Live Well Simply

We live in different times than the times our parents grew up in. And by ‘we’ I mean the Y‘s and Z‘s of the generations. Side note: what generation comes after Z? 🙂  The differences are glaring, most of us have never even driven a muscle car let alone owned one; we know how to use a photocopier, but don’t even know what a mimeograph machine was, we can type furiously on our laptop keyboards, but have never used a typewriter. And the list could go on and on. We also are living through one of the longest and toughest economic recessions in the history of the West, trumped only by the Great Depression of the 30’s.

These two main differences, technological advances and economic ‘belt-tightening’ as it were, have caused my wife and I to eliminate some of the things our parents purchased and perhaps considered necessities in their time.

Here they are:

1. Land line telephones  –  The system known as POTS or ‘plain old telephone system’ is seeing less and less use as people use their mobile phones or IP telephony primarily, and ditch the land line.
2. Television  –  My parents never owned a television unlike most of their peers. The immoral content and mind-numbing effect of this media channel helped them decide to just skip this household mainstay altogether. However, even people who would have no moral basis for not owning one are avoiding this unnecessary expenditure. Who needs one, when you can get a large lcd monitor for your computer and have the entire Internet worth of media and content at your finger tips?
3. Desserts and Drinks  –  My wife and I do eat out occasionally. Dinner dates are a great way to get out of the house, go to a place where they have what I call ‘atmosphere’ and try food we wouldn’t normally eat at home. It’s ‘living well’ while ‘living simply’. 🙂 The other day, we were able to go out and enjoy a unique pasta dish and some fried squid (which, incidentally, I’d never tasted before, quite delicious). Our total bill was $23 at a mid-level restaurant. Total cash out of pocket was $4 since we used a gift card. But we drank water and skipped the dessert. Why pay $2.50 for a glass of diabetes-inducing soda, when you can get 4 liters for that price at a grocery store, or just avoid drinking it at all? Desserts are a little more tempting, but usually by the time I’m done munching on most restaurant’s massively sized entrees, dessert would have no place to slide in anyway and that $9 stays in the pocket. Speaking of massively sized entrees, we usually just order one appetizer and one entree, split them between us and we’re good to go 🙂
4. Starbucks  –  OK, maybe once a year, we break this rule. But, honestly,$5 for a cup of coffee? I still remember the first time I entered a Starbucks. It was in Seattle, the Mecca of coffee connoisseurs. I saw an item with $1.50 next to it on the menu. I ordered it, thinking it was their small coffee. The girl at the counter looked quizzically at me. “Is that all?” she asked. Yes, that was all. I took the cup and walked to a table. The cup was pretty light for a cup of coffee. Looking inside, I realized it was just one squirt of some white, creamy sugary substance in the bottom of the cup. “I payed a buck fifty for THAT!” I thought. Then I noticed the Japanese couple. They were sitting three tables from me and I never heard such exited jabbering in the Japanese language as they too tried to figure out what they’d just spent $3.00 on, for the two of them. That was my first Starbucks experience. The next time was with friends and I caved to the pressure and let the bill ring up to $4.75, the lowest I could acquire a decent cup of coffee for.  To make a long story short, my wife and I buy our tin of fresh ground coffee from Costco, spice it up with various items from our cupboards and voilà! for about 25 cents each serving, we have our cup o’ joe.
5. Movie Tickets  –  Here again, we break the rule, maybe once a year. However, I can count on two hands the times I’ve been inside a movie theater in my life. Firstly, who needs to see ten minutes of advertising for various TV shows and upcoming movies before the actual film? Then there’s the cost. Anywhere from $7-12 a person?!  A little patience goes a long way here. Just wait three months and if you really need to see that work of cinema, just rent the DVD for $1 from RedBox and watch it at home with fresh home-made popcorn. The moral content of most films precludes the necessity to view them anyway. In addition, the idea of a ‘movie date’ is an oxymoron for those of us who want to romance our spouse. Instead, spend that $20 on candles and flowers and experience genuine together time where you can have intimacy without 89 decibels of THX surround sound blasting in your ears. 🙂
6. CD Player – This is one item we haven’t bothered purchasing. If we acquire a music CD, it gets ripped to the computer and added to our music library where we can access it over our WiFi connection or sync it to our iPhones and listen to it with ear-buds or a powered speaker.
7. Desktop Computer  –  Yes, you heard that right. Desktop computers consume a lot of energy and with today’s excellent laptop options and the speed of solid-state drives, most people really don’t need one. Of course, if you are doing 3D modeling or designing the next interstate cloverleaf in AutoCAD, you probably could use the extra horsepower. For myself, I prefer the potability of a business-class laptop and a smart phone for all my computing needs.
8. McMansion  –  My parents never owned one, but we had plenty of friends who did. Honestly, three children and two parents in a 4,000 square foot house? The level of income needed to sustain such an operation is incredible. I’d rather spend more time with my family and friends and doing the things I love than sell 90% of my time and energy in exchange for a massive home.
9. A Shiny New Car  –  New vehicles lose approximately 12% of their value in the first year. That’s $3,000 on a new $25,000 car. Three thousand dollars, poof, gone to the wind with zero return on investment. I budget that much every year for total transportation costs including gas, insurance, repairs and perhaps most importantly, saving for a replacement vehicle when the current one bites the dust some time in the hopefully distant future.
10. New Furniture (some exceptions apply)  –  While we are on the topic of buying new, here’s a way you can save thousands when you’re just starting out in life. Most of our furniture, we purchased used from Craigslist and local used furniture stores. The one exception was our mattress and couches. A used mattress is the equivalent of buying used underwear to me. Who knows what’s growing inside? Blech. Our friends have a great mattress store in Lebanon, PA where we’d go to buy a new mattress. Buying primarily used furniture, we spent less than 25% of what we would have spent if had all been ‘neuveu’.

What items have you eliminated from your budget to save money or simplify your life?