Frugal Framnett

Before you buy.

What you are purchasing, is it a need or a want? Think carefully on this one and be honest with yourself. Do have a genuine need for the item or are you purchasing for reasons of:

1. Vanity?
2. To keep up with the Joneses?
3. Because you feel entitled?
4. Some other reason that is of non-necessity?

Be honest with yourself!

For example, we recently purchased a new vehicle. The vehicle comes with XM Radio and I was all geared up to subscribe. Well, I made a number of attempts to do so but there was one obstacle and another. Finally, it occurred to me to not subscribe. Why?

To be sure, it would be nice to have 24×7 classical music (WImP radio’s classical music network comes with NPR new broadcasting, yuck!) and access to Brewer’s & Badgers sports broadcasting, but in the end even though I have no real problem paying the subscription I just decided the money is better saved.

I am convinced it is not the big purchases that get us into trouble but the day in and day out routines and habits. Funny enough, its the same with eating and weight loss.

This policy is by no means comprehensive.

1. I require you to register with Frugal Framnett to comment therefore no anonymous commenting, however if you wish to use a pseudonym that is acceptable.
2. I do not allow obscene commentary.
3. I do not allow abusive commentary. This applies to abuse of authors, commenters, or others who do not participate on Frugal Framnett.
4. I do not allow spam comments. If you want to advertise something contact myself and we can work out an advertising agreement.
5. I do not allow commentary off topic. The conversation in the commentary is allowed to drift but keep your comments pertinent to the commentary discussion or the blog post.

These policies are not comprehensive but guiding. I reserve the right to delete any all comments for any reason whatsoever.

Yes, I include Google advertising on this blog.

Does that defeat the purpose of this blog? I do not think so. Some of the advertising I have seen includes financial services, debt counseling, financial management tools (the free kind too!) and similar.

However, this morning as I write this blog I see a graphic Google ad for Cadillac automobiles. Is that frugal? It all depends.

In my mind frugality is more an attitude than how you earn and spend your money. If you earn an annual salary of $20,000,000.00 than a new Cadillac is something you can afford and it would not be out of bounds to be called a frugal purchase. If you earn $40,000.00 annually than purchasing a new Cadillac is unwise and hence it is NOT frugal.

The frugal person realizes the limitations their life and fate places upon them. The frugal person is not envious and jealous of others.

To elaborate a little more on metrics.

What you can not measure you can not improve or at least be sure of your direction. Imagine you are in a strange woods on a gray day and all you know is to go east to reach a road you know. Unless you a have a compass (or something else to orient you such as the sun) you will walk in circles (even with the sun you have to pay attention).

Same too with your balance sheets. If you do not how much is going and where it is going you can not sit down and decide if the money is flowing to your priorities.

So, what Lorie and I do (at least for my shampoo needs) is to have an old shampoo bottle on hand and I purchase the cheapest bottle (as in inexpensive) of shampoo you can find. Then we pour some of that into the old bottle, top it off with water, and shake. I have shampoo.

When I wash my hair (now in the winter that is every other day) I notice no difference from using full strength shampoo.

Participate in this discussion by voting & commenting!

The way I cut shampoo is:

• Cheap (bad)!
• Frugal (good)!

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Here is where I will talk about money saving techniques and judge them to be either cheap or frugal.

• Cheap

Cheap is not a good thing in the context of this category. In this category think of the third definition of cheap. Along the lines of poor quality. Cheap things can actually be expensive in the end.

If a money saving technique, item, procedure, whatever is deemed to be cheap in this category I mean to say: do not buy or utilize it!

• Frugal

In this category frugal is a good thing. It means avoiding waste mainly avoiding the wastage of wealth.

If I deem something frugal, then if appropriate for your situation you should buy or utilize it.

In my previous post I discussed the need to measure input vs. output dollars. How do you do it?

Clerk-work! You need to record your expenses either in a notebook or on your computer. Of course, we usually choose on the computer now-a-days since we have computers. However, the next choice is to choose the software used to track your money.

Most people buy a computer and something like Quicken or MS Money is bundled and away you go. However, with those packages occasionally the need to upgrade happens and usually this means parting with $ and that defeats the purpose of what we are trying to accomplish.

There are a number of open source & freeware personal finance packages available over the internet. I have tried to work a couple of them and they seem to be clumsy and awkward. What is a frugal person to do?

We use Open Office’s Calc spreadsheet (free for the download). Spreadsheets may lack many of the whiz-bang features of a Quicken or a Excel, but I say start simple and work your way up. In addition, I use frugal Slackware Linux (cheap if not free) as my computer’s operating system so most paid for personal finance packages do not work on our computer.

In any event my most important functions are to: allocate money to budgets and to track expenses. Both of which are easily accomplished using a spreadsheet.

So, if all the functions in your money manage bewilder you, just use a spreadsheet (Excel, or even the Works spreadsheet is more than enough) to help track your budgets & expenditures. By the time those buttons and functions start to make sense you most likely will know how to do it with your spreadsheet!

Many people take good living and environmental sensitivity as being in opposition to each other. However, are they? My opinion is they are not.

The connection between frugality and environmentalism is strong. For what it is worth (FWIW) I detest eco-freakos, I think they are budding totalitarians and do their supposed cause more harm than good, but I leave that aside.

Being kind to the environment should be a frugal choice not extravagant. In the end, if the choice seems extravagant then it is probably not environment friendly. Do not invest in technologies just because they are environmentally friendly, helping the environment must be frugal or it will not catch on.

The cost of products is made up of many factors. Many of those factors eventually capture the cost in terms of damage to the environment. The more an item costs typically the more of a given resource or resources must be utilized in the item’s production.

Now, there are many technologies out there that are pitched as an investment in the environment. They are pitched that way because they are more expensive. However, do a serious analysis before spending the extra money and I would bet (again, bet is being used rhetorically as gambling is not frugal) you will find the expense does not pay off soon enough. Do not feel guilty for not investing and doing your all for the earth. When the technology is sufficiently developed then it will be truly earth friendly.

There are a number of reasons for this. The technology is not sufficiently understood and the engineering & technical expertise is rare and not well understood which often leads to over-engineering or engineering cheaply. In any event the resources thrown at the project (in total) are going to be ill utilized.

Now, if you can afford it, go for it. Being a first/early adopter is not frugal, but still important. It is on your back the reasearch and learning is done.