
After a month on a cash diet, here are my best money saving tips - SmkyMt
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/27/after-a-month-on-a-cash-diet-here-are-my-best-money-saving-tips.html
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grecy
I've quit my job twice now to make huge Overland trips (AK->Argentina, now
around Africa for two years), all funded by saving money. The tips in this
article are good, though I would go much, much further.

My biggest advice is not to think in terms of dollars when looking at a price
tag - think in terms of the number of hours of your life you are spending to
purchase something. Once you calculate your "real" salary (taking into account
taxes, commute expenses, etc. etc.) it turns out you have to sit at work for a
LOT of hours to afford a big screen TV. All of a sudden it's not so
attractive, and it's easy to not buy one.

Extend that across all spending, and soon you really won't be spending much at
all.

I'm so passionate about helping other people do it I even write an e-book on
the topic - Work Less to Live Your Dreams[1]

[1] [http://amzn.to/2kyrCM3](http://amzn.to/2kyrCM3)

~~~
maxerickson
It's like $300 for a big TV. Not the very best one of course.

I guess 50 hours can still be a lot though.

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Jtsummers
For folks here, I like ledger-cli (and that family of tools) over excel.

1) It's designed for tracking finances.

2) It's plaintext so amenable to scripting and custom reporting using any of
your favorite tools and languages.

3) It's reporting system is quite capable and paired with tmux and emacs I
have a nice homemade financial dashboard. On one pane is an emacs instance for
data entry. In others are various reports executed using watch. If you include
stocks and other investments, you can use a pricedb file and have an up to
date (set mine up for daily price downloads) view of your entire financial
portfolio.

EDIT: I was on mobile earlier.

Ledger link: [http://www.ledger-cli.org](http://www.ledger-cli.org)

Plaintext Accounting:
[http://plaintextaccounting.org](http://plaintextaccounting.org)

Paired with org-mode with custom PENDING/CLEARED todo states and noweb/tangle
of babel code blocks, you can make a pretty effective workflow without much
effort. And I prefer this over automated trackers like Mint or something where
it's easy to ignore it for a few days and still have correct information, but
not know where your money went. (I do use Mint, it's a convenient place to get
aggregated data from the half dozen or so institutions holding different parts
of my assets or debts).

------
javitury
Articles like this are helpful for some ideas. However I disagree with the
methodology used(mandatory shopping list, cash only...), although maybe it
works for impulsive people.

It's good to have a shopping list and to be conscious of your wealth/income.
However in my opinion the best tool is have a set of principles.

Thinking only about money will often fail you. It's better to think: Given my
requirements what is the most cost effective product? You probably don't want
to waste time having to fix bad quality items, or going to work with a dirty
shirt because your detergent is worthless. Or buying a cheap thing to realize
that it was crap and having to buy the expensive product later on
anyways(after having lost the money you put on the cheap thing).

On some products, like tools or a car, you should ask yourself: Will this
product ever let me down? How long will it last? A lifetime? Keep in mind that
pricey products can be good deals too.

On commodity goods spend less, on everything else spend smarter.

~~~
bonniemuffin
I'd say there's a time and place for cheapest-possible, and for buy-it-for-
life quality. I own a bunch of cheapest-possible tools that I bought when I
was younger and poorer and just starting out on my own. The tools have been
useful and allowed me to repair stuff around the house so they've definitely
improved my life, but they won't last forever.

As they break or wear out over the years, I'm slowly replacing them with top-
quality stuff. However, I would NOT have wanted to "buy it for life" when I
was first starting out (even if I could've afforded it), because I didn't know
my own long-term needs well enough to predict which tools I'd actually need
and use often, and what features I'd want in them.

