Food:
Thanks to
@Lews Therin we are now getting the majority of our groceries from a service that collects food that would be waste from grocery stores. We get more than enough food for a week for the two of us for $40, often very expensive cheeses and meats.
I normally only cook vegetarian, but I find it easier and quicker to cook with meat, and with my leg still fucked up and produce so expensive, cheaper, easier to make meals is very, very nice right now.
I'm going to sorely miss this when we go back to Newfoundland where food is more expensive than our mortgage. Because it's so expensive there, we bring an enormous amount of dried beans, rice, spices, and sauces from Bulk Barn with us, which dramatically cuts food costs. Local cuisine there focuses on root vegetables, so I factor that in to my meal planning.
On the bright side, seafood is dirt cheap there and seafood makes me very, very happy, so that's a major benefit.
Housing:
Okay, so we're not exactly frugal on this front because we own 2 houses and keep them empty half the year, which is inefficient and wasteful, but that's temporary and just because of my surgery situation and never knowing when my dates will be until a few weeks before. Being able to get away from Ontario between surgeries is kind of key to my sanity right now.
That said, the combined cost of our 2 homes, both of which we bought recently is less than 30% of the average home cost in Canada.
For our Ontario home we chose a 1 bedroom condo in a 50 year old highrise in one of the highest crime, working class neighbourhoods in the country. It's not a typical high crime area though, we never feel our personal safety is at risk. But that doesn't stop people from thinking we're absolutely insane for living here.
For our Newfoundland house, we got a screaming deal because unlike the rest of Canada, NL real estate plummeted during the pandemic. Also, houses are usually listed there for well over a year and the sellers urgently needed to sell. It's actually in a highly desirable area. It's one of the most beautiful locations on earth and a bucket-list travel destination. The property was purchased for either personal use or as a vacation rental.
For now, we own it as an alternative to taking vacations, which I can't really do because of my legs, so it adds months of adventure for a very affordable price, especially for a location where travel is expensive.
Once the surgeries are done and I can leave the Ontario healthcare system, we plan to save quite a bit by living full time out there for awhile. This is an extreme move because there are reasons almost no one has the stones to move there full time. The weather is literally terrifying for 8 months of the year, it can snow in June, access to healthcare is abysmal, and I already mentioned the food, right? Well it's not just expensive, getting decent quality is hard, especially produce.
Giving up the Ontario home to live out there full time is pretty intense, but we're keen to try it out, at least for awhile after all of these surgeries are finally done.
Plus certain types of weirdos love living there year round despite the total insanity of it, and we think we might be that brand of weirdo.
What I love most about it out there is that the culture is naturally mustachian. No one is impressed by expensive cars, houses, or even fancy jobs. The lifestyle is very casual and outdoorsy (well, when the weather lets you leave your house), and I have a hard time even getting people to charge me for services.
My neighbour built a deck for me for free, my contractor (also a neighbour) just did a towing job for me and refused to charge me, the furniture store manager (also a neighbor) and my contractor had to take apart my sliding door to get a sectional into my house while I was away and they didn't even tell me, much less bill me. They'll tease me about it for the rest of their lives and then their children will take over teasing me and I'll be forever known as the silly Ontario girl who bought a giant sofa for a tiny house, lol. Note, they had each only met me once.
When anyone does charge me for anything, it's very cheap compared to Ontario because labour rates are lower, but also, they give me these totally ridiculous discounts sometimes for literally no reason.
Car:
The usual: we own a small, used, compact car that we barely drive except when we drive out to Newfoundland. It's a 2017 Chevy Sonic and I love it SO MUCH. It's my favourite car I've ever had, and I've had a few because I have exceptionally bad luck with buying lemons. Like, I bought probably the only Corolla lemon that has ever existed, lol.
DH bikes everywhere, even in super harsh winters. On the rare days it's too harsh to bike, he'll run.
Clothing/beauty:
We admittedly spend A LOT for a number of specific items, but we own very minimalist capsule wardrobes of primarily merino wool items that rarely need to be washed. I wear quite literally the same basic outfit 99% of the time. I can pack my entire core wardrobe in a small carry-on.
We use minimal products: water-only haircare, coconut oil for face cleansing, a bit of plain yogurt with honey or overly bruised avocado for face masks. I rarely wear makeup and when I do it's typically just eyebrow pencil and some cheek stain. I use a few beauty products (retinol, glycolic acid) from The Ordinary, which are cheap and last forever.
We get cheap haircuts at a barber when I'm not just shaving my head, I do on and off colour my hair, but I've always done it myself.
Household:
We buy as much used as possible, and I'm quite handy at DIY. We also embrace the dated elements of our homes and also try to cater our style to the age of the home instead of updating the home to suit a pre-defined taste.
Leisure:
We highly prioritize free/cheap outdoor activities. With my legs fucked this has been really hard/impossible for me. But DH is very into mountain biking and hiking. His mountain bike is 20+ years old.
We also attend a lot of community events, free concerts, university lectures, that sort of thing. There's a community center lecture tonight about local natural history from one of my former professors, all about invasive species in the area.
One of our favourite activities is seeing live streams of world class theater performances at the movie theater. We've seen live streams of shows we wouldn't otherwise have access to, like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan in No Man's Land on Broadway. This is particularly amazing for ballet, because the view is so much closer.
Our quality of leisure activities increased DRAMATICALLY when we started prioritizing cheap/free things to do. Back when we were spending on leisure it was much more boring, but focusing on free/cheap started getting us outside a lot more and engaging a lot more creatively.
Even if I was painfully rich, I would still put an emphasis on free/cheap activities because our lives have just become so much more fun since we made that change.
In certain ways this is easier in Ontario because there are so many options in our city, but in other ways it's easier in Newfoundland because that's the cultural norm. Restaurants and shops are for tourists.
Tech:
I only added this after the other posts. We really don't care about tech. We buy the cheapest phones, we have very cheap plans, and we didn't pay for our laptops. I have a Fire tablet I got on prime day many years ago for watching movies when I travel. DH has an ancient iPad mini with a cracked screen that he uses to stream Pilates videos. We get software licenses through work/school
The exception is that we have a lot of expensive pet tech, but this isn't the thread to talk about that.
Other:
We convinced our families to stop exchanging gifts for birthdays and Christmas. We still give gifts to the kids, but there are only 3 in the family.
We don't drink alcohol or pop and we don't buy any "snack" foods, which tend to be disproportionately expensive.
Until the surgeries, I groomed the poodle...that said, now that I have access to a cheap groomer in Newfoundland, I doubt I'll ever do it myself again. It's a fucking horrible job.
I brush all of the pets teeth regularly. This can save a fortune in vet care.
We specifically seek out working class places to live to lower the social expectations in terms of lifestyle. A lot of our friends are high income, but the day to day people we live among are working class.
