What Area of Spending Are You Most Frugal? (and other budget priority questions)

housing
car/transportation
food
travel
utilities
clothing
entertainment

I find it interesting to see others' thought processes in regards to frugal living choices. I learn so much from you all. So I thought I'd pose some questions to you, as well as provide my own answers. In addition, it was helpful to myself to write some of these out. Especially the last question concerning how I will navigate the continuing inflation.

And what's been your biggest savings triumph in that area?

me: Food -- over a 35-year period, my family has saved perhaps $79,625 on groceries alone. I'm guessing at this, but I think a typical, similar 4-adult thrifty family spends about $450/month on food. My family currently averages about $275 for 4 weeks. That's a savings of $250/month or $2275/year. I'm guessing that we had similar savings over the years, as our grocery spending has always been very low. Over 35 years, that's $79,625. This is just my estimate on others' spending. According to USDA's chart, my family should be spending $887.20 per 4-week month, in the Thrifty Food Plan.

most recent 2022 USDA chart here :

https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/media/file/CostofFoodAug2022Thrifty1.pdf

Is there an area of spending in which you avoid scrimping more than others? 

me: For my family, I would have to say housing. We're willing to do without a lot of discretionary spending, so long as we can live in our house on a large suburban lot. We would rather not travel, keep the house on the cool side in fall and winter, not eat out or go to movies, have 1 car instead of 2, just so we can live in our current house. It's not huge, but it's big enough that we've all been able to have our own space (4 introverts, 1 extrovert when all 5 were living here). I know that others may feel much differently, and choose to live in a small house so they can afford more experiences, or spend less time preparing meals, or not keep a garden, or shop for specific clothing or cars.

Have your spending and budgeting priorities changed over the years?

me: We spend more on food at the grocery store now, not only because of inflation over the years, but we buy more "luxury" foods (like nuts or dried fruit other than raisins, or pepperoni for pizza) than we did when our kids were younger.  We actually spend less on restaurant meals and entertainment now than we did when our kids were growing up. We wanted to provide some of the fun activities for our kids as other kids had, and that included a Happy Meal or two, trips to Coldstone Creamery, current "kid" movie at the theater, one time at Chuckie Cheese for each kid. Now, we really don't care about eating out or going to the movie theater, and that's not just due to Covid. We now enjoy picnics in a park or at the beach, not because they're frugal, but because we enjoy the scenery of natural spots.

With the current rate of inflation, will you make sacrifices in some areas so you can afford more in others?

me: The sacrifices that we'll make will be in the "extra categories" like travel, entertainment, and new clothing, so that we can enjoy more of the basic comforts, such as heating and good food. We'll still be adding to our general savings account and retirement accounts,

How about you? What are your thoughts on both your past and future budget priorities?

Quick Autumn Garden and Harvest Update

purple fingerling potatoes

Over the weekend we dug 1 of the 2 potato beds. It was a poor year for potatoes for us. This bed produced about 15 pounds of potatoes. I expected hoped for more. We'll dig the second bed in about 10 days. Despite my disappointment, there were enough potatoes for next year's seed potatoes for both beds plus some for our meals in October and early November.

sweet fig preserves

The weather is cooling enough so that the figs will no longer ripen this season. Tuesday I harvested enough unripe figs to make 3 pints of sweet fig preserves. I simmer the figs in water 3 times, changing the water between simmerings. After draining the water and squeezing the excess water from each fig, I simmer the figs in a sugar, water, whole clove solution for 25 minutes. At that point I add lemon juice and simmer 5 additional minutes before putting the figs in syrup into jars. These are delicious. While I enjoy them just as is, my family especially enjoys them pureed with applesauce and a bit more spice, or used in spice cake. Anyway, sweet preserved figs is a good way to use those that will never ripen. I should be able to make another batch later this week. [recipe ingredients: 40 unripe figs, 2.75 cups water, 2.5 cups sugar, 35 whole cloves, 3 tablespoons lemon juice]

indoor-grown radishes -- we eat the leaves as well as roots

I've got my indoor radish operation in full production, with 4 trays of containers filled with potting soil and radish plants. Here's what I harvested for our salad on Saturday evening.

mâche I started indoors then moved out to the garden for fall/winter salads -- it prefers cool temps

The mâche is growing better than I'd thought. The direct sun seems to be so little this time of year and with our large evergreens surrounding the yard. But those tiny little plants just keep growing. I should be able to harvest some for salads in early November.

One of our pear trees decided to surprise us with 5 pears. This tree's fruit is normally ready for harvesting in July. Sometime in mid-summer, I noticed it had developed more blossoms. Our unusually cold May and June must have fooled the tree into thinking spring had begun again. Anyway, 5 pears that I didn't expect is a wonderful blessing.

I'm waiting on the crabapples to turn a deep red before harvesting those. The crabapple harvest is usually in mid-October. It may be pushed to late October this year, as everything has been later than usual following that very cool start to the growing season.

I picked the first tiny pumpkin from our patch. It's itty bitty. One of my squirrel friends nabbed another tiny squash yesterday morning. So I thought I should bring this one inside before it became my furry friend's lunch.

No photos, but we've had an unbelievable crop of green beans this year. Every time I pick another handful I think to myself that the plants must be about done for the year. Then I'm out in the garden the next day and find a bunch more. Some things did well this year, while others didn't. I guess I should take my blessings as they come and not worry about what didn't happen as I'd planned.