Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

You Are Your Own Worst Enemy

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When it comes down to setting your budget, saving your money, spending your money, and acting responsibly with money overall, you are your own worst enemy.  You and only you are responsible for keeping your self-made goals.  There are tools that you can use to help yourself, but the only enemy that you need to worry about is yourself.

Your spouse is not responsible.  Let’s assume for a minute that you don’t have a spouse that is running around buying up all the $700 pairs of shoes in town.  Stop blaming your spouse.  He/She is not responsible for the debt that your in, your blown budget, and your lack of an emergency fund.  Your spouse, however, is an excellent tool to use to overcome all of those problems.  Get on the same team as your spouse.  Your spouse can keep you accountable better than anyone else.  Discussing the finances with your spouse is a good thing.  Get them on your side.

The Credit Card companies are not responsible for your debt and the lack of paying it off.  They may hold the note on that debt and encourage you to use your “credit”, but ultimately, it is you that uses it.  And it’s you that chooses to sign the receipt.  And it’s you who chooses to continue to carry that plastic in your wallet. If  you can’t use credit cards responsibly as a tool, get rid of them.  No Excuses.  Everytime you sign the slip, you accept responsibility for the damage you’re doing.

You have taken responsibility for so many of the things in your life from feeding yourself (I assume) to cleaning yourself (assuming again) and even to dressing yourself (yep, assuming.).  Why, then, do you blame everyone else for your financial woes?  Would you blame them if you fed yourself cardboard?  If you tried to bathe with sewer water?  Or if you forgot to put your shoes on and walked on sharp stones?  No, you wouldn’t.  Stop trying to pass the blame for your monetary faults to someone/something else.  Your actions are directly responsible for where you are.  The moment you take responsibility for those actions and their results is the moment you are free of their bindings.  It’s the moment you can begin to feel free of them and can begin to correct them.  And once they are corrected and you have broken those old habits, you will be free to develop new habits that will set you free from that old life.

Take responsibility.  Change yourself for the better.

Is Frugal Normal?

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Do you think that being a Frugaler is normal?  It obviously is a bit abnormal in the American society.  Although, with recent economic news, I think that it’s becoming more popular.  But normal?  I really don’t think so.

Sometimes, we look at the world through the personal finance bloggers perspective.  We see all the other personal finance bloggers we know and read and we get used to thinking that those people, along with ourselves, are the norm.  In essence, we are missing the forest for the trees.  Being a Frugaler is far from normal.

Every day, we Frugalers, task ourselves with finding new and exciting (well, maybe not exciting) ways to spend less money.  At the same time, we try and find ways to make more money.  We hope that the net effect is that we not only have money to pay the bills, but that we have some to save for a rainy day and, maybe, even retirement.  We daren’t say it, but some of us even think about “early” retirement.  And, if you peer no farther than our little realm of the blogosphere, you would think that the whole country does nothing but count pennies and do personal accounting.

I don’t think you would find too many PF bloggers who would argue against more people becoming Frugalers.  In fact, that is the purpose of a vast majority of the PF blogs that exist.  On any given day, you’ll find articles on “best way(s) to save on groceries”, “way(s) to cut utility bills”, and the list goes on.  We exist to talk, share, and teach this stuff.

Being a Frugaler may not be normal, but we’re working on it.

Are You a “Frugaler”?

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Ok, I’ll admit it, I made that word up. Well, at least as it would be a name instead of an action/habit.  It occurred to me while watching an episode of Wife Swap on Friday evening.  You’ve seen it, or a show like it, I’m sure.  They take the wives from two families and then the wives swap families.  The producers make sure that you get maximum drama by making sure that the families and wives are polar opposites.

In the episode that I watched, the one family lived in Florida and basically partied all the time.  The other family, however, was a different story.  They were “Sweepers”.  No, they don’t use a broom or even a swiffer.  A “sweeper” (article on sweeping) is someone who devotes a large block of time on a regular basis to entering sweepstakes.  And this family was nutzo about it.  They claimed to spend 8-10 hours a day on sweep related tasks.  From sending letters off to entering them online, they had made it a full time job.  They even went about collecting pop tops and candy bar wrappers for chances to win those contests.  Crazy, right?

Sure, but maybe not as crazy as you think.  In the end, the “sweepers” agreed that they maybe, might, kinda have a bit of an addiction.  And the cut back a little on the “sweeping”.  Nearly happy endings for all involved.  The husband still gets antsy when the mail truck doesn’t stop with new sweeps to enter.

This all led me to think about things that can become just as much of an addiction.  Actions for making a quick buck or getting something for much less than normal.  That’s what “sweeping” is.  It’s the action of entering contests and sweeps in an effort to win things that you couldn’t normally buy.  Something for nothing, or little to nothing after you figure in stamps.  We won’t talk about the time spent.

You know what else that sounds like though?  Frugality.  Being “frugal” is the action of finding the best/easiest ways to save oneself some money.  To get something for much less than normal.  It’s the action of using coupons and sales and saving methods in an effort to pay less than retail for an item or service.  Something for nothing, or little to nothing is the goal.

Does that sound familiar to you?  Do you spend time on a regular basis surfing through the deal forums in search of a great deal on something you need?  Do you clip every coupon you get in case you need a Belgian Waffle Maker someday before the coupon expires?  Or, do you clip every coupon you get for the purpose of trading them with others for coupons you need?  Or, maybe you refinanced your $300 loan for that 0.25% rate drop to save the $1 in interest. (that’s not a scientific calculation, please don’t try and correct it. It’s for dramatic effect.)  You just might be (gasp!) a “Frugaler”.

Them “Sweepers” don’t sound as crazy now, do they?