I’m not ashamed to say I’m cheap, frugal or find just about any way to save money so I can invest and grow it.<\/p>\n
I didn’t say I was a cheapskate either, just cheap which means I watch where our dollars go.<\/p>\n
You don’t need to alter your lifestyle completely to incorporate cheap living tactics either.<\/p>\n
I think this is the belief that you either have to earn lots of money or you have to be so cheap that you are eating hotdogs for dinner every night.<\/p>\n
That’s not the case.<\/p>\n
Cheap Living For Your Future<\/h2>\n
No matter which way you shake it, life is expensive and so is having debt.<\/p>\n
There are so many perks that come with financial freedom but the main one is less worry about our future<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That doesn’t mean we won’t have bills when we retire because we sure will no matter if we downsize our current home or not.<\/p>\n Besides, one of us may need to be put into assisted living or other accommodations that could further dig into our savings.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, our retirement lifestyle plan<\/a> that we set out today may look nothing like this tomorrow.<\/p>\n As much as we want to say that financial worry has disappeared we can’t, but it has come to a smooth landing.<\/p>\n Those are just five of the issues that could happen which could turn your financial freedom upside down.<\/p>\n Everyone always needs to air on the side of caution with anything related to their finances because nothing is guaranteed.<\/p>\n Last week we sat with our financial advisor to review our retirement portfolio and what our future path might look like.<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> 6 Retirement Concerns We Are Thinking About Today<\/a><\/p>\n It turns out we will be millions of dollars more than fine and our son will be well taken care of if we were to pass away today.<\/p>\n His school will be 100% funded so he will have no educational debt<\/a> to worry about unless he decides to stay in University past 4 years.<\/p>\n Even when we are both gone our son will have enough money that will allow him to get that kick-start in life that we never had.<\/p>\n In a way, I felt jealous that he will have this opportunity but then I thought that as long as he manages the money he can pass it on to his children.<\/p>\n We began to understand that there had to be a beginning and that each generation will give up something for their kids to have a better life.<\/p>\n Even if you go on to have no children in the back of your mind you should always be prepared for, “what if’s” which can significantly dent a savings account.<\/p>\n For example:<\/strong><\/p>\n My wife’s father taught her how to garden and re-use items so that they would stay out of the landfill.<\/p>\n By utilizing his cheap living ways it allowed his daughter to see how she could save money instead of rushing out to buy something new.<\/p>\n He did not have buckets of money nor did her parents fund her education which took her 10 years to pay back.<\/p>\n There were no frills growing up but there were lessons, lots of them and most started at the kitchen table around food waste.<\/p>\n Those were four of the main concerns for their parenting style in the ’70s right up until he passed away last year.<\/p>\n If you had all of those you were considered rich because they are the basics of life which some people don’t even have.<\/p>\n This was the generation that educated my wife and she took it one step further as did I since my parents are quite frugal.<\/p>\n Today we teach our son about living a simple life so that he can pass on his knowledge to his kids (if he has any).<\/p>\n To get him started he has a giant piggy bank that he fills with extra coins her earns from birthday’s or doing small chores around the house.<\/p>\n Just recently on a trip to the thrift store, we bought him a big-boy wallet as daddy has.<\/p>\n I find he’s wanting to be more like me or follow whatever I do no matter what the challenge.<\/p>\n To inspire him to earn money this summer we told him that every time he read a book we’d pay him $5.<\/p>\n I honestly never thought he’d take us up on it, but I wrong.<\/p>\n That night in bed he read his bedtime story to me and I gave him a kiss and said goodnight.<\/p>\n As I reached to turn the light of he says, “but daddy, where’s my five dollars?<\/strong>” and my eyes lit up.<\/p>\n I was proud that he remembered to ask for payment after he finished a task and extra proud that he put the money in his wallet the next morning.<\/p>\n We created a money saving chart<\/a> on the wall so we could track how much money he was saving.<\/p>\n It’s a simple chart with the date he earned the money, purpose and a running total.<\/p>\n I know that many people give a bad rep to kids who have money left on the counter for them when their parents pass away but don’t.<\/p>\n We spent many cheap living years to save up money to allow us to have what I described above however it’s a life-long battle.<\/p>\n Cheap living doesn’t come easy and when we started on our budgeting journey<\/a> it was about ‘us’ as we did not have a child.