Month: February 2019

My latest venture in trying to save more money is trying to cut back on my gas budget. Why attack the gas budget? Well, firstly, gas is just not environmentally friendly. It’s 2019! Climate Change is REAL!! Ok – I’m glad we got that out of the way. The real reason I want to cut down on my gas budget is because I felt it was an area I could really improve. Value #1 of the Fire Philosophies is to Spend Less. If you are already strategic about driving and only go grocery shopping when you have a long list of food items, then it probably wouldn’t be beneficial to start with your

Why I Like to Go Home for Lunch

Part of my job requires me to travel around to various places in my city. I live close enough to these locations that I often get to go home for lunch to check on my dog and eat. I love stopping by my house in the middle of the day because it seems to make work go by faster. There’s always a quick pick me up consisting of hugs and kisses from our CanineStoker waiting at the door. In addition, it doesn’t take as long to get ready in the morning since I’m not packing my lunch to take with me. Sometimes I can even do some dishes or fold some laundry in my 30 minute break. Really there are no downsides to the luxury of going home in the middle of the day for a few minutes.

What going home for lunch means for gas mileage

Since my job requires driving around to various locations, I do get reimbursed for my mileage. I do not get to count my miles leaving the work sites to go home, eat lunch, and go back to work. This means I’m basically driving to work twice every day. I started doing this when we got our dog and I’ve noticed the length of time I go between fill ups at the gas station go down drastically.

Our Gas Budget

We have a very strict gas budget. This includes extra road trips we might take to go somewhere exciting like the beach or a campground that might be an hour or more away. I get $100/month for gas while Mr. FireStoker gets $120/month for gas. We live in a central location and work in different cities. He has a much longer commute than I do, but he’s also not driving around a city all day.

I started to think of different ways I could cut back on the amount I drive to start saving up extra gas money for our road trips. At first it seemed as if I only drove when necessary. But after some soul searching I realized there really was more I could do to cut back. In January I started to bring my lunch with me as much as possible to avoid driving home to pick it up. At first I was sad. I really did enjoy my mid-day hugs and kisses from CanineStoker. Yet I soon found other ways to decompress on my lunch. By the end of the month, I had plenty of extra gas money to bring us on our frugal weekend trip to Boston. I’m going to continue this trend to save as much as possible. Who knows? I may even have to lower my gas budget in the future.

Can You be a One Car Family?

Now if you really want to cut back on your transportation expenses, you can forgo driving altogether. I have a friend who bikes to work and absolutely loves it! That’s one less insurance payment, no registration fees, no maintenance, tires, cleaning, ect. Unfortunately I use large amounts of equipment at work and I’m required to have a vehicle. As for Mr. FireStoker, his commute is so long that biking to work is out of the question. We also don’t have any worthwhile alternative transportation methods in our area like trains, buses, or carpools. However I do bike as much as possible when it is feasible and safe. For example, I biked to a fair and locked it outside the fair grounds. We also saved on parking fees and of course gas!

Have you decided to go do down to one car in your family? Were there any surprise challenges or benefits? What are some creative way you save on gas and transportation?

One of the things Mr. FireStoker and I started to focus on when we decided to permanently stay on our frugal poor college student budget is to figure out what really makes us feel fulfilled.  There is a difference between being happy in a moment and the feeling of having a fulfilling life. We didn’t want to cut our finances in such a way that we became unhappy and bitter.  That is not the FIRE way.  After all the whole reason we are trying to retire early and quit our day jobs is to have an even MORE fulfilling life. (See how I said MORE fulfilling That’s because we already feel that our life is fulfilling but there are dreams and desires we have that we could do more easily if we didn’t have to work for money.)

Finding Fulfillment in a Frugal Way

We have spent the last couple of years trying to put down some roots in our community and invest in our relationships.  Mr. FireStoker and I believe community is so important for well-being and happiness.  It’s actually one of the markers required for longevity. Take a look at the Blue Zones where people live longer than anyone else in the world.  Researchers found 9 things they have in common that help them live a longer happier life. they’re called the Power Nine  Three of the nine have to do with your community and with who you choose to spend your time. Mr. FireStoker and I talk about the concept of time a lot.  We feel that time is the real currency we are all spending.  No one can give you more time, but we do trade our time for money to buy things to make our non-working time – well spent.

