Learning to think like a frugal person

ForMyGirls

Day 9 I have found really tricky in the world of money (though I didn't in the world of weight loss). So tricky in fact that I am spending two days on it!

In the Beck book Day 9 is 'choosing an exercise plan'.

When I first started thinking about this yesterday I thought - there is no equivalent. But then when I unpacked it a bit more I decided that actually there is. In the world of weight loss changing what you eat (reducing calorie intake) is just one piece of the puzzle. You are far more likely to succeed if you add the other puzzle piece - exercise (increasing calorie output).

Similarly it seems to me that with getting out of debt one piece of the puzzle is not buying stuff you don't need - and the other piece of the puzzle is finding ways to buy what you are still buying more cheaply. There is also a third piece, which is finding ways to generate more income.

So having worked that out I started to think about how I might do that - and I met a lot of resistance in my head. It might be a good time to introduce you to Beck's term 'sabotaging thoughts'. Possibly a familiar phrase for those of you who know CBT.

Basically what she says is that there are these thoughts that run through our brains that stop us achieving our goals. The idea is to learn to spot them and then think of helpful responses to them so that next time they come up you have a response ready and they don't manage to sabotage you again. Beck recommends creating "response cards" which you keep with you (I have mine in one of those "apps I can't live without" so they are on my phone and ipad all the time :-)) so that you can look up your response when the sabotaging thought hits. I have found I rarely need to look at them because just having written them down means they are in my brain.

She also recommends reading the most important ones regularly (I read them every morning along with my ARC). My personal favourites are: 'Sabotaging thought: "But I don't want to!" Response: "Fair enough - but you do want to be fit and healthy and lean and I'm pretty sure you want those things more than you don't want to do this" and "Sabotaging thought: "F(%k it - I don't care" Response: "You might not care right now but boy are you going to care in 5 minutes!" The first one gets used almost daily!

Anyway - that was a long, but hopefully useful, tangent. Why I raise it here is that I realised that I have a whole heap of sabotaging thoughts about spending money more wisely. Yesterday I only got as far as noticing the thoughts. Today's task is to starting working out some responses. Some of them were a bit of a surprise to me.

To report on what I discovered yesterday - these were some of the sabotaging thoughts I found floating around my head:
- "But the food from the discount stores doesn't taste nearly as nice"
- "It will take longer to shop at the discount stores because I can't buy everything in one place"
- "I am depriving myself of so much in the world of food already that I should get to eat exactly what I want provided it is healthy - I shouldn't have to restrict myself to what is 'left over' or already in the cupboard"
- "I don't have time to keep track of vouchers and sell things on e-Bay"
- "I'm not that kind of person" (this one was a real surprise to me at first but then I realise it is probably running pretty deep - it would explain why when I first came to MSE and landed on the "Frugal Living Challenge" my reaction was to think - 'this isn't my space' - glad I hung in there though. This sabotaging thought kind of scares me too because it suggests I might be a snob - which is not how I like to think of myself. In fact it is embarrassing to speak it 'out loud' here and I worry that you will all stop reading my thread now that you have seen this bit of who I am because I don't much like it so you probably won't either. Aaagh. Perhaps you start to see why I needed to two days for Day 9!)
- and my age old favourite "but I just don't want to"

I will report back later on the responses I come up with - and the decisions I make about which 'living more cheaply' steps I choose to take - because like with exercise plans - one has to choose a plan that is realistic and sustainable.

ForMyGirls

I've done a bunch of thinking today about this today.

The short version is that I realised that "I don't have time" is not actually a sabotaging thought in this instance - it is reality - and if I am unrealistic about that this won't be sustainable. I figure I can make small changes on this front - it means my crawling out of debt will be slower - but at the end of the day when I balance up the benefit of getting out of debt faster with the sacrifices I would have to make to make the time to do that - the benefits of having more time for my family wins out!

The longer version:

1. I will do a better job of using up the food that is in the house (especially perishables) before I buy more food - I decided to do this one because it will fit in quite well with the other food planning that I already do for weightloss (you'll hear a bit more about that in a few days time) so it won't take that much extra time - and I reckon it could be a BIG money saver;

2. I will try out shopping at Aldi for some of my groceries - I have done it in the past and know I can't get everything there so it will use up a bit of extra time - if I find I just can't do it in the time I have scheduled for grocery shopping I will let it go.

3. I will keep an eye on vouchers on dockets and the like for the next little while and come back to thinking about whether I will start to use them. I had a look at them from my most recent grocery shop and there didn't seem to be anything that wouldn't involve buying something extra to get the benefit so probably not worth it - and runs the risk of buying into my tendency to buy stuff I don't need to get something else. But I will give it a bit more perusing before I make a call on this one.

