2011 Live Beneath My Means

Principle One: Live beneath my means

Off to a great start for investing, saving, and life satisfaction in 2011.  We have successfully charted our daily spending with a fridge calendar, set up monthly withdrawals to our investment account, and are working on ways to save money while still enjoying what we love.

A few quick glimpses into how we do this:

1) My rediscovery of dried beans.  Recently I started cooking our taco night, lentil soup, and Indian food recipes using dried beans instead of canned.  For one the price is much cheaper, but more importantly, they taste better.  My seven year old will eat any vegetable as long as it is concealed in lentil soup.

2)  I've become a better cook and cook mostly vegetarian food.  In our family, I am the one with the soft spot for venison, pork, lamb and herring. My husband prefers mostly vegetarian, and my daughter is somewhere in the middle with chicken satay as her favorite meal.  I've become a better cook through subscribing to a monthly CSA Community Supported Agriculture box.  Every week, we get a box and my job is to figure out how to cook it so we will eat it.  My favorite cookbook is Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. Since it lists vegetables alphabetically, I can find an Italian, Indian, or Chinese way to make cauliflower depending on my taste.

3) We've quit all non-essentials - gym membership, cable, Starbucks, one cell phone, and are spending free time outside, jogging, playing music as a family (or Apples to Apples), cooking, and indulging in our $8.99 Netflix or Hulu accounts when we need a 30 Rock or Wizards of Waverly Place fix. Our daughter doesn't ask for things on TV since she doesn't see them advertised. We don't see all of the things we are missing either.

4)  We eat out smarter.  Previously our foodie habits and our over-tipping tendencies have drained our accounts.  We still eat out, but do it in a smarter way.  We go to local, ethnic, family owned places.  We also have stopped ordering meals for all three of us.  As a mom, one often finds many kids never finish their portions, so I order a side salad or soup and share with my daughter.  Smart mom health tip - we also ask them to mix her Sprite with club soda to cut down on sugar. No kid needs 16 let alone more ounces of soda...

5) And yes, I have become my mother and am sneaking popcorn into the movie theater.  When calculate $5 a day as investment dollars with compounding interest, you would too.