Preemptive Frugality

By Darren Bond

We had company for lunch today: John’s niece, Morgan. She’s visiting from Los Angeles for a week and we wanted to get together. The normal thing would be – and was – to go for lunch. We thought about finding a funky restaurant that would be different. Then, it dawned on us that putting together a light lunch at home would be a viable and fun option.

For a few years now, we’ve been eating out less and less. I’m not sure of the core reason. It could be because it’s cheaper (much cheaper) or it could be because it’s healthier or it could be because you can put together some darn fine ingredients that are fresh, fresh.

It’s all of the above, of course, and since we enjoy cooking (on a non-work day when you’re including appetizer and dessert), it’s a winning thing to do.

For example, today I bought wild sockeye salmon fillets. Though they were very dear at about five dollars apiece, with the rice and green beans, we didn’t break the bank. (What does a salmon dinner cost at Earl’s?)

Tonight we’re going to our friends’, Kevin and Erin, for dinner. They’ve got four kids and a big mortgage but are always generous hosts and invite us over a few times a year. Eating out regularly isn’t really an option for them but who cares, they’re able to prepare pork back-ribs in their backyard smoker. (Yum.) As a summer-time treat, we’re bringing Rice Krispies squares with white chocolate and candied peanuts. (I should be punished for that.)

This frugality thing is growing on us.

As we coast on down the hill from fifty, the images of a fixed income begin to appear. Will we have to live on cat food?

I doubt it. For one thing, I have one of those good old-fashioned company “defined benefit” pension plans and unless the phone company goes broke and defaults on their payments (I guess this could happen), we’ll receive monthly payments till someone throws our sorry ashes off the cliff. Plus, John has a strong independent streak and will likely work on contracts, like his dad, forever.

More importantly, frugality is kind of a poor word for what is more of a lifestyle choice that hopefully allows for more time on pleasures and less need for work. As John’s dad is known to say, “what you don’t spend you don’t have to earn.”

Recently, as our transitioning plans to Hornby firm up, we’ve begun to look at our current spending and make small changes. They start to add up.

We really weren’t watching anything particularly on TV other than the news, and so we pulled the plug on that (about $50 per month). Because I’m on a cell phone for work all day long, I really don’t want or need to be talking to people afterwards all the time. So, based on an average of about two calls per month, it went out the window (about $35 per month). I just ended my 30-year company fitness centre membership (subsidized but still $25 per month) because we’re going to a private place nearby.

Years ago, I put together a Quicken budget to track in-flows and out-flows. I looked at it recently and it’s quite fun to see where priorities and dollars were going at the time. (Who goes to movies anymore?) I’m going to go through it again with a fine-tooth comb and lay out a new budget.

I recall a show where a couple of women started a company that put people through a one-year “boot camp” to spend as if they were retired. It was to test whether their romantic notion of early retirement was realistic if they couldn’t stomach the sacrifices of not spending their paycheques away as normal, and then some.

In a way, this is what we’re doing. So far, there’s no pain and lots of gain.

What have you given up that you haven’t regretted? Any sneaky tips and tricks?

p.s., I have a friend who had a grandmother – long since departed this world – who opened up tea-bags, dried out the leaves, and then sewed them together again for reuse. I think I’m still too selfish to try to lower my carbon footprint and budget for that… meow