Being Cheap

I am the world's cheapest person - it's a fact. With only 1.25 incomes and one of us a full-time student, being cheap has become a way of life.  Here are some of the things we do to save money:

• NO CREDIT CARDS. And actually, no plastic period. We only use debit cards for gas, so we do cash only. This makes budgeting easy because if you don't have the cash, guess what? You don't spend it. Saves us AT LEAST $50+/mo.
•  NO CABLE. We have actually done this for the past five years and it has been great for our marriage. Whenever we go on trips, we just sit in the hotel room and watch cable. Imagine what we'd do if we had it at our house!  Saves us $40+/mo
•  NO GIFTS. We don't do gifts for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries - nada.  Our son doesn't know the difference, and we certainly don't care! Saves us $200-300+/year.
•  NO NEW CLOTHES/SHOES. We don't buy clothes retail unless we have gift cards.  We get everything we need second-hand. Saves us $200+/year.

There are other things we scrimp on, but as my son gets older, I am making a conscious effort to set the example of generosity in our home.  As a result, my new thing this year is to try to give generously, beyond our regular tithe.  We are passionate about missions and are blessed to be in a church that not only shares that passion, but regularly creates opportunities to go and provides us opportunities to give.  So, here are a few things we are doing this year:

• BURRITOS. I am now the happy owner of five dozen frozen burritos. They make easy, fast lunches for me and even though I shelled out what I would have normally considered an exorbitant amount of money, the proceeds combined to make nearly $2000 for our youth kids!
• BABY-SITTING. We are beyond blessed with family in town who are generous and helpful with our son. However, we decided to hire a girl who is going to Brazil to watch our son for us once a week for an hour. We're doing $15, which seemed steep at first, but we know he's well-taken care of, we can count on her, we're giving our families a break, AND we are supporting missions.  Win-win-win-win.

These are things I want to become better at this year and in the coming year. It's a work in progress.  Hopefully we will get to redesign our budget when my husband graduates in May!