Buying Freedom with My Frugality

Micah and I are on a mission to "buckle down and tighten up" on our finances. We agree that we would rather have freedom from debt and from full-time employment for someone else (for me, and hopefully, eventually for him too) than things, things and more things. Things not only cost money to buy, they cost money to maintain. I don't want to fritter my life away just so I can have things. I'd rather have...um, my LIFE!

Amy Dacyczyn writes:

Tightwaddery without creativity is deprivation. When there is a lack of resourcefulness, inventiveness, and innovation, thrift means doing without. When creativity combines with thrift you may be doing it without money, but you are not doing without.

We're not trying to go ultra-crazy here. We like nice things! We have no desire to subsist completely off of beans and rice and ramen noodles. I don't plan to try to find a way to re-use dryer lint. But with a little creativity and knowledge, we're already finding ways to get more with less!

We're starting with a complete financial evaluation. Here's what's come of that evaluation so far:

1. We realized that for some unknown reason, neither one of us took the initiative to cancel an old internet service that has been charging us $13.00 a month, even though we haven't been using it for the past 5-6 months. Why??? I cancelled it this morning (after searching high and low to find their company's contact information. They don't make it easy on cancellers, I'll tell you that!)
2. I called our car insurance company this morning to inform them that I'm not driving my car as much now since I'm working at home. (I had read that companies will often lower your premiums if there is a diminishment in how much you drive). Unfortunately, they did not lower my premiums. But they did inform me that if Micah and I both take an online defensive driving course (for a total cost of $40.00), that will reduce our premiums by about $80.00/6 months over a period of three years. So we can save $440.00 over three years by taking the course. It is beneficial to call up your insurance company and inquire about any discounts you may be missing on your premiums!
3. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are planning to switch to flourescent lightbulbs to save on energy costs. We can buy flourescent bulbs at $1.59 apiece at Sam's. In order to give out the same light that a traditional 60-watt bulb would give, a flourescent lightbulb only requires about 13 watts of electricity. Furthermore, they last 5-7 years (with 3-4 hrs of usage/day). Flourescent bulbs seem to have come a long way in the past few years. It claims on the packaging that they are quiet and don't "flicker" when you turn them on.
4. I'm also doing my part to save energy costs during the day by only turning on lights when really necessary. Thankfully, we get a decent amount of sunlight in most of our rooms if I just open the blinds!
5. I'm completely studying into how I can save on groceries and still have good meals. Like I said, we're not into ramen noodles! I'll try to do a separate post on this sometime soon, as it's a big topic.
6. I'm reading books such as The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn, and anything else I could find at my local library about frugality. Amy's book is HUGE (over 900 pages!) and looks like a telephone book. It will take me a while to get through that one! But already I've found some great inspiration and ideas.
7. We're re-evaluating our budget and vowing to stick with it more closely.

If anyone's interested (and even if they're not, because this is my blog;o) I'll share ideas as I learn more about living frugally--and still living well!