Hello fellow mustachians,
I love this site and the articles and i think im doing pretty good as well considering the circumstances. I recently had to sell my house which got me into a 35.000 euro debt, luckily i had already saved a lot of money myself and i could borrow the rest (17.000) from family. I managed to pay off the borrowed money within 8 months (this year to be exact) and i can now start saving money again.
Because of all this i was living a pretty frugal live and i found out that was a lifestyle i was more than happy with. Because of the economic crisis and lack of better paying jobs ( I only make 25k a year) i had to cut costs. I sold my car and ride my bike everywhere instead (22km one way commute.. ) , cut down on powerbills by using energy saving lights, adding powerswitches on appliances that cant be fully turned off, use my laptop for 90% of the time instead of my power hungry desktop pc, wear warm sweaters instead of turning on the heat etc.
I rerevisited my insurances and other montly expenses such as internet, television and so on. I have a prepaid simcard with a bought phone so it will only cost me money when i actually make a phonecall.
And i know it sounds odd but another saving tactic was moving from a 400 euro a month rental appartment to buying a house which costs me 725 euro a month. Sounds illogical? Yes but our government (Netherlands) decided to allow for the raise of rental payments with 4 to 6% a year and since you can get a tax reduction if you buy a house (in my case i get 200 euro a month back) the house only costs me 525 euro a month. Would i have stayed in the rental appartment then it would have become more expensive within 5 years while its half the size of my current home.
Another observation was that housing prices are at an all time low and they dont seem to be getting any lower so i figured now was a good time to buy.
As for spending money on luxery items... i dont anymore. I used to be very materialistic but somewhere along the way a switch was pushed and now i couldnt care less about a new television, smartphone or car. It doesnt improve my life substantially so i dont want it. I still have tube televisions and they will be there until the day they die :) If something breaks (for example my smartphone broke a year ago) i find it rather annoying to have to spend money to buy a new one instead of being happy to getting a new phone.
And no i dont feel poor for one moment! :) I have everything i need.
I have also embranced minimalism. Everything i dont need or will ever use again i throw away or sell. The result of this is rather shocking: Our new house is pretty empty LOL so should we ever move again we can buy a smaller house.
If i continu to hold this lifestyle i can have the house fully paid off within 11 (!) years.
So in my opinion im doing pretty well but the main problem i have is i cant seem to find a way to retire early. I will 'only' have 100.000 euros within the next 10 years but i dont see any feasible ways to make that money work for me as some sort of income. Intrest rates are extremely low plus we have to pay taxes on savings so that would be something to figure out.
Anyway, not being materialistic and doing pretty good with a low income means im ahead of 90% of the sheeple in this country and thats a BADASS feeling LOL
:)