<\/p>\n After the meeting ended with our financial advisor we left knowing we will continue our cheap living ways.<\/p>\n To some people that might sound ridiculous however we pick and choose our financial battles<\/strong>.<\/p>\n What does picking a financial battle mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n It means that just because you have something or know you will have something in the future doesn’t mean you blow it all today.<\/p>\n This is how people get themselves wrapped up in debt and why we plan on having a retirement budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n The power of\u00a0 ‘Spending Ahead<\/strong>‘ or believing that you will get something in the future can be deceiving for anyone.<\/p>\n Let’s take a look at a simple scenario that could easily cause someone financial strain because they believed they were getting something.<\/p>\n Your work typically offers employees a yearly Christmas work bonus for years of employment.<\/p>\n Since you’ve worked for the company for 10 years so you know your bonus will be at the highest level of $1000 at year-end.<\/p>\n You find every reason possible to spend that $1000 before you even get the money because you believe 100% you’re getting it.<\/p>\n By mid-year, you’ve spent almost all or all of that $1000 bonus on credit card and pay only the minimum payment.<\/p>\n Near the end of the year, your company decides that they no longer can afford to give employees a yearly Christmas bonus.<\/p>\n They’ve gone ahead and made changes to the program and now only offer long-serving employees like yourself $300 a year.<\/p>\n Now, you’re not only angry because of the change but because you are on the hook for $700 that you spent that you thought you were getting.<\/p>\n Outcome:<\/strong><\/p>\n Your credit card has debt on it that you need to pay in full but you can’t so you pay minimum payments which could take up to a year or more based on card balance.<\/p>\n It will also cost you far more than the initial $1000 you spent.<\/p>\n If you want to live cheap so that you can save money for the things you really want or need it is very possible to do.<\/p>\n Over the years we’ve struggled but looking back the struggle was to put us in a place where we could rid of money stress.<\/p>\n Let’s take a look at some of the cheap living ways we’ve adopted over the years that save us money.<\/p>\n This was the number one reason we were able to pay our mortgage within 5 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n We didn’t just start spending less than we earned because it was something that our parents passed down to us.<\/p>\n If you’re reading this later in life there is never a bad time to start but the earlier the better.<\/p>\n Over the years we both managed to save up enough money to make sure we boosted our ability to get ahead.<\/p>\n The idea is that whatever you net each month you spend less than that so you’re not going into debt.<\/p>\n I don’t care what anyone says but I’ve found some darn good deals at the thrift shops.<\/p>\n Yes, you need to pick and choose your way through the deals and piles but it’s worth it.<\/p>\n Although prices have increased over the years you can still pack a budget saving punch by thrifting.<\/p>\n Take your cheap living ways to garage sales<\/a> on the weekends and save even more.<\/p>\n It’s all fine and dandy to give yourself an allowance when you budget but the bulk of the pay yourself first goes into retirement savings<\/a>, emergency savings<\/a> or general savings.<\/p>\n I consider going to work part of a business so the money we net at the end needs to pay the employees first.<\/p>\n You’re not only the CEO but you’re an employee that needs to get paid first.<\/p>\n If your budget does not allow any form of savings you need to reconsider where you can cut costs or earn more money.<\/p>\n You don’t want to take re-use and re-purpose to extremes so your house looks like hoarders live in it but consider each item before you discard it.<\/p>\n If you feel that you can put an item to use then keep it.<\/p>\n Many of you may renovate your kitchen at some point in time and what may look like old materials can be turned into something beautiful.<\/p>\n The photo below is a repurposed kitchen cabinet shelf that sits in a bathroom to hold toiletries and towels.<\/p>\n This is what I’m talking about.<\/p>\n\n
Cheap Living into Retirement<\/h2>\n
Generational Cheap Living<\/h2>\n
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Money Saving Chart<\/h2>\n
![\"Money-Saving-Chart-screenshot\"](\"https:\/\/digitalskyweb.co\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Money-Saving-Chart-screenshot.webp\")
<\/p>\nCheap Living Is For Life<\/h2>\n
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5 Cheap Living Tips That Gave Us Financial Freedom<\/h2>\n
Spend Less Than You Earn<\/h2>\n
Thrift Shop What You Can<\/h2>\n
Pay Yourself First<\/h2>\n
Re-use and Re-purpose<\/h2>\n
![\"repurposed-cabinet-door-shelf\"](\"https:\/\/digitalskyweb.co\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/repurposed-cabinet-door-shelf.webp\")
Source:<\/strong>