Last night, I went grocery shopping for the first time in two weeks. I love my new shopping schedule, and I also love the fact that my total bill for two weeks now is less than what it used to be for one week before our garden began producing so much of our food. It took me a total of 20 minutes to get our groceries last night (plus driving time), and I won’t have to go back for another two weeks. The grocery store is about 15 miles from here, so minimizing trips is a good thing. And if I don’t have to go grocery shopping, there is pretty much no reason for me to have to go into town at all, for anything (I just registered to vote in our new county and renewed my drivers license, online, from my kitchen. Life is good). The little town where we live has a library, post office, bank, and basic grocery store, all within easy walking or biking distance. I found a note in the glove box of my car from an oil change my husband did back in September of 2007, and the mileage he noted at the time was 10,000 miles under what it is now. I knew that I didn’t drive much, but now I know the specifics – 10,000 miles in three years. Not bad! If I can keep up my twice a month shopping schedule, I can probably get that number even lower going forward.
I dropped off a couple more boxes at the thrift store last night when I was in town (my mom, who used to love thrift store shopping just as much as I did, referred to the thrift store yesterday as the “give away store” which is what it has become for both of us). I ducked inside quickly looking for a flower pot for a plant that has outgrown it’s planter, but didn’t see anything suitable and left within about five minutes of walking in the door. It’s amazing to me that I have been able to completely do away with my thrift store shopping habit, and how happy that makes me. There are tons of resources on the internet about decluttering, and I started reading a lot of them a few months ago. Apparently they had quite an impact, because I no longer have any desire to accumulate possessions or add “stuff” to our life. Instead, I want to be able to spend time experimenting cooking in the kitchen, hanging out with my husband and son, going for walks, doing yoga, having “adventures” at the park (that’s how our son and I refer to our little trips to the playground). Acquiring stuff has never really been fulfilling in the long term for anyone. But for most of us (including my former self), it is quite fulfilling in the short term. Then it wears off and we have to go hunting for new stuff in order to continue to be satisfied. Thankfully, I always got my fix with used things, so the cash outlay was never very big. But the clutter factor is there, regardless of whether the stuff comes from Neiman Marcus or a dumpster. And I just don’t want the clutter anymore.
Until this past spring, my trips to town were pretty much a weekly thing, and just about always involved at least a half an hour (usually more) of browsing around the thrift store before heading to the grocery store. Invariably, I would find at least a few treasures that I just had to have. These days, I can go to town and back in less than an hour and half total, and not only do I not come home with stuff from the the thrift store, I also usually have at least one box that I donate while I’m in town. Much better.
Karen says
Love the new blog background!
When I need something I often try thr thrift store so I can repurpose something instead of paying top dollar. Good for you and your abundance from your garden. That is a goal for me one day too!
Henry says
Hi FrugalBabe,
First-time poster – please forgive me if I’m raising an issue you’ve already explored previously. I love your blog!
I was provoked into leaving a comment by your apparent implicit assumption that you need a car. I was in a similar position to you in terms of annual mileage on my car and decided that, once the depreciation costs, maintenance, insurance, etc. were factored in, owning my own car (even though it was fully paid off and not on a payment plan) was both a waste of money and environmentally inexcusable – especially considering the environmental impact my having three young (20 months, 4 and 5) kids already has. The clincher was the financial aspect – having thousands of pounds worth of gently rusting metal in front of my house made no sense to me anymore.
Now whenever I need a car for a weekend trip I hire one – and generally it’s one much nicer than I could otherwise afford to own as a little treat for the petrolhead in me. At the end of that holiday, I return the keys and that car once again becomes Someone Else’s Headache. We are also in a car-sharing scheme, so I can have a car when I need to go on a major shopping trip – with the added bonus that these trips are planned in advance and so not impulsive (generally the most expensive kind of shopping trip!). The funny thing is, is that people talk about cars as symbols of freedom – I see them as the exact opposite – they are just one more thing that make you a slave to your pay cheque.
Have you considered ditching your car/sharing one with a neighbour?
Henry
FrugalBabe says
Henry,
You bring up a good point, and getting rid of my car is something I’ve considered. However, I can’t see a way that it would make sense, financially or practically. Pretty much the only time I need to use it is when I go to the city about ten miles from here. We’ve tried riding our bikes in there, but the only roads in are fast, with small shoulders, and we just don’t feel comfortable on them. There is no public transportation between here and there. And there are no places to rent a car in our town. I wouldn’t feel comfortable borrowing a neighbor’s car – we know our neighbors well enough to say hi and chat for a while, but borrowing someone’s car (for me anyway) would require a lot closer relationship than that.
