"What do you do that makes your friends or family call you cheap?"
When I first started this blog back in August – before I really started taking our families financial health seriously – I made a list of my assets and liabilities.
One of the top items on my list of assets is my natural inclination toward parsimony…in other words, I’m CHEAP!
Whether it can be traced somewhere in my genetic code (I come from at least four generations of hyper thrifty individuals) or whether it’s just my general unwillingness to depart from my money, I don’t know the root – what I do know is that somewhere along the path of my life, my “cheapness” has been overwhelmed.
Heck, even in high school, our senior class gave out mock awards and they all voted to award me “Mr. Spendthrift”…oh the sweet and terrible irony.
So fast forward to today, and now that my family is on board with our “Cash Box Budget,” and we are waging a consolidated war on debt, I can feel those old thrifty memories starting to stir.
With this new age of energy efficiency and environmental awareness, suddenly hanging out the laundry or carpooling or growing your own vegetables, doesn’t make you cheap, it makes you chic!
So I was wondering, what are the things you do that earn you the proud moniker of “cheap” – I prefer "frugal" of course?
Me, I put a lock down on our thermostat and have told everyone to layer up if they’re cold. At first I encountered a LOT of whining, but I showed everyone last month’s natural gas bill, the whining dropped off and the sweatshirts pulled on.
4 comments:
I understand where you are coming from on the gas bill. I hope you come visit my blog, since I am brand-new to this, and see my post from a few days ago about how much we pay for heat. I have put you on my list of blogs to follow, bookmarks, etc.
Hey 444, the gas bill is always tough in the winter and with us cooking more, we stay at home more, and use more! Still compared to what we were spending at restaurants...it's an easy call. Thanks for adding me and good luck!
I'm glad I don't have to deal with teenagers while trying to save money, I'm sure that is tough. It is easy for me to make the choice to live frugally, it won't be as easy to make my kids live a frugal life. I'm sure your kids are learning some valuable lessons through this, my parents did a poor job teaching me about money and how to handle it.
It's ironic for me actually, that both my Mom and Grandparents are exceptionally good with money...for my kids' sakes I'm hoping it skips a generation ;-)
Starting good habits now though will help you tremendously when you have kids!
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