1 Years Salary Spent on the Wedding?
August 20, 2014
I just read an interesting article on Fox business news describing that the 2013 Real Weddings Study revealed that the average US wedding costs are close to $30,000. Wow that is a fair chunk of change, considering the average household income is in the low $50,000 range. As may be expected, there is quite a range of costs between the states, and it looks like if you want to spend the least the best state is Continue Reading
Carpooling
August 14, 2014
Housing, food and transportation are typically the big three expenses in one’s budget, and so finding ways and means to lower these can really boost your escape velocity into the land of the financially independent. There are several great ways to save money in your daily commute, with one of my favorites being biking that I wrote about earlier. Yet, biking may not be for everyone, and you may have to drive as part of your commute. Carpooling is a great way to save money here, Continue Reading
Fuel Economy
August 7, 2014
Buying a fuel efficient car and keeping it for 5 years or more can save you 1000s of dollars in gas. There are plenty of options for getting fuel efficient cars, you can go for hybrids that include plug-varieties, all electric or those that run on diesel. There’s a lot of choices nowadays, and when you are calculating your overall costs you may even want to add in very fuel efficient gasoline cars. One place I have found very easy to use that helps me compare cars of all types and costs associated with each is Continue Reading
More Fruits and Vegetables!
August 1, 2014
Focusing on your health is of huge importance to the Frugal Lifestyle, as you want to enjoy as many of your years as you can, and without wasting tons of money on healthcare costs. You could become vegetarian, although this still relatively uncommon in the US with a Vegetarian Times Magazine survey back in 2008 revealing that there are 7.3 million million US vegetarians (3.2 percent of the population). Being vegetarian can certainly be a great frugal step but if this is a little extreme for you, upping your fruits and vegetable intake is likely to be a significant health benefit to you Continue Reading
Free Self-Education
July 30, 2014
I’m hoping to become wiser as I get older, and I have found a couple of great sites for furthering my knowledge, and for free! One is the The Saylor Foundation,which is a non-profit started by Michael Saylor, having a ‘Free Education Initiative’ that provides 316 courses representing some of the highest US degree majors.
The second is the Khan Academy, which was started by Salman Khan in 2006, whose goal is to provide “a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.”, an impressive goal to say the least. Continue Reading
Don’t Buy Books, Swap Them
July 22, 2014
If you want to keep certain books, CDs or even DVDs instead of loaning them from the library, a cheaper way to acquire and keep them is to swap them for some of your old books. One site to do this is PaperBackSwap (PBS), where people have been swapping books since 2004, along with their CDs and their DVDS. Continue Reading
Free Apps – Ibotta
July 15, 2014
Looking to see how your smart phone can save you money? Hopefully you are on a cheap plan at least, which is a great topic for another post in the near future… OK, so one major way people try and reduce their expenses is to use coupons for shopping. However, spending the weekend clipping coupons sounds really tedious to me, as I’d rather be on the beach, plus Mrs Frugal Prof and I prefer to get local, fresh organic produce that we use to make our meals (ok, I have to admit here that Mrs Frugal Prof is by far the superior cook!).
The Ibotta app looks like a much easier way to do the coupon thing, and it is a way to earn actual income from your shopping, which gets deposited in your paypal account Continue Reading
Financial Freedom Killers
July 4, 2014
Here is a list of the ways you can rapidly destroy your financial well-being, and so should be avoided!
No. 1. Not paying for insurance. Make sure that you have your basic insurances covered, including medical, life, auto and home. Not covering can open you up to loosing your home, car, etc, so don’t take the chance.
No. 2. Buying too much car. This was my major lesson in finances Continue Reading
Statistic Brain – Look at the Stats to Get Motivated
July 1, 2014
This post is probably most exciting for the scientists, engineers and mathematicians among us. I found this cool site cool Statistic Brain, which gives the stats on many interesting things, including financials, entertainment, education, food, health crime, and demographics.
Clearly, being a blogger about frugality and how to gain your financial freedom I went straight to the financials. (Although other pages such as food or health had some important stats about the US and the world, and reading these certainly makes me want to do even more exercise and give more to charity, be it time or money). Continue Reading
Take the Train, Ride the Bus
June 28, 2014
Public transport is a great way to save money and is a less stressful way to commute. Clearly, in the major cities it is much easier, and especially so in parts of Europe, where you can often travel all over very large cities using their subways, trains and buses and on just one type of pass for relatively cheap. Continue Reading