What we didn’t expect (or what we really tried to avoid but it’s inevitable) is for our friends to move away so soon.  We have had many of our really good friends leave across the country in a couple short years.  We decided that we still wanted to cultivate these friendships because they’re important to us. It was difficult to think about how we might be able to manage that in a frugal way involving travel.

Well today’s blog is about how we traveled frugally in Boston. I am huge fan of themed events especially free ones. There just happened to be a free chocolate festival in Boston this past January.  Yes Free! The “festival” was basically 2 hours of free chocolate samplings from all the restaurants and shops in Harvard square. We thought it would be the perfect opportunity to visit with our friends. Only weirdos don’t like chocolate.

Travel expenses and Parking

We are close enough to drive to Boston, but far enough that we would want to stay overnight at our friends apartment. My co-worker was kind enough to watch our four-legged stoker for the weekend and off we went. Upon arrival we had to find parking for the event which can be a pretty penny a big city. We like to use a free parking app called ParkWhiz to find and pre-pay for parking. We got a 12 hour parking spot for $10!!! I usually just wait to get to my destination before opening the app to tell me where the closest parking lots/garages are located and how much they will cost. Doing this allowed us to park within one block of the event. If you have never used this app before and you use my link you will get $5 off your first booking.

Entertainment

After stuffing our faces with chocolate for lunch we had some time to kill before dinner. I had previously planned to spend my weekend thrift shopping for some new jeans so instead of browsing the endless streets of cafes I asked my friend, who met us at the festival, if she knew of any thrift stores nearby.  She told me about this place called The Garment District that she really enjoyed. She wasn’t kidding!  This place was amazeballs! And they just happened to have a big sale that weekend!   Yes, a sale at the thrift store.  Everything in the store was 50% off!  I got some much needed clothes – 5 articles of clothing (2 pairs of jeans, a sweater, a long sleeve shirt, and a jacket) for a total of $35!!

An Improv Comedy Show

Afterwards, we went back to our friend’s apartment (where we got to park for free using her guest parking pass) to get set up for the evening and eat some snacks before heading out to an improv comedy show.  The tickets were around $10/person and was within walking distance.

Dinner and Drinks in the city

We were quite hungry after the show and expected to spend quite a bit for dinner. However, our friend has a farm share and wanted to use up some of her vegetables. She made us a surprisingly delicious kohlrabi risotto. It was also super fun meeting and eating with her roommates. After our late dinner we decided to go to a bar for a beer. We chose a place again within walking distance with live entertainment.  We only bought one drink.  The next morning we said our goodbyes and went to visit my Aunt for a late brunch before finally heading home to pick up the dog.  All together the cost to board our dog, get parking in a big city, attend a festival, see a comedy show, eat dinner, drink beer at a bar, and the clothes at the thrift shop all ended up totaling less than $100. 

Room for Spending Improvement

That being said I think its worth nothing that we could’ve made this even way more less expensive if we had decided not to go to the comedy show or the bar.  Our main goals for the weekend was to continue cultivating our current friendships, visit my family, and attend the free chocolate festival. The additional events were fun, but honestly, we couldn’t really talk during the comedy show and the bar was so loud and crowded we couldn’t really conversate either (or barely walk without being groped).  I think next time we will just stay home and play games instead of going out for beer.  It’s still fun. It build stronger community, it’s healthier than beer (maybe depending on your snacks) and way more cost effective.

Learn from your spending mistakes

In my about page I promised to be honest.  While I do feel we did a really great job with our overall spending I know it could’ve been even better. I feel that this transparency is important to learn from each other and also myself.  We don’t like completely cutting our lives off from fun, but I also know that we wouldn’t have felt like we would have missed out on anything by not attending the extra unplanned events.  Still no regrets.  That’s the thing about finances, you can’t beat yourself up about the decisions that you already made.  Note to self.  Don’t take unplanned adventures in the future unless it’s something you really can’t live without and only if there are not alternative ways to bring fulfillment in your life.

Share Your Frugal Adventure

If you would like to share your own frugal adventure, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.  Also how do you build community in a frugal way?  How do you continue to build relationships with your friends and relatives in a frugal way when they are far away?