Our year of "halfassity" has turned out to be fairly badass for us

[Mustache Fatty]

Found MMM one year ago, got excited and got my wife on board to some extent.  She really likes to save money, but at the same time she really didn't want to sacrifice too much.  In short, this past year my mantra with her has been "halfassity."  We should "try things" and see if it negatively affected our lives.  If so, I assured her, we would go back to our old ways.   

We live in an almost 4000 sqft house, 30 miles each way to our jobs.  On top of that, we have a black hole second home on the beach that we rent out.  We have never had appreciable savings (at least for our age), but we both are vested in a DB pension that we will be eligible for when we reach 60, so that has always been a comfort.  That, plus our jobs are very secure.  Anyway, I wanted to post because I thought it might benefit some on this forum to learn of the things that we did over the past year that we both agreed had a 0% negative impact on our lives (if not positive) and still saved us money.  Below are the actual monthly numbers, both from 1 year ago and today:

1) Electricity: before $364, Today $174 (no dryer, slowly adapted to temperature, opened windows, wore clothes in winter, turned off stuff)
2) Private School: before $148*, Today $0
3) TV: before $128, Today $26 (Netflix, Hulu and $10 very basic cable)
4) Cell phone: before $158, Today $77 (Verizon to PagePlus)
5) Propane: Before $150, Today $60 (Shifted heating to Electric, see above)
6) Hurricane Insurance: Before $350, Today $292 (raised a deductible)
7) Gym: Before $66, Today $40 (Dropped a perk that was never once used in years)

*The $148 was our actual cost for Kindergarten.  Our son enrolled in 1st grade in August.  Our actual decision at that time was private school at a cost of $550 per month or public school (I kept the Kindergarten numbers to be conservative).  I would say that our focus on being frugal was the main reason we gave the public school a chance, figuring "what could go wrong in elementary school?"  We are very glad we chose the public option.

Anyway, I call this "halfassity" because we did not deny ourselves anything at all.  Our cell phones work exactly the same.  That is probably the one bill that I am kicking myself for not doing much earlier; well, that and reducing the power consumption.  Also, we found that we have plenty of TV.  Our power bill is still high, but we did reduce it significantly by not just being ridiculously wasteful (i.e., we have two under the counter ice machines that cost $1 per day each to run...they were turned off, we used to run the pool pump 24 hrs a day, etc.).  None of this hurt even slightly.  I have actually had a lot of fun with reducing expenses and we have been able to save a ton of money as a result.  Not mentioned in the above list is our reduction in eating out.  I don't track it, but I know that I have cut back at least $100 per month just on fast food alone (I will only order from the $1 menu plus a cup of water when I eat out).

A year ago I never considered that my wife and I could max out our 403b plans.  This past March, I discovered that we are also offered 457 plans.  By the end of this year, both of us will have maxed out our 457 plans and will fall just short of maxing out our 403b plans.  I'm pretty happy with halfassity, and I think my wife is on board for full on badassity this coming year.

Best of luck everyone!  I hope our story helps somebody!

[Cinder]

+1

Our own progress has been slow, as the DW also doesn't want to 'sacrifice to much'.  We've always kept our spending on frivolous things pretty low, but we do have lots of room for improvement.  I'l have to show her your post! 

Our biggest thing is that she is a HUGE tennis fan, and I haven't found a good way to watch the various opens (US, Aussie, Wimbledon, etc).  We live in middle of nowhere central PA, so over-the-air has poor selection.  There are a few streaming options available, but the angles on the court are pretty terrible, and only usually from one or two views.  Our only cable provider is comcast, though which we also have our internet (only option besides DSL or Sat).  Paying that cable bill every month is such a drag!

[Taryl]

I've been following MM for about the same period of time and realized today I'm fully on board!   

1. Today I opened an email for a sale on nightgowns - shopped for a bit and left the site without buying anything.   

2. Had a thought for something I wanted, went to Amazon - shopped for a bit and then found what I wanted online for free. 

This would not have happened in the past.   Three cheers for all of us MMMers!

[sunshine]

Nice job!!! We switched to pageplus also and should have done it sooner. Did you put the pool on a timer? We did that with our ponds.

[Mustache Fatty]

Yes, the pool is on a timer now and I was told that once the water temperature goes below 60 degrees then algae won't grow anymore.  I don't know if that is true or not but today I have shut the pool down entirely for the winter.  Even if algae does grow all winter I don't care---I'll just clean it out to begin next season.  For the record, our $364 per month that I referenced above was after we had begun to figure things out and cut down a bit. We used to run the pool 24/7 along with a waterfall (that I later learned costs $.25 per hour to run!!)  through the dead of winter and our budget billing per month back then was $540.  That honestly hurts to type out, but it puts into perspective why I am pretty proud of the $174 we pay today.   In short, we know better now--and I hope our house sells soon.

Start with your power bill and cell phone.  Doing those two things will get the MMM ball rolling and its all downhill from there.  That's my take.

[sunshine]

Yes, the pool is on a timer now and I was told that once the water temperature goes below 60 degrees then algae won't grow anymore.  I don't know if that is true or not but today I have shut the pool down entirely for the winter.  Even if algae does grow all winter I don't care---I'll just clean it out to begin next season.  For the record, our $364 per month that I referenced above was after we had begun to figure things out and cut down a bit. We used to run the pool 24/7 along with a waterfall (that I later learned costs $.25 per hour to run!!)  through the dead of winter and our budget billing per month back then was $540.  That honestly hurts to type out, but it puts into perspective why I am pretty proud of the $174 we pay today.   In short, we know better now--and I hope our house sells soon.

Start with your power bill and cell phone.  Doing those two things will get the MMM ball rolling and its all downhill from there.  That's my take.

I'd be thrilled with the $174 also! Your doing fantastic!!!  We really struggle with our  electric portion of the bill and a large part of it is teenagers. Those kids thought I was nuts the other day when I installed motion sensors in the areas they dont turn the lights off :)  It never dawned on us the 2 ponds and waterfall were such energy hogs until we plugged the killawatt gizmo into it early in the summer

Good luck on the house!

[aj_yooper]

Excellent job!

My wife and I started using YNAB in May of this year and, without much trying, our checking account has really filled up.  For us, it was being more aware of what we wanted to spend (budgeting) and seeing the low utility of our past spending practices.