Frugality

Frugality and Location

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I thought about including this in my post on housing but decided this topic deserves its own post since it concerns more than just housing.

Where you live greatly influences your living expenses. Some areas are simply more expensive to live in than others. I’m lucky to live in one of the lowest cost areas of the U.S. One of the drawbacks of living in an area with a low cost of living is that wages are usually lower than average also. If you can manage to make an above average salary in an area with a low cost of living than you are doing well. If you live in a high cost of living area and you are not making an above average salary you should consider moving.

Of course the cost of living isn’t the only thing to consider when determining when to live. You don’t want to move to a low cost of living area if you wouldn’t enjoy living there. Or you might have obligations that require you to live in a high cost of living area. If this is the case your location can still save you money. If you are able to find a location close to your work and other places you regularly visit you should save money. If you are renting you can use a tool such as Rentometer to make sure you are paying a fair price for your neighborhood.

Whatever your location if you put a little thought into where you choose to live you can save a lot of money.

Some Thoughts on Living Abroad

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I'm thinking the special rate isn't a discount.
I'm thinking the special rate isn't a discount.

Based on my past experience living in Guatemala for three months I have long thought that living in a foreign country would be a good way to live cheaply. This would allow you to live on a small retirement income or perhaps allow you to take an extended amount of time off each year. After my recent trip through Central America I have some more thoughts on this subject.

It is true that you can live on less in Central America. My experience in Guatemala though was that you usually would also have a lower standard of living than in the U.S. While trying to find a private apartment in Guatemala the only ones that I considered acceptable cost almost as much as I would pay here in Kansas City.

Since I am able to have a comfortable lifestyle here in the U.S. for about a $1000 a month it is difficult to save much money by living elsewhere. I often see ads for books or guides on how you can live in a foreign country for as little as $1000 a month which wouldn’t be a savings for me. That would only be a good deal for me if I had a better standard of living there or at least a different but similar standard of living.

One of my problems was that the places I was looking at were targeted towards foreigners and were priced accordingly. Generally, any goods or services in a foreign country that are being marketed to gringos will come with a gringo price tag. If I would have spent some more time searching for an apartment I probably could have found a better deal on a place that wasn’t being marketed for foreigners. This just takes more time and some knowledge of the area you would be living in would be helpful.

I still think that someday I will be living in Central America at least part of the year. This won’t be because it is cheap but because I like it there. My recommendation to anyone who is thinking of living abroad is not to live somewhere just because it is cheap. If you can find a place that is cheap and it is an area you want to live in as well then you have found a good combination.

September Expenses – $1435.49

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

Household

$136.63

Entertainment

$71.45

Transportation

 $11.89

Food

$162.56

Medical/Dental

$61.66

Phone

$34.67

Travel

 $774.63

Debt

 $182.00

Total

$1435.49

My expenses were higher than I would prefer in September but not too bad considering I was traveling most of the month. The travel expense was the budget killer. This amount was what I spent on airfare, hotel rooms, taxis, and buses. I find it hard to believe I spent that much but I did. I probably won’t travel at all this month so this category will go down to zero. The food budget was also high since I ate out for most of my meals. My food expense should go back to normal this month.  My household expense was  low this month since my GF allowed me to not pay rent while I was gone.  This amount will go back to normal this month.  My transportation expense was low this month since most of my transportation costs were included in the travel category.  That expense will go up this month but it should still be fairly low.  My other categories should remain about the same.

It is now obvious that I will not meet my goal of keeping my expenses to under $10,000 for the year.  I may have already passed that expense level but I haven’t added up my monthly expenses yet to be sure.  I will still try to keep my expenses low for the rest of the year and I will probably set a similar goal next year.

Does Eating Healthy Have to be Expensive?

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Many people assume that eating healthy has to be expensive.  It is true that many cheap foods are unhealthy.  However, that doesn’t mean all cheap foods are unhealthy and it certainly doesn’t mean that a food is healthy just because it is expensive.   I’ve posted in the past about healthy, frugal foods.  It is certainly possible to eat healthy on a relatively low grocery budget.

One common mistake people make is assuming a food that is generally considered the “healthy option” has more nutritional value than it actually does. For example in a post at The Simple Dollar “Thoughts on a low grocery bill” Trent asked his readers to “compare the cheap pasta sauce and the organic pasta sauce on the nutrition label.” The implication being that the cheap pasta sauce would be less nutritious. I was skeptical that the cheap pasta sauce would be less nutritious since studies have shown that organic food is not more nutritious. I decided to actually compare the nutrition labels of the cheap pasta sauce and the organic pasta sauce.

For the comparison I chose the most expensive jarred pasta sauce at my local grocery store which was Bertolli Organic Traditional. I compared it to the cheapest canned sauce which was the Best Choice brand. Most of the nutrition information was about the same between the two brands. There were small differences in the vitamins and minerals. The organic brand had the following percentages of the USRDA: Vitamin A 10%, Vitamin C 15%, Calcium 0%, Iron 10%. The cheap brands percentages are: Vitamin A 15%, Vitamin C 15%, Calcium 2%, Iron 6%. The cheap brand is at least as nutritious as the organic variety if not slightly more nutritious.

If I were to compare the Best Choice Garden Vegetable variety of pasta sauce to the Bertolli Organic traditional the results are even more in favor of the cheap sauce. The cheap brand has 45% of the USRDA of Vitamin A and 17% of Vitamin C. Considering the cheap brand is $1.09 for 26 oz. and the organic is $4.39 for 24 oz. the cheap brand is a much better value for nutrition.

Also the cheaper Best Choice Organic traditional brand was more nutritious than the Bertolli Organic although still not as nutritious as the non-organic Best Choice Garden Vegetable variety of pasta sauce. After looking at the nutrition labels of some other foods in both organic and non-organic varieties it was clear to me that organic food is not more nutritious. There are other reasons for buying organic but if you are buying organic just for added nutrition you are not getting value for your money and are wasting your money. You don’t have to take my word for it, next time you are at the grocery store compare the labels for yourself.

To help you eat healthy while keeping a low grocery budget here are a couple of links to help you save money while buying natural or organic foods.

How to Save Money Buying Natural Foods from Mint.com blog.

Deciding Which Produce to Buy Organic from WiseBread.

***Although it is possible to eat healthy on a low budget I don’t eat very healthy myself. I’m making it a goal to eat healthy for one month and post everything I eat and how much it cost. It may not be feasible to do that while I’m in Guatemala but I’ll do this as soon as possible.

Gleaning for Food

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The Kansas City Star recently had an article about gleaning. Gleaning as referred to in the article is the process of collecting crops from farmers’ fields that have already been mechanically harvested. It isn’t economically profitable to pick the remaining crops from these fields but using volunteer labor the crops can be harvested for use by charities. The Society of St. Andrew, mentioned in the article, is a leading food recovery organization and has a website at EndHunger.org. I might volunteer for this charity in the future.

Gleaning also has a more general meaning of recovering any food that would otherwise go to waste. Some examples of this on a personal level are sharing food from a bumper garden crop that would otherwise go to waste or allowing someone to pick fruit from your fruit tree that you don’t have the inclination to pick. I have benefited from this type of food gleaning in the past although I didn’t know that was the name for it. If you have the opportunity to glean food for yourself it could be a good way to save some money and prevent food from going to waste.