Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

How to Combat Frugal Fatigue when Being Gazelle Intense

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My husband and I recently added up our student loan and credit card debt.  Imagine our shock when we discovered we have $58,000 in debt!  What was this debt comprised of?  It is made up of nearly $38,000 in student loans, $6,500 on a business credit card for a business that failed and $13,500 of personal credit card debt spread over two cards (the smallest balance at $1,000).  The latter debt is largely due to our current low income and some not so wise purchases.  We’ve recently become gazelle intense.  However, we’re being careful to combat frugal fatigue since we know we’ll need to live this lifestyle for quite some time.

Gazelle Intense

What a Gazelle Intense Day Looks Like for Us

At the urging of everyone around us, we began to follow Dave Ramsey.  Because we do not yet own a house but would like to in the next three to five years, we decided to become gazelle intense, as Dave Ramsey says.

What does gazelle intense look like for us?  My husband works away from the house for 10 hours a day.  After spending an hour with the kids when he comes home, he works on his dissertation and articles for publication for a few hours a night.

I stay home with the kids all day and blog, do virtual assistant work and freelance writing when the kids are napping and after they go to bed.  On the weekend, I typically leave the house for about four hours on both Saturday and Sunday to get more freelance work done.  I estimate that I am working 25 hours a week from home.  My husband is putting in another 20 hours a week at home doing work that will further his career and hopefully lead to a high paying, tenure track job in a few years.

Being Gazelle Intense Works!

Our hard work is paying off.  In just two weeks, we “found” an additional $701 to apply to our debt beyond our regular debt repayment schedule.  We found this money several ways.  First, we returned a few items we bought but hadn’t used before becoming gazelle intense.  Then, we also got an unexpected check that we put toward the debt.  We just paid off our first credit card with the lowest balance.  Next on our plan is to pay off the credit card with $6,500 within the next four weeks.

Getting Used to a New Lifestyle Takes Time

Gazelle Intense
Photo by Louis Hansel @shotsoflouis on Unsplash

As anyone who has become gazelle intense knows, there is a period of adjustment when you have to get used to the austere lifestyle that is required.  Let’s be honest—most people who have credit card debt have at least some of it because of a lack of impulse control and planning.

Was all of our credit card debt due to that?  No, we had a very low income for awhile when my husband’s graduate student teaching stipend was our only income, and we relied on credit to make ends meet.  However, we also ate out more than we needed to.  (Do you ever need to eat out?)  Our debt likely would be lower if we practiced more self-control with ourselves and our finances.  Since we weren’t stringent with ourselves then, we’re having to be now.

How to Maintain Gazelle Intensity for Months (and Years)

Gazelle intensity works with no break if you have a relatively short amount of time you must be laser focused.  If you can get your debt paid off in 12 to 18 months, you shouldn’t need a break.  However, if you’re looking at several years to pay down your debt, you will likely need to give yourself an occassional break to avoid frugal fatigue.

Take a Break After Each Debt

Because there is such an adjustment, to maintain your gazelle intensity and avoid frugal fatigue, consider rewarding yourself for each debt that you pay off or at a milestone you set.  If you have one large debt to pay off, maybe you will reward yourself for every $5,000 you pay off.

For us, since we love to eat out and now no longer eat out at all, we have decided that we will have one meal out every time we pay off a debt.  To maintain your drive, pick one thing you used to enjoy spending money on in your old, less frugal lifestyle, and commit to enjoying that activity once when you achieve your assigned goal in your debt snowball.  Keep it reasonable, less than $50, so you don’t derail your snowball, but give yourself that leeway to maintain your intensity.

Gazelle Intensity Interval Training

Another option is to do gazelle intensity interval training.  If you have a lot to pay off like we do, you may need a different strategy to keep up your motivation.  For instance, maybe you can commit to three months of intensely working and paying down your debt.  Then, you will take a break for one month.  Or, maybe you decide on an amount that you’ll pay down, and then you’ll take a break.  Maybe you decide to pay down $15,000 and then slow down in intensity for a bit. As you become invigorated again, set another goal that you’ll pay down before you rest.

Final Thoughts

Being gazelle intense definitely has rewards.  You put yourself in a painful place for an intense while until the debt is paid off.  Then, you begin to reap the rewards of all your hard work.  You can live like no one else, as Dave Ramsey says.

