How I save money
“How’d you save all that money to travel?”
(To be honest- it costs less than you’d thinkĀ to travel for 30 months. I’ll release a budget post soon. I promise. In the meantime—)
1) I worked in the video game industry. I was an hourly-contractor. I worked 100-hour weeks many times over the 10-year span of my career. Once I was out of debt I started planning for this trip- and saved for 9 months during my last contract.
2) I don’t have kids, a house, or anything that ties me down. I do have a cat- but she’s more independent than I am.
3) During my last (9 month) contract, I sold everything, minimized my life, and curbed my spending.
“Go on….”
1) The 100-item challenge forced me to sell everything that wasn’t NECESSARY. I spent years doing this process. It started with me putting crap in boxes and into storage. Then I went through the boxes and realized “I’ve lived without this crap for years! I don’t need it.” (And I was right).
2) When I moved to Seattle (for my last contract), I said to myself, “Self, you have 100 items. If you go to Target to buy something- you need to get rid of one of your 100 items.” (This curbed my spending big time). It also taught me a lot about my spending habits– like that I “stress-shopped” (as most Americans do).
3) I got rid of every single thing that was a occurring payment. Cellphone being the exception. Hulu, Netflix, magazine subscriptions– all went away.
4) I opened a Chase Sapphire card- that gave me points on purchases. I started doing the whole “opening up credit cards just for the points” thing.
5) I wrote down (in an excel doc) every single purchase over 20$. After 3 months, I lowered that number down to 10$. ThenĀ 5$. Then anything that was more than 1$ got marked down. This was a great mental exercise for “omg. I don’t want to write THAT down.”
During this exercise, I realized that I was spending about 175$ on coffee a month. (I lived in Seattle- so that’s kinda understandable. But what was even worse was that it was subsidized Starsux coffee…. AND I STILL SPENT THAT MUCH!?) Disgust in myself curbed that (until I went into crunch-time and they offered discount cookies after 4pm).
How do you save money?
EDIT:
I just heard a Marketplace piece that talks about this more.
Great tips! I especially like 2, 4 and 5. I’ve looked for credit cards that give you points here in The Netherlands, but unfortunately there are not that many (and the ones that do give you points cost more money than the rewards). I’m currently still selling unnecessary items and I live in a 4 x 4 room in a good neighbourhood which is more than enough for me. Have you checked out the tiny house movement? Just Google it. Anyway, keep blogging!
I *HAVE* heard of tiny-house-living. My problem is settling down somewhere long enough to establish a HQ. Too bad about the Dutch CC companies– sounds like a missed business opportunity for them!