Where We Can Save Money and Cut Expenses (But Won’t)

I have a small financial confession to make. While I believe in being frugal, while I shun consumerism and I believe in saving more than you spend, and while I frequently preach that we live in a country of abundance and we can all find some place to cut our expenses..

There are some areas of our budget where we can save more money and spend less. But I’m not making an effort to further reduce costs.

I understand how important it is to save money, and to not fall into the trap of lifestyle inflation. Don’t worry: we’re far from living the high life, makin’ bank and then makin’ it rain. We’re firmly middle class and we track every cent that comes in and goes out. We’re not suffering from a lack of cash, but we certainly can’t afford to not worry about it, either.

When It Comes to Where We Can Save Money, We Pick Our Battles

I like to think we’re pretty rational, logical people – but human beings are emotional creatures, and I know we’re no exception. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much I know about the numbers and the math behind things like investments and compound interest.

I get jealous about the stuff other people have that I don’t. I get tired of having to put off big trips and fancy vacations because we’re saving for other priorities. There are days when I just want to go out and spend my money on whatever I dang well please.

So I know it’s unrealistic to think that we’re going to be super savers in every budget category, on a consistent basis, over a long period of time. My frugal willpower can only focus on so much at once.

If I tried to cinch down our spending in every single way that I could, I’d feel deprived and irritated.. and I don’t think I’d be able to fight those sudden urges to spend all the glorious cash we had “just sitting around.”

I believe in slow and steady progress, with steady being the key word here. While we could theoretically speed up our journey towards our big financial goals by saving even more than the 40% of our income we currently manage, I don’t think it would work in reality. Simply put, I’m willing to be frugal. But I’m not okay with being obsessive about my savings, or cheap either.

Essentially, we pick our battles. Because we strategically choose the areas in which we cut back to save more, I have the ability to continue saying “no” to those occasions where I’m seized with a desire to go on shopping spree, or to just say, “screw it, I’m taking this money I’d normally put toward my investments and going on a cruise this month.”

What I’m Not Willing to Cut Back on in an Effort to Save More Money

Again, I’m not okay with being cheap. You won’t find me showering with my clothes on so I don’t have to do laundry, or peeling the skins off bananas when I have to pay for fruit by weight (both actions, by the way, that I’m pulling from real-life examples – or at least, reality TV examples via Extreme Cheapskates).

Here’s what else I’m not willing to do, even when cutting back would mean we could save more money:

• Scrimping on pet care supplies. Our three indoor cats cost us about $50 per month. We could easily cut this down to around $25 to $30 and save a little extra money by switching to a lower-quality pet food and not regularly buying treats and toys. But we knew that we were becoming responsible for the well-being of living creatures when we adopted our pets from an animal shelter – and we understood that came with financial responsibility, too. We believed that by taking on this responsibility, we were also agreeing to provide any animals in our care with the highest quality of life we could reasonably provide.
• Going (even farther) out of our way to save on utilities. We practice basic, “green-minded” energy conservation habits. We turn lights off when we leave a room, we take quick showers and don’t leave water running, and we’ve made an effort to better insulate our house so cool air doesn’t seep in during the winter – or leak out in the summer. But we’re satisfied with this, and don’t believe we need to go to extreme measures to save a few bucks per month (you can check out how much my month of line-drying clothes saved me here. Spoiler alert: not a whole lot).
• Spend lots of time worrying and stressing over every last cent. I don’t clip coupons because I don’t have time – and I don’t worry about the money I may or may not have been able to save if I did spend my energy doing something I didn’t enjoy. While I am happy to save where I can, I have limited time and energy and those resources are better spent, in my opinion, earning significantly more money rather than saving a few bucks from time to time.
• Eliminating all unnecessary spending. Guess what? We enjoy going out on dates a few times a month. Sometimes I want the convenience and sugary goodness of a chai tea latte from Starbucks – and I’ll be damned if I’m going to feel guilty over the $4 it’s going to cost me. I’m not willing to cut back in these areas that make us happy because, although highly important and a useful tool, money isn’t everything. My goal is to balance being happy now with being financially secure throughout my life. They key is to enjoy these little splurges and discretionary purchases in careful moderation.

I’m also not okay with sacrificing the things that are most important to me. We carefully prioritize our spending in the areas that we value the most. In other words, we build our budget around the things we want to spend money money on.

By doing this, we’re able to, in my opinion, truly have it all. We eliminate the crap we’re not interested in so we have the room to spend on things we enjoy – travel, experiencing new things together, eating tasty Mexican food. We scrimp on the stuff that we don’t think matters much – material goods, fancy cars, – so we don’t need to compromise on what we love.

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What are you not willing to cut back on – even if it meant saving more money?