Yet, be careful not to become so strict with yourself that you give in to frugal fatigue and derail your debt snowball.  A small, planned out treat is often all it takes to keep you motivated and ultimately debt free.  If you’re confronting a large amount of debt, consider instead to be gazelle intense for a few months and then take a break.

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How Bulk Cooking Can Save You Money

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Have you ever had a day where everything went wrong?  The kind of day where you have a meeting at 4 p.m. and think it will end at 5 p.m., but it runs an hour late?  Then you get home, the kids are cranky and hungry.  You still have to help them do their homework, but you have nothing ready for a quick meal?  Most people accept defeat and order take out.  That’s what I used to do years ago, but then I discovered bulk cooking, and I started saving both time and money!

Bulk Cooking

How Bulk Cooking Works

There are several ways to incorporate bulk cooking into your life.  Just choose the style that you like the best.

Make Meals in Advance

One way to try bulk cooking is to make several meals on one day.  Ideally, you’ll pick four to five recipes and at least double each recipe.  Then, you’ll take the eight to ten meals that you made, put them in a freezer bag, lay them flat, and freeze them.  In the future, when you have a busy night, simply grab a meal from the freezer instead of calling for take-out.

Some people who are extremely motivated make enough meals in one day for their family to eat for a month!  However, I wouldn’t recommend this for a beginner because it can be exhausting.  You spend an entire day cutting up produce, batch cooking, and cleaning up.  The reward is that for the next 30 days, you don’t have to worry about what’s for dinner.

Prep Food for the Week

If you’re intimidated by the idea of making entire meals in advance, you can start more slowly with meal prep for the week.  Doing this on a Sunday will still save you a lot of time during the week and make your actual cooking time faster.

Bulk Cooking
Photo by Ella Olsson on Unsplash

When you do this type of bulk cooking, you simply prep all the ingredients that you will need for the week.  For instance, if you know you’re making chili during the week, brown the ground beef and soak and cook the beans now.  Then, on Wednesday night, chili night, just pull the precooked beef and beans from the refrigerator and combine on the stove and let simmer.  You’ll easily skim 20 to 30 minutes off your cooking time by doing this.

There is one caveat to this way of preparing food.  If you prep food on Sunday, you may need to freeze some portions that you’ll use later in the week because the food won’t stay fresh until the end of the week.  I love to take out two pounds of ground beef on the weekend, brown it down, and then store it in the freezer in smaller size portions.  Whenever I need it, I just pull it out for the recipe I’m making.

Where to Find Recipes

Not all foods freeze well, so it’s best to find recipes specifically for bulk cooking.  Simply Google “freezer cooking recipes” and you’ll find a slew of recipes, all designed with ingredients that freeze well.  Often times when I serve a meal, my husband can’t even tell that it’s been frozen before.

Advantages of Bulk Cooking

There are so many advantages to bulk cooking!

Choose the Ingredients

You get to choose the ingredients.  If you’re interested in eating clean or you have food allergies or intolerances, this way of cooking may be for you.  You choose how much fat or sugar you add.  You choose organic or non-organic ingredients.  Since you’re making the meal, you know exactly what you are putting in your body, which can’t be said if you order take out or buy frozen meals from the store.

Cook the Foods You Like

You have the ultimate say in the meals that fill your freezer.  You can make meals that the entire family enjoys, even the fussy little ones, which makes meal time much more pleasant for everyone. And you needn’t stop at meals – you can also cook your favorite sauces to use as an accompaniment for those blander mid-week meals where you don’t have the energy to make anything fancy. For example, take a look at this chinese hot mustard sauce recipe which is perfect both for freezing and for giving a kick to your dinner!

Save Time

Yes, bulk cooking requires an investment in time in the beginning, but you’ll soon find that it saves you so much time during the week.  Can you imagine the ease of just pulling a meal from the freezer, heating it, and making a salad to go with it?  Or, pulling out all of the meal components from your refrigerator and simply simmering them together?

How Bulk Cooking Can Save You Money
Photo by Ella Olsson on Unsplash

Plus, you make most of the mess on your bulk cooking day, so on the day when you actually eat the meal, there is very little clean up.