4. For now I won't go down the path of ebay selling etc. This strikes me as pretty time intensive and I doubt I have that much that would fetch a decent price. Something to maybe think about doing during future periods of leave - but certainly not smoething I can find time for in my already chocker block work time schedule.

Reporting back on those sabotaging thoughts:
- "But the food from the discount stores doesn't taste nearly as nice" - my response to this one is "If it really doesn't you can still buy the brand you like better - but you owe it to yourself to test the theory before you spend the extra $" (which means my approach to the Aldi shopping is to let myself buy the more expensive brand from other shops where there really is a difference)

- "I don't have time" - my response to this one "True - but you can still make changes that only require a little bit of time"

- "I'm depriving myself already so I should get to have whatever healthy food I want" my response to this: "Actually you have a pretty charmed life - in the wider scheme of things this is a very very minor deprivation"

- "I don't want to" - my response to this: "This is a feeling and it will pass. What is true is that you want to be financial secure and able to look after your loved ones"

- "But I'm not that kind of person". As I said in my last post - this one really rattled me and I spent a bit of time thinking about it today. It might just be that I am avoiding admitting that I am a snob - but I think it might actually be a particular association I have and a particular person I am trying to distant myself from. So my response card for this thought is "Shopping at Aldi doesn't make you like X". Time will tell if this is really what this one is about - if that response puts paid to the sabotaging thought then I'm on a winner - if the sabotaging thought keeps winning then I'll go back to the drawing board.

Day 9 checklist:
1. I read my ARC twice
2. I read other response cards (i.e.: ones I have created in response to sabotaging thoughts I have noticed) as necessary
3. I used my "stop impulse spending" and "savouring strategies - every time? most of the time? some of the time?
4. I used pause, plan, pay - every time? most of the time? some of the time?
5. I gave myself credit for helpful spending behaviours - every time? most of the time? some of the time?
6. I worked out a plan for spending more wisely / living more cheaply?
7. I acted in accordance with my spending more wisely / living more cheaply plan - every time? most of the time? some of the time?

ForMyGirls

I just discovered being able to put an icon for a message - thumbs up seemed like just the right thing for a post about credits.

Big credit to me today for confronting some demons in thinking through Day 9. And for coming up with a plan that involves some change, but recognises the need to make it sustainable.

Credit also for thinking through the next step in the coffee saga. My partner went and bought some more pods today. I hadn't explained my plan to wait till payday. We have very independent financial lives and just contribute shares to joint expenses - which means I need to reimburse him half for the coffee. Got a bit tangled working out whether I should do this now and overdraw my "play money" or have it as a debt until payday. Opted for the latter but, more importantly, worked out that in the future I need to make sure there is $20 in reserve in the play money at all times so that if the coffee runs out I can pay my way without going into the red or deferring payment.

Oh and it's always whether applauding myself for reading my ARC :-)

That's plenty for one night. I look forward to hearing how you are all getting on with developing ARCs, budget plans and giving yourselves credits.

Big_bog

I'm getting the snob feeling too.....whilst I don't mind going to Aldis to do my shopping I still feel that I'm doing it because of my current financial situation and once sorted I'll be able to shop wherever I want. That's not really the answer tho and I know it's not from reading your posts and thinking about it more....thanks FMG you're turning into my life coach! There are a number of times recently where I've said to myself "I work hard I deserve that". In reality I've already spent what im working hard for.....debt repayments - once the debt has gone then I CAN save for those luxury items. (I seriously need to stop checking the grabbit board! So what if mulberry have a sale....!?)

AliBee16

Such an interesting and fresh way of looking at budgeting. I will be subscribing to your thread as I need to conserve money, and lose weight. I have the Beck Solution book somewhere (along with about 20 other diet books) and will re-read it. I think it could be used alongside another really good book by Gillian Riley, which moves the focus away from 'losing weight' and more to eating healthily. Also focusing on the psychological side. I think most overweight people know what to eat, but noone tells them how to go about giving up something they are addicted to and crave.
Good luck to you OP, although with your positiveness, I suspect you dont need luck

iammumtoone

When I read your post FMG my first thought was yeah you had solved your problem, don't buy things and wait for your partner to get whats needed :rotfl: but then I realised thats not the answer is it. I am guilty of doing that myself, I don't have a partner but often when expenses need paying for ds like swimming or beavers I just don't have the money so ask my Dad to pay, he does and of course never chases me for the debt (previous to that I would put it on the credit card but at least I have stopped spending on those now) I need to sort that out, I can't rely on other people to bail me out.

I am going to get ynab (thanks to whoever pointed out I can get it half price at the moment). I could probably set up a spread sheet to do something similar but it would be very boring looking so I doubt I would use it, I am a sucker for 'pretty' looking and gadgety type things so am sure I will use it.

I am dreading sitting down and working out how much I need to allocate to each budget as I am not sure there will be enough income to cover everything.

Tonight I am going to work out my plan A and B for my goals so will post those later.