If you buy good quality stuff that's actually the wrong stuff for your needs
("why do I even own this band saw that I never use?"), it doesn't matter how
good the quality is -- it's still wasteful. So I'd say there can be a time and
place for the cheapest possible thing -- and hey, my $5 yard sale circular saw
is still going strong after all these years, even if it makes a burning
smell....

~~~
amorphid
I like the ~$10 USD toolset from Ikea. It includes a hammer, multi-tip
screwdriver, adjustable wrench, and a pair of pliers. For 95% of the tool-
needing things I do around the house, these tools are sufficient.

~~~
adrianN
And for typical houshold use thy last years and years.

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anotheryou
Well the sad and simple way:

\- Food: Go to the cheapest store that still has normal vegtables, cook for
yourself whenever possible, don't buy overly expensive stuff like avokados or
good cheese.

\- Transportation: Bike/Foot

\- Bakery/Concerts/Vacation/Cinema/Bars/mobile-internet etc: don't

\- Accomodation: shared

\- Other necessities: only buy when broken, google for 3 hours to find the
cheapest thing that won't break all too easily or go 2nd hand. Save at least
1000 bucks in case something big like your laptop breaks.

~~~
ianai
I feel like I've saved enough money going vegetarian to afford the good cheese
and avocados. (I'll never quit dairy. That's a quality of life thing for me.)

~~~
justifier
if you leave a cow to cow it will cow for 20 years

dairy industry cows only live for four

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_cattle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_cattle)

------
barney54
This is similar to Dave Ramsey's advice on spending money. Here is Megan
McCardle's experience here:
[https://www.google.com/amp/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/3...](https://www.google.com/amp/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/30391/?client=safari)

~~~
DrScump
Native link:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/11/forgive-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/11/forgive-
us-our-debts/30391/)

not paywalled as far as I can see.

------
maxxxxx
I don't understand how credit card implies going into debt for many people. I
pay mine off every month and all is good. It would never occur to me to leave
a balance and pay 20% or whatever interest.

~~~
yoodenvranx
As a European I don't underdtand why people are actually using credit cards.
Over here, most people just buy stuff in stores with their EC card (which
should be similar to a debit card in the States?). This way I can't spend
money I actually don't have and I don't have to take care of any monthly
balance.

~~~
mfairbank
In the US, it's a combination of factors. Personally, I receive unlimited 2%
cash back with my credit card, which is enough of an incentive for me to use
it wherever I can. In addition, it helps me build my credit score, which is a
system that has a lot of issues but is not one I'm in a position to ignore. I
don't know about the situation in Europe though, are there similar benefits
for non-credit cards (debit cards), and is the credit score system as
important?

~~~
maxxxxx
The credit system is not important. When I came to the US I didn't even know
what "building credit" means. To me being creditworthy meant not to have debt.

~~~
Jtsummers
Sufficient (positive) net worth definitely makes someone creditworthy. But,
most borrowers aren't leveraging major assets like companies or investors or
others might. What they're leveraging is their future earnings. "I need
$10,000 today to buy this car, and over the next 3 years I'll pay it off at X%
interest." Having a history of using credit effectively in this manner (paying
it off on time being the big issue) is the only way that someone without a
significant (positive) net worth can demonstrate to a lender that they're
creditworthy.

------
charliecdj
I racked up $25K of credit card debt by not tracking my spending and then
building up so much fear around my finances that I was afraid to check my
accounts.

While the tips mentioned are solid, some people need more extreme options.

My "diet" involved four months of sleeping in the woods, naming porn flicks
for cash, selling other people's restaurants (no license necessary), and
giving up alcohol and eating out.

Too extreme for most? Yes. But if you're single / have few responsibilities
(i.e., young millennials) it might work for you.

I wrote a step by step book on this subject called Debt Destroyer:
[https://www.amazon.com/Debt-Destroyer-Achieve-Financial-
Free...](https://www.amazon.com/Debt-Destroyer-Achieve-Financial-Freedom-
ebook/dp/B01N31SZD2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1485895333&sr=8-5&keywords=get+out+of+debt)

------
trothamel
I wonder, in the long run, how sustainable something like this is in the long
run. Take food, for example - one can go without it, or eat nutritionally poor
stuff for a few weeks, probably without major effect. But it seems like
optimizing for money means it will eventually take its toll - and that could
lead to problems in the long term.

(A single copay could eat half a week on this system.)

