about shrimping? That's what I am planning on doing. Get my own shrimp directly from the sea. Of course it depends on where you live but it is doable down here. Don't even need a boat. Just from a water outlet leading to the ocean plus a lantern and net.