Frugal Babe

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Avoiding Lifestyle Inflation Helped Us Buy Our New Furnace

June 24, 2010 By Frugal Babe

Well the new furnace is now installed, and I’ve submitted all of the rebate forms for processing.  I’ll have to wait until next year when we file our taxes to get the federal tax credit, but everything else should be coming by check over the next month or two.  It feels good to have such an efficient system in place, and we’re both glad we made the decision to upgrade.

I wanted to share a post that Far Beyond The Stars author Everett Bogue wrote this morning about avoiding lifestyle inflation.  Everett has been very successful at increasing his income over the last several months, but he’s aware of how quickly an increased income can be eaten up if we allow our lifestyles to inflate with our income.  My husband and I have been fortunate to have a successful business ourselves, and our income has increased quite a bit over the last several years.  By avoiding lifestyle inflation, we’re able to pay a substantial amount of additional principal on our mortgage each month (with the goal of owning our little farm and house outright within the next five years), and we’re also able to save a good portion of our income for retirement, emergencies, etc.  The only reason we were able to afford to upgrade our furnace to a high efficiency model is because we’ve kept our expenses at about the same level over the years as our income has increased.  That means we have more money available when there’s something we really want to do.

For some other good reading, check out this week’s Festival of Frugality (my article about reducing our dependence on cars was included).  And another great little bonus that I discovered this morning is a free (!) e-cookbook from Jules at Stone Soup, a minimalist home cooking site.  The recipes all have five ingredients and take ten minutes or less to make, and there are great photographs of the food.  There are lots of vegan and vegetarian recipes included, so it’s got something for everyone.  It’s free, and it’s an e-book, so it won’t take up any room on your kitchen shelves.  What’s not to love?!

Filed Under: other bloggers 4 Comments

Comments

  1. Victoria - Ozarks Crescent Mural/My Freelance Road Trip says

    June 25, 2010 at 7:11 am

    Thank you, thank you, thank you for Stone Soup’s link to the amazing free ecookbook with 65 5-ingredient 10-minute recipes. I can’t think of anything better than only 5 ingredients and 10 minutes!

    Reply
  2. Abbie says

    June 26, 2010 at 8:27 am

    Thank you for the link to the Stone Soup cookbook! That is exactly the kind of cooking I like to do (and I’m only partway through the cookbook and have already found a bunch of recipes I’d like to try–how often does that happen??)

    Reply
  3. Steve Bonds says

    July 6, 2010 at 6:32 pm

    > I’ll have to wait until next year when we file our taxes to get the federal tax credit

    You don’t have to wait, you know… it’s perfectly legal to adjust your W-4 allowances since you know that you have money coming. The easiest way is to just crank ’em up until you have zero taxes withheld for enough pay periods to recoup your tax credit, then set them back to where they were before.

    Money now is better than money later.

    Alternatively, boost them just a little bit, then the process will proceed slower but might be more manageable– especially if you’re paid monthly where accidentally getting an extra pay period without withholding would create a mess to clean up later…

    Reply
  4. FrugalBabe says

    July 6, 2010 at 6:39 pm

    Steve,
    I had actually been thinking of this same thing a few days ago. We have our own business, and get both W2 income and shareholder dividends. I have extra taxes withheld on our W2 income in order to cover the dividends, but I can increase the amount of dividends we get over the next few months, knowing that the furnace credit will cover the taxes we’ll owe next spring. Same end result, and even easier than having to adjust our withholdings. I am definitely a fan of getting zero dollars back from Uncle Sam in April… I’d much rather have the money in the bank all year than get it back in one lump sum as a refund.

    Reply

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