I did the math a while back about how much my car is costing us. I always average at least 32 mpg, city and highway combined. If we were to borrow or rent a car for the 3000 miles I drive each year, we’d still have to pay for that gas (and there’s no public transportation here, so that’s not an option). I pay $250/year for insurance, and $65/year for registration. And in the seven plus years that we’ve owned my car, we’ve spent less than $1500 total in maintenance (including a new windshield, as the original one was cracked when we bought the car). So my car is costing us just over $500/year plus gasoline costs. (We paid $2300 cash for the car in 2003, so there has never been any monthly cost associated with buying the car).
It’s hard to see how we could get rid of the car and come up with an alternative way of getting around when we need to leave our town, that would cost less than $500/year. I’ve read that the average American spends something like $8000/year on a car, and in that case, I’m sure there are much more financially practical options. But I’d say I’m on the low end of the scale in terms of transportation costs, and there just aren’t that many other alternatives in a town with no car sharing program, no rental places, and no public transportation.
Kelly says
Haven’t actually popped over in a while as I usually read through Google Reader, so I am not sure how long you have had the new layout/background, but I just wanted to let you know I love it! It looks awesome! Hope all is well in the Frugal Babe household!
Henry says
Hi FrugalBabe,
Apologies for the delay in responding and apologies for the Torquemada-style first post. I guess being up at 3am made me a bit grouchy. ?
I keep forgetting just how cheap cars are to run in the US. I don’t know whether this makes you all very lucky or very unlucky. The maths you gave would be quickly dismissed as hopelessly naïve and the worst kind of wishful thinking in Europe. $500 a year!! I live in Austria – let me share my equivalent calculations for the car I used to have (2005 VW Sharan). The car was €23,000 when I bought it back in 2007. Since then it depreciated to €15,000 when I sold it a few months ago. I averaged 7 litres per 100km (Google says that’s 33.6 mpg in your language) and drove about 15,000 mostly unnecessary kilometres annually. At €1.20/litre (very approx. $6.50/gallon) that’s quite expensive. Because we had a small knock a couple of years back, our insurance was €1,712 (not a typo!) last year. I have averaged about €1,200 in annual servicing costs and for things like new winter tyres and a new air conditioning system. We also have motorway vignettes, annual parking fees in our town, etc.
The thing is, although I’m not exactly rich, I could afford it easily, so never questioned whether it represented value for money. When I started taking my finances by the scruff of the neck earlier this year, I was shocked at how much it cost to run – the best part of €8,000 a year! I knew cars were expensive, but I didn’t realise that it was such a drain on me. To top it all off, most of the driving I was doing was to out of town clients so that I could earn enough money to pay for the car. The money I was making by going out to them almost exactly balanced the cost of the car. I got rid of the car and the clients and am in the same shape financially, even when the cost of the occasional taxi or car hire is included. This means I now have time to play football (soccer) in the park with my kids and I also have one less thing in my life to worry about. I love how liberating it is to get rid of stuff.
Sounds like there might be a business opportunity for a start-up car sharing business in your community. ?
FrugalBabe says
Henry – no worries! I didn’t think your first post was grumpy at all, and it did bring up a topic that I had devoted quite a bit of thought to recently. I decided that this conversation about cars was worthy of its own blog post in case other readers weren’t following it in the comments section, so I just put up a post and asked for input. Thanks for getting it started! And congratulations on your new car-free way of life – I must say, it sounds great!
Molly On Money says
In the past week I have had two flat tires (on different days) and my car stall out while driving on the freeway. I’m very frustrated with my dependence on my vehicles- yes, plural!
It’s good to get a little inspiration from you FB!
Annie says
Thank you for this post!!! Reading your entry made me feel as if you had read my mind, does that make sense? I, too, was a thrift store fanatic! The thrill was only for a while, so I’d need more thrill and return and buy. Then I’d have too much stuff so I’d drop stuff off, but that stuff would be replaced w/ other ‘new’ (aka: used) stuff…etc. Reading your blog helps me to remind myself to stay off the thrift store rollercoaster! It is refreshing to know ‘i’m not alone’ in my personal battles; and also refreshing to know ‘i’m not alone’ with my adoration and pure enjoyment of a minimalist lifestyle!