Financial Escape Plan

As I've said before, I really do love my job. Despite that, though, I have days when it's hard, when it feels like it's just too much, when it's emotionally draining and exhausting and just takes so much out of me. There are things I would like to do, creative things and fun things and domestic things, that at the end of the day I just don't feel capable of doing.

These are the days when I start plotting my escape.

I know that at this point in my life it makes no sense to quit my job. I'm in a lot of debt, my husband is still in school, and honestly if I quit my job I would have very little to make me feel fulfilled. But sometimes it's nice to fantasize about all the things that I could do if I didn't work full time.

So on those evenings I devise a financial escape plan. I sit down with a notepad, a calculator, or sometimes a spreadsheet, and I figure out exactly how much money I would need to survive for one month. I figure out ways I could generate extra income, through part time work and ventures, and I try to make those things as close as possible. Then I figure out how much more money I would need to spend a few blissful jobless months and how long it would take me to save up that much money.

What do I take away from these exercises? Well, besides a strange nerdy kind of satisfaction and sense of calm, I do develop a greater understanding of some truths about my financial situation. For one, I will never come close to financial freedom until I can knock out all the debt, so that is a serious priority. Also, when I can see a goal, like 2 months with nothing to do but bake banana bread, do yoga, and sleep late, my idea of how much money I can cut on entertainment changes significantly. And finally, that the better job I can do at generating alternate income, the easier it will be for me to eventually switch to part time work.

Of course this is a long way off, but for now, a girl can dream.

Fun and inexpensive christmas gifts

In my quest for a frugal Christmas, I thought I'd share some inexpensive Christmas gifts that I've given over the years.

A home manual

When one of my college roommates moved into her first apartment, I put together an instruction manual for her on how to live on her own. It was basically a binder in which I put favorite recipes, cleaning checklists, shopping lists, money saving tips, and other assorted tips that I'd written. I decorated the front, and I taped a Bed, Bath and Beyond giftcard to the inside of the back cover. If I were doing this again, I might also include a coupon envelope and some other assorted knickknacks to help her get started. It was a very inexpensive Christmas gift for me because the only thing that cost was the giftcard, and I think I got that from a rewards program. It was really useful for her, though, and I think she still uses and adds to it herself.

A stress relief bag

A few Christmas ago, I put together a "stress relief" bag for my best friend for Christmas. It contained two boxes of herbal tea (from the grocey store, purchased for next to nothing), 50 cent marble notebooks in 3 different colors, a coloring book (from the clearance table at Borders) and 8 pack box of crayons, a small bottle of bubble bath and various little toys and balls. Most of the things in this bag, besides being useful, were appreciated because they had meaning for the two of us rather than because of how much they cost.

A love journal

The year my husband and I were engaged, I gave him a journal in which I'd written to him every day for several months. I had also glued in things like the stubs from movies we'd seen and pictures of what we'd done. He still keeps it next to his bed.

Pleas share any ideas you may have for inexpensive Christmas gifts which are also extremely meaningful.

The End of My Frugal Rope

(Originally posted at my now defunct writing up blog on 6/24/06. Apparently these things come in cycles)

Lately I feel like I'm at the end of my frugal rope. (A frugal rope, as I envision it, would probably be made of a series of plastic grocery bags, twisted up and braided together. But I digress.) When I first started being frugal and recognizing places that I could cut back, save money, and live in a more simple and deliberate way, it was very gratifying. I could see the impact of my big changes, could quantify the money savings, could feel the difference as the space opened up in my life.

The longer I live this lifestyle, though, and the more like habit these actions become, the less visible the impact. There are no more big changes to make, no more egregious factors in my life, and that means that there are far fewer victories to be made. I read blogs and message boards where people write "I saved $20 this week by not buying lattes!" For me, this is not a savings. I never buy lattes. I don't get to count that.

I'm afraid that I'm at the point when most people get frustrated and give up. My expenses have leveled off and there is no more big excitement or glamour involved in reducing bills. The changes I have yet to make are much smaller, and are the kinds of things that in the past I have considered trivial, but they're the only changes I have left to make.

It's not so much that I need to cut my lifestyle more because we still don't make enough money to cover out bills; I want to cut deeper to find more money to put towards loans. Most of all, though, I want that excitement back of finding something to cut. Without that sense of victory and success, it's hard to continue to live this way forever.

In order to stay motivated, I'm trying to come up with little games for myself. Every day, I try to stretch one more day before having to run the dishwasher. I'm experimenting to see how I can reduce dryer time by hanging heavier items, running the washer's spin cycle an extra time, and keeping the machine free of lint. (I know I'd do even better by hanging all of my clothes, but I'm still trying to find a productive way to do that in this tiny apartment.) I'm trying to turn my water heater off during the day, to see if that reduces my energy bills at all.

Right now, any victory would be enough to keep me at it.

In search of a frugal Christmas

I really love Christmas. I have images of snowy mornings, childhood innocence, family caroling and tree decorating and every one of these ideas makes me feel warm and fuzzy and happy. For the past few years though, I have gotten so caught up in the business of Christmas, and the business of the end of the semester of school, that I have not really let myself get into the spirit of Christmas.

It really doesn't take much for me. In college, we set up a tiny Christmas tree, put tinsel in our hair, and danced around. I baked cookies at my mom's house and went from dorm to dorm delivering them to all my friends on campus. I sat on the floor quilting a Christmas present and eating Chinese food out of boxes while my roommate and I crammed for a psych final together.

That's the kind of Christmas I'm looking for again. The kind that's not about gifts or travel plans but is just about love and giving. I want to really feel like it's Christmas again. I'm sitting here now with my Christmas lights lit, the "holiday music" channel on my television, and a big pot of applesauce on my stove. I'm wearing snowman socks. . . shhhhh, don't tell my boss. When I finish writing this, I'm thinking about cutting some paper snowflakes out of white scrap paper. I might even find some tinsel to put in my hair. :)

I am interested in finding frugal ways to buy Christmas presents and deorations, and in the next few weeks, I hope to share some of those. But right now, the only Christmas I need is in my heart and mind.

And that kind of Christmas doesn't cost anything at all.

"TV's going to end! Honey, what will we do?!?"

My husband and I watch a lot of TV. Unlike some of my more frugal counterparts, I have never made the effort to give up TV. We really enjoy it. We enjoy it even more since we got a DVR and can watch Heroes, House, Life, or Prison Break any time of day sans commercials. We can watch while doing homework, grading papers, folding laundry, knitting, cuddling. . . all of our favorite activities.

But now the writers are on strike. Go labor. Fight the man. I've got your backs and all that. But it does leave us with one little question:

What are we going to do with our evenings?

Sure we have some movies on DVD, but not very many and almost nothing from the past year. And my husband's plan of watching less TV now in order to stockpile shows on the DVR, though valiant in its efforts seems somehow flawed (I'm sorry, but those four episodes of Chuck we have saved? Those will get us through two evenings). So what shall we do instead? Oh, I have big plans.

Listen to Christmas music.

Play Backgammon.

Go to the park and look at the Christmas light display.

Play card games.

Talk to each other more.

Play Guitar Hero. :)

Read Lord of the Rings out loud to each other.

Actually get our homework and grading done.

Bake cookies.

Visit with friends (on a weeknight! Gasp!).

Anyone else have any great ideas for free or cheap things we can do once TV ends?