Tips and Tricks on Saving Money – Henrietta’s Personal Saving Story

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their Personal Savings Stories and photographs.  I hope by sharing other people’s money savings tips here on One Hundred Dollars a Month we can all find new ways to save rock our budgets this year. ~Mavis

This week we are featuring Henrietta from Bremerton. Here’s what she had to say:

I’ve loved reading the Personal Savings stories and always find it interesting to see how others are saving money. Being thrifty is a pie in the sky for me. I am not the most thrifty person by any means and often fall short even though I may have the best intentions. For example, recently I opened up a library account because we love reading books, and I thought we could save money by renting books for free. However, I never returned the books on time. I had no idea library fines were so steep and I paid a huge embarrassing hefty fine.

My husband on the other hand, is the male version of Mavis. He has 10 Costco black polo shirts he always wears. If he doesn’t pack a lunch for work, he would rather starve than spend money buying lunch. He was just born with that thrifty gene. Luckily after 10 years of marriage, some of his thriftiness has rubbed off on me and he has also learned to accept some of my financial goofs.

Both my husband and I are fortunate to have well paying careers. My husband managed to earn a PhD in engineering without incurring any debt. Yes, he is that amazing. I stumbled thru engineering college on scholarships and financial assistance, and had a small student loan with 2% interest, which was mostly paid off by my employer. I like to think we balance each other out. Now we have 3 children to put thru college, to be honest, we have not thought much about how we will pay for their education because neither one of us had to worry about it. Hopefully my children will pursue careers in science or engineering. There seem to be more scholarship opportunities in science or engineering, than for example, history or art.

In 2014, I went thru a crisis, where I questioned my purpose in life, which ultimately led to quitting my job. It was a huge hit to our finances and we had to go on a budget for the very first time. It was a rude awakening and I’ve learned a lot thru that experience. Now that I am working again, I’m determined to stick to my new found appreciation for budgets.

My grocery goal is to spend less than $100 a week. It’s a far cry from $100 a month, but far better than what we used to spend. I cook 90% of our meals from scratch. I avoid processed foods and preservatives as much as possible. But I am human, the other 10% is usually Costco lasagna or pizza. We eat out for dinner occasionally, but not often. I also have a gigantic garden where I grow lots of fresh organic healthy vegetables. Recently, I’ve been reading and making recipes from several simple eating books , including More-with-Less by Doris Janzen Longacre. I am intrigued with the idea of building a simpler diet. Not just for financial savings, but also for mind and spirit. I am only starting to learn that food is a gift.

We were lucky enough to buy our home after the market crashed, that in itself is a huge savings. Our home was a foreclosure and a fixer-upper. We are currently on a 10 year remodel plan. We are doing all of the work ourselves and it is a very long slow process. Material is only bought when it goes on sale. This process has taught me a lot about patience. Often, I find myself questioning whether this is all worth it, all in the name of saving money. I’ve been staring at this sub-flooring for the past two years. Thankfully, new oak floors were recently purchased at 40% off.

I would love to tell you all that I only shop at secondhand stores for clothes, but it would only be half the truth. I do buy most of my kids clothes at thrift and consignment shops. I will let you all in on a secret, I find the best kids quality clothes at the Seattle Goodwill. Seattlelites not only love their coffee, but also love their Keens and designer kids clothes. Now that spring is almost here, all the winter/fall kids clothes will be going on sale. I normally buy good quality coats for 50-60% and buy a size up for the next year. My husband never buys clothes, if he does, it’s usually a $10 black polo from Costco. I won’t discuss my clothes spending habit, let’s just say my husband balances me out. I did challenge myself and went thru all of 2015 without spending any money on clothes or shoes.

​I love to shop at Costco? We get 2% back on all our purchases because we have an Executive Membership. On top of that, we get 2% back on all purchases with our credit card. So just for shopping at Costco, we get 4% back on our purchases. What I don’t buy at Costco, I usually purchase at Winco. I do love the bulk section at Winco and usually buy rice and beans there, but lately I’ve been questioning the quality of the food and where it comes from. When I have some time, I want to do a little research. I do not coupon or grocery store hop for savings. My husband and I always have this discussion on time vs. money. We choose to spend a lot of time researching and finding the best deals on big purchases, but for smaller items, like toilet paper or milk, we would rather save time than money.

I’ve been wanting to build myself rain collection barrels for the last year and a half. However, I was just at Costco the other day and saw they had rain collection barrels for $79.99. Before I made the purchase I quickly compared this price to Home Depot, where they were selling it for $92. In the past I’ve tried using apps for price comparison but have never found a useful one. If you know of a great price comparison app, please share with me! I purchased the Costco rain barrel and may go back for another. I figure it would have cost me at least $50 in material to DIY, but again, this came down to a decision of time vs. money. I have so many projects on the back burner and a huge garden to get ready for spring planting, buying the rain barrel made sense to me.

Speaking of DIY projects, we built our raised beds using cedar. We got a great deal on the cedar, and also talked ourselves into an additional discount because not all the wood was of a perfect cut. My husband and father-in-law are skilled at negotiating prices and deals. Their attitude is that there is always a line below the bottom-line. My husband will never pay full price for anything. Negotiating prices is absolutely a skill. When I decide that I must have or need a particular item, this is my husbands process:

• 1. Research and learn everything about the product, how it’s designed, what type of material is used, how much it costs, what makes the product so great, what are the reviews, etc.
• 2. Compare prices with other products and compare design, performance, function, material, costs, etc.
• 3. Understand price and sale trends of that product.

What usually happens following his research is:

• 1. I wait several months or years to receive requested item if there are no comparable items on the market.
• 2. Husband finds a comparable or better product for a fraction of the price.
• 3. I receive a refurbished version of the item.
• 4. I don’t receive the item because it just doesn’t make sense (e.g. iphone)

My husband is slightly mad, he enjoys researching the hell out of a product. So for us, this is just normal routine when we purchase items that are not food or bare necessities.

I am really inspired by people like Jane, Zoe, JJ and Mavis. I would love to spend less and save more. As you can tell, we have the skills and knowledge on how to do this. So in our case, it comes down to philosophy and morals. I truly desire to live a simple and non conformic life. As a Christian, God has called me to live faithful and in a way that honors him. Not in the way that society tells me to live.

Living simple is also a desire to go back to my roots. I grew up on the Navajo Reservation and my life was very simple, poor in material riches, but rich in experiences. We placed no value on material richness, because frankly, we had no money. As Navajo people, we are taught to honor and respect our earth. My ancestors were stewards of this earth, the earth provided and they only took what they needed. Living simply and spending less is part of my spiritual journey.

You can read more about my gardening and homesteading adventures on my blog Journal from a not quite urban homestead.

~Henrietta

If you would like to have your Personal Savings Story featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I would love to feature it on the blog. Just answer 5-7 {or all if you really want to} of the questions listed in the original Personal Savings Story post and submit 3-5 QUALITY photos to go along with them.

Send submissions via email to onehundreddollarsamonth @ gmail.com {remove the spaces} and be sure and put Personal Saving Stories in the subject line.

If I feature your pictures and the stories behind them on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I will send you a $20.00 gift card to the greatest store in the world: Amazon.com. It’s that easy.