about adapting to frugal lifestyle after an incomebreakdown 🫠
my adhd is giving me a hard time not spending for any impulsive ideas but I am left with only round about a quarter of my former income and I can’t adapt well. I had enough before and since half a year I don’t, but my brain wants to spent money like before.
we don’t eat expensive, but we snack expensive. i usually don’t buy a lot of clothes but I lost a lot of weight and most doesn’t fit anymore (and I’m going to look for a new job soon, so I need at least one proper outfit).
we got a cat and a dog, which had super heavy health scares last year. so I pay for the insurances instead of waiting for the worst. the dog is allergic af and I have to buy expensive special food. i am a single parent and have to take care of the teenagers needs as well.
I’m going to sell my car soon, because I just have to to get by. social aid doesn’t pay anything at this point because I was couple of bucks over the limit so far. But they don’t consider the high debt I got. So I’m actually pretty concerned right now. i used to be poor before, so I kinda know I will get over this episode, but it terrifies me at this point.
long story short: i need a network of no-buy-buddies that helps keep me from spending too much. anyone out there?
For spending, calculate your daily spend limit (monthly income divided by 31) and try not to spend anything more than that any given day. If you need to spend more then you have to save that money from thee day before. Do not lend money from future days. Only accumulate from money not spent in the past. For example your monthly income 3100, then your daily spend limit is 100. You cannot spend 150 and hope that tomorrow you will only spend 50. Do it I. Reverse. Today spend 50. If you manage it, tomorrow spend 100. Only if necessary that you can spend 100 + the 50 you saved the day before.
Also try getting rid of the pets. I can’t believe you pay insurance for the pet. We do have people that have no insurance even for themselves. I know you love them, but it times are hard. Maybe be give them to someone you know so you can get them back once you are doing better.
You haven’t spoken much about food but you have cook your own food and snacks. Do not eat out. Do not but snacks. Your health and pocket will thank you. You can have snacks for really cheap. Just find inspiration in the internet or your relatives.
that is such a smart thing to do. I’m going to set myself a daily budget asap. I think that might actually work for me, because I tend to be competetive with myself.
the thing about not spending money I don’t have yet is the thing I try to teach my teen, but I guess I have to remind myself as well. thanks for that!
in my country healthcare is free, so I only pay insurance for the pets! it’s round about 100€/month for both and all eventual costs are included except food. but it’s still a lot of money. getting rid of them isn’t easy. I might find someone to help with the dog costs, I have someone in mind. and it’s a good idea to give the cat to someone who would give it back. urgh, I hate this situation.
I’ve stopped eating out and get our food from a discounter/cook it myself, so i hope to save money. realised the snack thing while typing - good idea to ask around and try out to make some myself
Some concerns here:
- “No-buy-buddies” means what, exactly? You can’t live without buying groceries intermittently, at least.
- The first thing that stuck out to me was “snack expensive.” What are you buying? More importantly, is there a way to replicate it yourself more cheaply at home? For example, if you love French fries, what about making your own potato wedges? If you can’t replicate it yourself, then it should probably be repalcrd by something easier.
- You say you’re gonna sell a car, but how is the walkability in your area? I would hope that you’re within one of the top 10 walkable cities in your country (if it’s the US, haha). You’ve also got a kid; what will become of his/her transportation?
- Sadly, the pets have to go, at least temporarily until you can get better income (and then maybe you can retrieve them from a friend or something). Pets are perhaps costlier than food, I think.
As for accountability buddies, we’re always here in [email protected]. Post away!
no-buy is an exclamation of me not trying to buy things that aren’t essentials (I’m not native english btw if some wording is off). I will need to buy food, I’ll have to pay for rent, food, hygiene and transportation i.e., but I won’t buy new cleaning/writing/gaming/whatever things if the old ones still work, won’t pay for streaming and music (just rediscovered my old mp3 collection) and I won’t spent on clothes (except for an outfit for work interviews maybe). So it’s more a mindset and not an actual no-buy-story I’m trying to tell - we’re still living in capitalism 😑
my city is walkable, actually I bought the car just two years ago (after having none for five years) but couldn’t foresee my health issues incoming. we got “good” public transport as well.
snack expensive - we mostly buy brand snacks. with regular food I stopped buying brands and got discounterfood. but we still buy the brand snacks (that’s been a realisation while writing my post). trying to replicate things at home is a good idea, I’m gonna try that!
the pet thing breaks my heart in advance. the cat is one thing, but taking my kid’s dog away after them sticking together since 7 years seems impossible. gotta think about that.
thanks for your thoughts. glad to find accountability buddies!
Hmm, maybe just the cat, then?
I would probably change the phrase to “no luxuries” instead, then. I thought you were gonna try an extreme thing like buying nothing for a period of time or something.
Discounts are generally good and unsubscribing from streaming services in light of all the YouTube, library services, etc. that we already have is great!
ah i see where the confusion came from. going without buying anything at all seems impossible. only-basic-essentials-buddies doesn’t sound as good as no-buy-buddies haha
I rediscovered our library and it’s only 25€/year - don’t know why I didn’t figure this out earlier 😊
ya, the cat. guess I’ll have to give it away if nothing else works out.
Be sure to sell the cat for at least a bit more than snake food so that it doesn’t become snake food. Never just give animals away, unfortunately because of the risk of horrible people.
Libraries aren’t free over there?! Interesting…
Sincerely,
An American
No Buy Buddies! Love it.
I’m here and trying to be frugal
did you choose to live frugal or did it just happen at some point? I used to grow up superpoor and we’ve had a frugal lifestyle. but as I started to have a career I started to spent more on things, food etc. I’m trying to get myself to be really careful with money now, but it’s not easy thanks to adhd
