The Big Shift
Family takes frugality to the extreme
Many people living in comfortable surroundings are now embracing a frugal-chic attitude. Maine-based author W. Hodding Carter and his family are experimenting in being ultra-frugal for an entire year.
The Carter family hard at work. (W. Hodding Carter)
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Hodding Carter IV
TEXT OF COMMENTARY
TESS VIGELAND: Frugal chic appears to have taken hold of this nation. Don't get caught exiting the mall with a new pair of pants. Make your own lunch or prepare to be mocked. And yes, I'm prepared for your mail. But really, tending chickens in a coop outside your Manhattan co-op? Well at least if you're going to go all extreme frugal, be funny about it.
Be commentator W. Hodding Carter, who's chronicling his family's year-long experiment in rural Maine at Gourmet.com.
W. Hodding Carter: For years, my wife Lisa told me we were overspending. Even kicked me out of the house once for six months to wake me up. She said we didn't need to eat out, all six of us, twice a week, every week. That it wasn't smart to borrow against our house to mae a $200,000 renovation since we only had a few thousands in savings. That I really didn't need those hand carved, walnut countertops our contractor had suggested I might like. That since we made a conscious decision to spend more time with our kids and less on our careers, we also had to consume less.
Did I listen? No, because I knew that my next book was going to be a best-seller. If it happened to my fellow Mainer Stephen King, of course it would happen to me. Well, it hasn't. And last fall, one of those discussions devolved into tears. The next day, my annual Social Security statement arrived.
To calmly sit down and prove her wrong, I actually looked at it for the first time in years. Panicking, I then looked at hers. Turns out, we only average a combined income of $41,000 a year for the last 10 years. That's about 150% of the federal poverty level of a family of six.
The killer though, is we've been living for the most part, as if we've been making $100,000 a year. We pulled this off by repeatedly refinancing and shuffling between low-interest home equity loans and zero-interest credit card transfers. An inheritance, a fortuitous house sale, some lump sum book advances kept us going. But by last fall, it was all gone, except for the debt.
We had to get frugal. Big time. So we "decided" to live on what's left, every month, after paying our mortgage, taxes and various insurances. That's $550 a month. Since January, we've been trying to buy groceries, drive out two cars, pay for utilities and keep our four kids happy, with the amount that we usually blow on a single trip to the supermarket.
How's it going? We're getting there. Thanks to tapping maple trees, shopping at liquidation grocery stores, never eating out and giving up paper towels. And no cost-cutting measure's off-limits. I came across a young mallard a few weeks ago, obvious road kill, and brought it home for dinner. No one flinched, except maybe just a bit, when I hung it in the basement for a few days to tenderize and improve the flavor.
We began living this way, because we had to. But now we're living the frugal life, because it's what we believe in. We work together on our three new vegetable plots and have more fun than we ever did spending money. We're no longer afraid of the other shoe falling, because we're finally putting one foot in front of the other.
We're the Carters: broke, happy and for once, living within our means.
Vigeland: W. Hodding Carter is writing about his family's experience going extreme frugal on the website of Gourmet magazine.
The most recent teachable moment, by the way, involves a bathtub, a flashlight-lit sprint to the henhouse, and a beloved but constipated chicken named Stella. All in the name of free breakfast.
Comments
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From South Portland, ME, 07/03/2009
Based on the description of his income and the fact that he has four kids, he may be eligible for food stamps. Some are philisophically against accepting government handouts, but it is a program designed to assure that kids are healthy and get adequate food amd medical care. If one gets a tax return, do you send it back? Why not also apply for government benefits when eligible.
From Tucson, AZ, 06/12/2009
How lucky I am to have been born instinctively frugal -- enhanced by working in developing countrieis.
And there is more to the current economic situation than mmets the eye. It is INTENDED to teach Americans (and other materially-oriented folks) the REAL values.
From Richmond, VA, 06/11/2009
I have long ignored the philosophy that was prevalent during the '80s and
90s about high credit balances was smart. Quite the opposite, I thought that was a dumb way to approach one's financial situation; I have at least six different credit cards and every one of them is paid off and sometimes I have a credit balance on them. It has been years since I have ever paid a fee for a credit card balance and I plan on keeping it that way. I am not a gourmet cook, but I do okay in that department and my pocketbook and health reflect that.
From Princeton, MO, 06/11/2009
What many Americans have forgotten (and are now rediscovering) is that there is a joy in being frugal, finding new uses for old things, and contributing rather than taking. I have grown up going to thrift stores, bent and dent groceries, growing my own vegetables, and living nearly debt-free. When these frugal stories started to appear, I laughed. Garage sale deals are something my children already understand. As a teacher in a depressed rural area, I don't have to keep up with the Joneses. I just have to figure out how to pay for new tires for the tractor. Now, people admire me for my frugality. Twenty five years ago, that was not the case. They were too busy checking to see that Gloria Vanderbuilt was stamped on my butt, my shoes has swoops on them, and my shirt sported an alligator. There really is something to love about this new "frugality"
From hicksville, OH, 06/09/2009
My parents grew up in the depression. I grew up learning how to make less "enough". They taught me how to save and not to spend money I hadn't already earned. If everyone lived this way, we would not have had the recent financial "boom and bust" --- now our children and grandchildren will have to pay for what we wasted......
From MN, 06/07/2009
Frugal all the craze, Frugal in style-- When will people think for themselves about the consequences the desire to keep up with the JONES, including the richest of Jones. Frugal has been a life style forever for me. Yes, I had a job that closed in on 6 digits, and was downsized. My house was paid off yrs earlier, and yes, we needed a new bath and kitchen, though the ones we had were still workable. Yes, we renovated, yes, we paid for it without loans, because we waited to save the money. Ok, I have been known to let paper towels dry for re-use. Yes, I have been recycling since 71, from the time I worked in a recyling center in southern Mo. But my family were not pack-rats, so minimal is only saved. Yes, I am a babyboomer, yes, my parents lived during the depression. I guess I haven't lived the american dream - keep up with the Jones - Have today, Pay tomorrow! Sacrifice isn't part of the dream - that's why americans will use up the planet.
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