~~~
maxerickson
There's not really all that much correlation between the cost of food and the
nutrition it provides.

------
jjoonathan
"Cash diet" instead of "budget"? Really? Has HN turned into the supermarket
checkout aisle?

~~~
xuius899
Withdrawing a fixed amount of cash per week is one of the tricks mentioned in
the fine article.

I can confirm that it works very well (in fact it's the only thing that has
ever worked for me).

~~~
amorphid
I dislike making special trips to the ATM, and carrying around bucket loads of
coins in my pockets., so I took the opposite approach.

I put my weekly expenses on a single credit card, with the caveat that I have
to pay it off every week. I have a small savings account into which I set
aside cash for fun things. If my weekly credit card bill is over the limit, I
have to take the money out of my fun savings account, which I don't like
doing, so I somehow mentally naturally find a way to spend less to avoid
dipping into savings. It took me a few weeks to get used to it, and now it
works great.

Another advantage s that my intermittent expenses which require a credit card,
such as Lyft rides and refills on my pre-paid public transit card, now appear
of the same credit card as my trips to Chipotle & Walgreens.

------
fencepost
$60/week isn't bad, though I'm not sure quite how that is in NYC. In the
Chicago suburbs I feed two of us on something around that level (including the
TP as well), and that's with dietary concerns as well.

A lot of how much you can save like this depends on your situation. If you
have storage space and decent cooking facilities, it's a LOT easier because
you can have some reserve to allow you to take advantage of economies of scale
and opportunities like that 20 pound bag of rice on sale for $6. Similarly, if
you have a full-size refrigerator and freezer you can pretty easily make a
week's worth (or more) of meals to take to work.

It's also important to have a good grasp of how much each individual meal
costs, because you may realize that some less-expensive options may actually
be preferable. That gluten-free bagel plus cream cheese? That's $1.50+, or
would you prefer oatmeal, a couple of breakfast sausages, and a couple of eggs
over the top of that? That easily clocks in at under $1, including with your
choice of rolled or steel-cut gluten-free oatmeal (and if you don't care about
gluten it's even less), and it takes almost no extra time in the morning over
toasting and cheesing a bagel if you've pre-made the oatmeal. It's worth not
getting carried away with this though - for some things it's just worth
getting the more expensive option because making it at home takes more time or
energy than you want to spend.

Knowing your cost of getting things is also important - don't drive 5 miles to
save $0.50 on milk, because you're spending that much extra on gas. This is
where shopping lists are important, as well as having a good feel for typical
prices at different stores if you have multiple shopping options. If you know
you're doing your shopping for the week at a store the cost of getting there
is less of a factor, and conversely if you know cost of getting there is a
concern then you'll want to avoid forgetting something that you have to run
back out for (hence the list).

Finally, if you can stockpile some things and have multiple shopping options
it's well worth keeping an eye on sales flyers and per-store discounts. Using
myself and Meijer as an example, in January so far I've saved $12.34 using
electronic coupons through their "mPerks" app and another 6.25 using paper
coupons (either printed at checkout or on product packages, I'm not a
couponer), plus $47 off of the regular prices of items by getting them when
they're on sale - and I've only spent $128 there so far this month. I rarely
buy items just because they're on sale, so that's almost all savings on items
that I'd have been purchasing anyway.

------
holri
another one: Before buying ask yourself: "Do I really _need_ this item or do I
just _want_ it."

~~~
coredog64
This. I want a new car, but I don't want to give up my cash reserves to buy
one, nor do I want a new car payment. My 10 year old car gets me to work, so I
keep on driving it and probably will until the wheels fall off.

