We don't do a lot of DIY with these improvements, instead only doing, ourselves, those things we are most familiar and comfortable with. We have a contractor friend from church, who has done a good deal of our installation. So, we save in the extreme sense, for a couple of years, to afford a project like what we had done this spring.
In the last two years, what I DIDN'T spend money on, so we could save to cover this:
- mani-pedis
- professional hair cuts and color
- new shoes, new handbags
- lunches in restaurants with friends
- fast food meals
- dinners in local restaurants (except one birthday dinner, last November)
- new car
- extravagant travel
- convenience/packaged foods
- air conditioning for the house in summer
- winter heat enough to wear a t-shirt, indoors, in December, January, February
- knick-knacks, chotchkes, trinkets, novelties or thingamajigs
- department store cosmetics
- new books, new cds
- expensive hobbies and collections
- theater movies
- dvd rentals
- bouquets of flowers
- expensive birthday gifts or Christmas gifts for myself & husband
- new linens, just because I wanted a new color (I did replace the torn sheets for my bed)
- expensive new clothing
- brand-loyalty for products like laundry detergent, bathroom tissue, foods, toothpaste, soap, coffee, OTC meds
- coffeehouse coffee AKA Starbuck's (except with gift cards)
- pets
- candy bars or other treats at the check-out of most stores (even Ace Hardware has candy bars at the check-out!)
- smartphone
- car wash places (I wash the car, myself with the hose)
- gardening services
- newspaper delivery
- new toys, gadgets, gizmos
- temporary indulgences, to be enjoyed only fleetingly
So, that about sums up where our money didn't go. Here's where all that I could have spent, but didn't, went instead. Our living room makeover. (I didn't take any before pictures. I rarely do. If it's bad enough for me to want to redo it, the last thing I want to do is take pictures of that ugly.)
the living room as you enter from the entry hall |
a spot for my great grandmother's tea set, on top of a garage sale cabinet (paid $40) that once housed a Victrola phonograph (1920s) -- needs refinishing/painting |
this chair is a new purchase |
that's a fitted slipcover, so I can change it out/launder it |
the paisley "throw" is a pashmina from my closet, the needlepoint cushion is from another room |
the view of the room from the French doors, to the entry hall |
It's now bright, warm and serves multiple purposes. There's a conversation area with seating for 6, plus 2 additional chairs in the room, to seat up to 8 comfortably. The loveseat with the blue cushions is about 30 years old, and will "go" with the first kid to move out. I'd like to replace it with a single chair (similar to the one we just bought). It's really too big for the space. I reupholstered it 20 years ago, and the upholstery is still in decent shape. The larger sofa is from my parents' home, and is about 35 years old (also reupholstered once).
So, when I'm making all kinds of sacrifices in the grocery department and not buying convenience foods, or, you read that we don't eat in restaurants, not even fast food, or, that we eat beans for dinner 3 to 4 nights per week, or, we don't go to the movies, or, that I cut my own hair, etc -- this is where the money that is saved, goes. It took us a couple of years of extreme saving for this. We have no debts, no mortgage, no car loans, no credit card debt. And our retirement is still being funded, monthly. We save, in advance, for home improvements and repairs, so there will be no future debts. This is what my "extreme" frugality gives to us.