Frugal Living For Dummies E-Book

Deborah Taylor-Hough

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 440

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Feel like you're trying to dig out from under a mountain of debt without a shovel? Tired of working your tail off just to break even? Is the high cost of living taking all the joy out of life? Unless you're one of the top two percent of wealthiest Americans, all of the above should sound painfully familiar. While they're trying to decide between the ski lodge in Telluride and the Tuscan villa, for the rest of us, it's an endless litany of corporate lay-offs, stagnant wages, crushing credit card debt, skyrocketing medical costs, exorbitant utility bills, the high cost of higher education.... And they call this "the good life." Is there a better way to live? Can you get what you need and what you want without killing yourself to get it? "Absolutely," says frugal-living guru Deborah Taylor-Hough, and in Frugal Living For Dummies, she shows you how. In this warmhearted guide to living the good life on less, Deborah shows you how to live within your means and enjoy doing it. Among other things, she shows you how to: * Eat like a king on a peasant's budget * Take the sting out of gift-giving * Dress well on a shoestring * Save big bucks on family expenses * Slash household expenses * Save on medical expenses * Involve the whole family in saving money * Save more for the things you want From basement to attic, cradle to grave, Frugal Living For Dummies covers all areas of life with common sense advice and guidance on: * Working with your partner to achieve financial goals * Going to the grocery without being taken to the cleaners * Quick and thrifty cooking techniques * Providing kids the basics on a tight budget * Putting kids through school without going broke * Looking good and feeling good on a tight budget * Frugal holiday fun year round * Saving money around the house and driveway * Finding quality in pre-owned merchandise Packed with tried-and-true techniques for cutting costs and stopping the insanity, Frugal Living For Dummies is the ultimate financial survival guide for the rest of us.

Leseprobe

Frugal Living For Dummies

by Deborah Taylor-Hough

Frugal Living For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2003 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2002114818

ISBN: 978-0-7645-5403-2

1B/RV/QR/QT/IN

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6

About the Author

Deborah Taylor-Hough has been living the frugal lifestyle most of her life. Whether she was shopping at every garage sale in town with her mother during high school or finding the best deals on groceries in order to feed her growing family on a limited budget, Deborah has learned the frugal ropes through personal experience, hard work, reading more books than she can count, and graduating with honors from the ever-popular School of Hard Knocks.

Deborah is the editor/publisher of the Simple Times Newsletter, an e-mail publication reaching tens of thousands of subscribers since 1998. She has authored several books on frugal living topics, including: A Simple Choice: A practical guide for saving your time, money and sanity, Frozen Assets: How to cook for a day and eat for a month, and Mix and Match Recipes: Creative ideas for busy kitchens (among other titles). She’s been featured extensively in television, radio, and print media throughout the United States and Canada, and frequently conducts workshops on frugal living, voluntary simplicity, and assorted homemaking topics for conferences, retreats, women’s groups, and church functions.

Deborah and her family live in the Puget Sound region of Washington State with four spoiled cats, a lizard, and far too many fish.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my three wonderful children — Kelsey, Ian, and Shannon — who waited patiently this summer for trips to the beach and help with broken toys while Mommy said, “Yes, just a minute . . . I’ll be right there,” probably a few too many times. I love the three of you more than words can say.

Author’s Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my editors, Alissa Schwipps, Tracy Boggier, and Cheryl Gochnauer, and my agent, Jacky Sachs, for all your help bringing Frugal Living For Dummies to fruition. It wouldn’t even exist without your encouragement, practical ideas, and steadfast belief in me and the project.

I’d also like to thank my husband, Stuart, for the long periods of time he gave me to concentrate and work on this book.