My credit for yesterday, we had a cheap day out went to the beach, found a parking space on the side of the road so no parking fees, Spent two pound in the amusements (one pound each of 2ps). A day out for £2 of course it helped that the seasonal shops were all shut so I didn't get crazed for an ice cream!

pantherchick

Hi there.


Just subscribed to your blog... really need a bit more inspiration myself and hoping for some new friends to jolly me through this next year... frugal sounds good if the end results show a profit... I shake your hand and wish you a frugal newyear.. my friend. xx

chanie

I have made some progress today, which I will update at some point, but I wanted to share a tale about a frugal relative I have for inspiration.

This relative has always been frugal, even before it became 'fashionable'. Examples included:
1) using 1 teabag to make multiple cups of tea
2) screeching like a bashee if you left a room without turning off the lights (even if it's to pop to the loo!!!)
3) I remember cutting myself once and being refused a plaster because I '... don't need one as the bleeding has practically stopped and I've already used loads of tissue'.

Now, I'm not saying we should go that far, but the point is, money saving is always on their mind.

The reason I got thinking about this relative is that most of my free time is spent doing things that involves spending money. Now, part of this is because I do all of the household stuff (food shopping, children's expenses etc) but I also buy unbudgeted things because they are 'cheap' or 'useful' etc

My relative is retired and manages not to spend money to fill their time. For example:
1) as a pensioner, gets free travel around London and uses this rather than the car.
2) won't buy a newspaper during the week- gets the free paper at the train station.
3) takes snacks on long journeys liked dried fruits, cakes and crisps. At a recent family fun day, they brought a picnic for us all.

I guess it's about finding ways to live and enjoy life with minimum spending.

frugalfilly

ForMyGirls: I am glad to see that you have found your niche here on this site. "When the student is ready, the teacher arrives."

I accept your invitation to follow you over to this new site. I did register a couple of days ago but when I returned to log on, it said that I hadn't registered, etc. so I had to redo the whole process and, of course, as strange as it may seem (I have had this happen before), this site recognizes my previous username but says it is being used so I had to create a new username... so I am Pam from 3FC, FMG.

I did read all of the wonderful exchange of ideas and experiences from everyone already. I have been practicing frugality for quite a few years but, on occasion, I seemed to have what I call a "boomerang effect" where I will be very frugal and then, suddenly, usually involving the use of a credit card buy something so absurdly expensive that it puts all of my best-laid plans in jeopardy. That is something that I need to correct. I think it comes from the sabotaging thought of "using plastic is not using real money" and therefore the purchases don't "count". Wrong! So very wrong! This is an area that I really need to work on and I realize as much.

On the other hand, I have also developed quite a few good strategies that I use on a daily and weekly basis, which I will share as they seem appropriate.

However; I do want to clarify what I feel is a misuse of words regarding "frugality" vs. what I believe is more commonly known as being a "cheapskate". IMHO, being a cheapskate (and there is a t.v. series right now on cable t.v. called "Extreme Cheapskates" that clearly shows how extreme some people are willing to go with that) is someone who wants to squeeze every ounce out of a penny whether it shows common sense or not. However, being "frugal" is not about spending money with always zeroing in on the cheapest costing item but "getting the best value for their money." Also, being frugal and being a cheapskate can sometimes blur each other boundaries.

For example, a product can be both frugal and cost less BUT the criteria that I use when making that final decision is: how will this product be used? A long time ago, I read a phrase that is used in the retail business: "cost of wear per item". For example, if you have long and cold winters buying a coat that costs 10x what you would spend on a bathing suit is considered "frugal" and not extravagant. However, if you only go swimming twice in one summer then buying a cheap suit can be considered "frugal" as well. It just depends on how well constructed the item is, how much or how little it will be used and the cost of the item in relation to what you can both afford and want to spend. I have used this yardstick ever since I saw that phrase and it has been very helpful for me in determining what I am willing to spend or not spend on a particular item or service.

I am glad that FMG did bring up that the other side of the coin of frugality is also generating more income. Without this post becoming too long-winded, as I have a tendency to do, I will say that for 2014, this is the one area that I need to work harder on: increasing my ability to provide more income so that I can begin to pay off a lot of old and outstanding debts.

I am good about stretching my existing income. The problem that I face right now is that as the cost of living rises (rent increases, gas prices go up, milk prices also go up, etc. etc.) it just gets harder to find that extra money to put on old debt and so what I have found happening in my life is I am stuck in a rut and a vicious circle. I never advance forward. I just going around in circles and that creates a real sense of frustration.

I look forward to being a part of this ongoing discussion.

Take care, Pam :beer:

Mrs_Cheshire

Wow so much to think about. Need to try and copy the book to my smartphone so I can read it when I have 5 minutes.
We always take picnics with us on days out to keep the cost down.