Save Money

This is one of the best advantages to bulk cooking.  You can save some serious money.  Let’s say you’re a busy family of four, and you grab take out costing you $40 once a week.  That’s $160 a month you could save if instead of relying on take out, you could simply have a meal defrosting in the refrigerator waiting for you to heat up on a busy night.

Plus, have you ever had weeks where you buy groceries, but then you get too busy and can’t cook as often as you had planned?  Those ingredients spoil before you can use them.  You lose $10 or $20 in ingredients you didn’t use.  With bulk cooking, that issue mostly goes away, saving you money twice.

Drawbacks of Bulk Cooking

I have been bulk cooking in some form or other for the last 15 years.  I really enjoy preparing food this way, but there are some drawbacks.

Initially Expensive

Let’s say you spend $200 a week for groceries.  If you decide at the beginning of the month that you want to make all of your dinners for the month and put them in the freezer, you may have to spend $300 or $400 to buy all of the ingredients at once.  This can be hard on your budget initially because you have to spend more upfront than you have budgeted weekly.  After that initial bulk cooking session, you’ll find that you spend less per week.

Time Consuming

When my kids were little, my husband would watch them all day so I could bulk cook for the month.  The cooking day was always exhausting, and as much as I loved having meals in the freezer for the whole month, I hated bulk cooking day.

Now that my kids are older and more self-sufficient, I bulk cook on Sunday for the upcoming week.  Rather than taking me all day, bulk cooking for the week only takes me two to three hours.

Final Thoughts

Bulk cooking is an excellent way to save money and time.  Yes, you have to initially invest money and time, but you’ll reap the rewards for days to come.

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Are Insurance Companies Just Big Ponzi Schemes?

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It struck me the other night, as I was reading a book and came upon a section on Ponzi schemes, that insurance companies are borderline Ponzi’s themselves.

Ponzi Schemes

What Is a Ponzi Scheme?

The definition of a Ponzi scheme is when the broker/banker/agent takes money and promises an unusually high return and then pays said return from the incoming money from other investors.  Eventually, when the incoming investors dry up, the agent can no longer pay the returns and the scheme comes crashing down.

Ponzi schemes are named after Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who was the original Ponzi schemer.  In recent years, the most famous (and longest lasting) Ponzi scheme is attributed to Bernie Madoff.  Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is thought to have begun in the late 1980s or early 1990s and didn’t end until 2008 when he was arrested.  This Ponzi scheme cheated nearly 5,000 customers out of $60+ billion dollars.

Insurance Companies Are Set Up Like Ponzi Schemes

Now, let’s look at insurance companies.  We, as the insured, pay the insurance company our premiums in return for insurance against some sort of event.

With health insurance it’s against some sort of health event.  With car insurance, it’s against some sort of accident.

In any case, it’s a payment.  Or a return on the premium.  Very seldom will you actually come out with your entire investment.  And, unfortunately, you often have to fight for the payment.  Health care coverage may be denied if the health insurance company doesn’t find the treatment worthy of the expense or if they deem it experimental.  Likewise, if you file a home insurance claim too many times, the insurance company can choose to drop you as a customer.

Ponzi schemes
Photo by Daniel Tausis on Unsplash

For the most part, insurance companies are in charge and decide when to cut customers.  But what would happen if the premium payers dried up?  It would certainly get more difficult for the insurance companies to pay any claims.

How Insurance Companies Are Different from Ponzi Schemes

Where the key difference lies is that if you stop paying your premiums, the insurance company stops paying any claims for you.  Also, as a premium payer, you never really expect your money back unless you have a claim.  You’re paying for the “in case”–if it were to happen.

In a Ponzi, you’re investing your money specifically for the return.  You’re not going to stop investing as long as the returns are stable.  And a Ponzi only really dies when the new investors stop coming.  If new insured stopped coming to the insurance company, they would still have their current insured to collect premiums from.  However, as the years go on with no new insured clients and the current clients age, the insurance company could have difficulty paying claims.

Final Thoughts

Even though insurance companies seem to fit many of the criteria for a Ponzi scheme, no.  insurance companies are not Ponzi Schemes.  But, it sure feels that way sometimes.

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