And a special personal “thank you” to Danita Bay, Stacy Andrus (and Bug), Catherine Levison, Gina Dalquest, Lisa Morales, Leanne Ely, Sean Hollen, Autumn Pickett, Karen Bierdeman, Gary Foreman, Larry Wilson, Christine Saunders, and the members of the Bell’s home group for your friendship, prayers, and heartfelt support all along the way.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Alissa D. Schwipps

Acquisitions Editor: Tracy Boggier

Copy Editors: Laura B. Peterson, Tina Sims

Acquisitions Assistant: Holly Grimes

Technical Editor: Cheryl Gochnauer

Editorial Manager: Jennifer Ehrlich

Editorial Assistant: Elizabeth Rea

Cartoons: Rich Tennant, www.the5thwave.com

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Maridee Ennis

Layout and Graphics: Carrie Foster, Joyce Haughey, Jackie Nicholas, Barry Offringa, Jacque Schneider, Scott Tullis

Proofreaders: John Tyler Connoley, John Greenough, Aptara

Indexer: Aptara

Special Help: Chad Sievers

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Brice Gosnell, Publishing Director, Travel

Suzanne Jannetta, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

H ow many of these expensive—and often stressful—situations can you relate to?

Indiscriminate corporate lay-offs

Stagnant wages

Increased cost of living

New car loans

Skyrocketing housing costs

Daycare expenses

Back-to-school shopping

Doctor bills and insurance deductibles

Exorbitant utility bills

Excessive credit card debt

Do you ever feel like screaming, “Help! Somebody stop this merry-go-round . . . I want to get off!” Most people today feel the financial crunch of modern life in at least a few of these categories, and many face all of these dilemmas every day from the moment they roll out of bed until they rest their oh-so-weary heads on the pillow each night.

If you’re feeling a financial crunch in your life, cutting back on your expenditures through frugal living provides a remedy. Frugal living is no longer a concept reserved for the newly married or for starving college students trying to stretch the macaroni and cheese for another meal. People of all ages and places in life need to cut back and discover how to live within their means. What previously passed for financial common sense in your grandmother’s day is almost unknown to modern family members. Old-fashioned common sense just isn’t so common anymore. People live their lives at break-neck speed . . . with their financial choices governed by the high cost of living often requiring both parents in a family to work full time, plus all the time pressures resulting from dual-career homes. Busyness keeps families spending more and more money just for the sake of “fast, easy, and convenient.”

I wrote this book because I know there are other people just like me. Folks who want to attain specific goals in their lives, but feel money pressures are standing in their way. When my second child came along, I recognized my heart’s desire was to be home full time while my kids were small. Even though my husband and I had consumer debt and outstanding medical bills, we paid off all our debts and happily realized our dream of having a stay-at-home parent for the past twelve years by reducing spending in nearly every area of our lives. Shopping at secondhand stores, cooking and buying food in bulk, and learning to live within a pre-set spending plan were not just wise financial decisions for our family, but life-changing ones as well. No matter what your personal or financial goals, frugal living can help you reach your dreams.

About This Book

This book is designed to help steer you through the high cost of modern living. Whether you’re looking for help saving money on groceries, or you need a few inexpensive ideas for school clothes, or perhaps holidays and birthdays are taking too big a bite out of your budget, this book provides easy-to-access information on a wide range of money- and family-related topics.

Frugal Living For Dummies is a ready reference for people seeking a less expensive lifestyle. You can read it from cover to cover, or you can skip to any point in the book as you look for the ideas and tips you need right now. For example, if the thought of back-to-school shopping—and what it’s going to do to your budget—is making you feel a little faint, feel free to turn to the appropriate sections right away. Frugal Living For Dummies is set up so that you can get the tips and ideas you need as quickly as possible.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you pick out information from a page, we use the following conventions throughout the text to make elements consistent and easy to understand:

Any Web addresses appear in mono font.

New terms appear in italics and are closely followed by an easy-to-understand definition.

Bold highlights the action parts of numbered steps or keywords in bulleted lists.

Sidebars, which look like text enclosed in a shaded gray box, consist of information that’s interesting to know but not necessarily critical to your understanding of the chapter or section’s topic.

Foolish Assumptions

As this book was coming together, I made a few assumptions about you, the reader, and what your needs may be. Here’s what I assumed about you:

You’re facing a sticky financial situation in your life that makes keeping more money in your pocket attractive to you. You may be contemplating a job change, going back to school, feeling overwhelmed with consumer debt, considering staying home with a new baby, finding more month left at the end of the money, or all of the above.

You’re either brand new to frugal living concepts or you’re looking for a quick refresher.

You’re looking for an easy-to-understand book that focuses on simple and effective ways to save money on basic family-related expenses right away.

You’re not looking for a stuffy book that contains in-depth budgeting and financial planning advice, or numerous pie charts and bar graphs of detailed information about investments, stock options, blah, blah, blah.

If you fit any of these criteria, Frugal Living For Dummies is just the book you’ve been looking for!

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into five parts covering the necessary basics for any frugal person’s life. Each of these parts is broken down further into individual chapters with smaller sub-headings, allowing you to find your way directly to any sub-topic you may want to browse (for example, you don’t have to wade through information about frugal baby care if you’re currently interested in battling costly teenage peer pressure). The following sections give you a brief summary of each part of Frugal Living For Dummies.

Part I: Getting Down to Basics

This section introduces you to frugal living and gives you the basics of personal financial planning. You find a quick guide to setting up a personal budget, tips for dealing with un-frugal family members, and ideas for identifying personal priorities to help you live true to your own frugal vision and lifestyle choices. These topics—especially budgeting toward a financial goal—can help you save lots of money by helping you keep your family’s overall financial picture in mind. And after all, saving money is why you’re reading this book, isn’t it?

Part II: Eating Like a King with a Peasant’s Purse

Next to housing, food is often the single most expensive budget item for most families and also one of the few flexible items. This section takes you step-by-step through the maze of food-related expenses. You figure out how to frugally navigate around the physical layout of a grocery store and resist the allure of retail marketing strategies, and you also discover numerous budget-saving cooking techniques and meal ideas.

Part III: Funding the Frugal Family

This section provides the tips and tricks you need to save big bucks on family-related expenses, from diapers to diplomas and every birthday in between. I also include a chapter with great cost-cutting personal hygiene and exercise ideas. You also find fun and frugal ways to celebrate the holidays as well as activities sure to please everyone—Mom, Dad, Billy, and sister Sue, too.

Part IV: Enjoying a Frugal Home and Hearth

This section takes you on a tour of frugal living possibilities throughout your home, yard, and driveway. You find ideas for saving money on cars, home maintenance, large purchases, household cleaning, secondhand shopping, pet care, and general household upkeep.

Part V: Part of Tens

This section contains a list of inexpensive gift ideas for family and friends and a list of cheap—not chintzy—ways to show your sweetheart how much you care.

Icons Used in This Book

Keep an eye out for the following icons, which highlight important information throughout the book:

If you want a money-saving idea for something fun or super simple, keep your eye out for the Great Idea icon throughout the book.

If an idea or important point needs to be remembered clearly when you’re done with a section of the book, a Remember icon highlights it for you.

If you’re looking for big savings that give you the most return for your investment of time and effort, watch for the Super Saver icon.

You find time- and money-saving advice for applying frugal living basics to your daily life whenever you see the Tip icon.

The Warning icon signifies a major threat to your financial and budgeting health. Occasionally a Warning icon also represents an actual threat of bodily harm.

Where to Go from Here

This book isn’t structured in a linear fashion, so you can open to any chapter or section and not necessarily need to have read the chapters or sections that went before. If your dinner budget is a bit overextended, turn to Part II for a jump-start on food-related savings. If December gift-giving is giving your budget a black eye, skip ahead to Chapter 11.

And remember, contrary to popular opinion, frugal living doesn’t have to mean deprivation, as you discover in the pages of Frugal Living For Dummies. So keep your chin up, a smile on your face . . . and go save some money!

Part I

Getting Down to Basics

In this part . . .

I f your idea of a savings account is a full change jar in the kitchen, or if you find money slips through your fingers and you never know where it all goes, you should read the chapters in this part. Part I includes practical ideas on the basics of frugal living, including setting financial goals, living on a budget, and dealing with spendthrift loved ones. You find some easy ideas for getting started on a new, less expensive lifestyle.

Chapter 1