Debunk Tuesday: Three frugality tips that have it all wrong

Say no to buying silly things just because your budget says you can.

Occasionally, YCD aims to turn common wisdom on its head. This week we’ll see why three of the most common tips from frugality blogs are nonsense.

Google “how to save money” and you’ll come up with a bazillion lists of things to do to cut your expenses. Included among such nonsense suggestions as using rewards programs at coffee shops and printing graph paper are a few pretty consistent suggestions. Some are great, and we’ll cover those in the days ahead. Others seem to be repeated as if gospel despite the fact that they crumble under a little thoughtful scrutiny. Here are debunks of three seemingly smart pieces of advice that you’ll encounter over and over.

1. Don’t make a grocery list.

If your impulse control is so out of whack that an unscripted trip to the grocery store for you looks like this:

…then you have other issues. I find it laughable that so many so-called frugality lists are resigned to the idea that people are powerless in the face of choice at the grocery store and without a specific list will have to rent a trailer to haul home their impulse purchases of Listerine and cool ranch Doritos. The solution is not to blind yourself to things not on your list but to empower yourself to make smart choices. You can’t assume you know about every discount from the ads, and you can’t assume you know every item a store sells, so why think you can build a perfect list based on imperfect knowledge? It’s like trying to build an entire theology around 3 John.

When you come across something in a store that’s deeply discounted, weigh the cost vs. something you were going to purchase anyway. Can you replace a component in one of your planned meals with the cheaper option? Can you build a meal around the cheap thing without adding anything to your list? Can you freeze or store the cheap thing until such time as you can figure out what to do with it?

2. Don’t use a budget.

Seriously, what’s the point?

Let’s say you’ve followed Ms. Good Money Blog Gal and preemptively sorted all your expected expenses and given yourself $100 a month for fun. You go to a movie and spend $30 on tickets and snacks early in the month. Now pretend it’s the 29th of the month and a friend invites you out to a trendy restaurant that you’d normally scorn because its entrees start at $45 and only go up from there. But you’ve got $70 to spend by tomorrow! You can’t waste that budget! It’s completely OK because you planned for this and you deserve a reward for being so frugal for the last four weeks!

Answer me honestly. Are you more or less likely to go out to eat if you’ve already got money put aside for it?

“I have the money so it’s OK to spend it” is maybe the most mortifying piece of financial advice I’ve ever heard, and it’s the inevitable result of budgeting. The trouble is that budgeting allows you to skimp on the intellectual exercise of consciously considering every purchasing decision. It makes you financially lazy. Budgeting says that all you have to do is stay under a given amount of money and you win. Uh-huh. And don’t worry about smoking—as long as you’re not currently dying of lung cancer, you’re winning!

3. Don’t buy a house.

Contemporary wisdom says you should purchase a house if you plan to be there for five or more years. There’s a lot to be said for that, and I own a house myself. But I highly recommend renting as long as possible for three reasons.

  1. You have many more choices about where you live. If there’s any chance your career, relationship status, or financial position could change significantly, you’ll be much better able to adapt if you’re not tied to a house.
  2. Utilities suck. Where I’m from, apartment dwellers typically don’t pay directly for water, sewer, and garbage service. House owners (and house renters too) do. For my area that totals $151.37 every month, which is about 1/5 the cost of a good 2-bedroom apartment. (Bonus tip: If you pay for garbage service, downgrade your trash can. In many places you’re defaulted to the largest size, but you can often change to a smaller container.) Yes, you’re indirectly paying for them through your rent, but if you’re in a multi-unit building that cost is being spread out among several tenants.
  3. Opportunity costs. When you own a home, you’ve got to take care of it. If you have any kind of land at all (lawn, garden, miniature cow grazing pasture), you’ve got to maintain it. Is it worth the money to buy a lawnmower (even a cheap one) and invest the time every week or so to mow? What about when your kitchen garbage disposal stop working, as mine did a couple weeks ago? Do you have the tools and knowledge to fix it? In an apartment, it’s typically not your responsibility (or expense). And it’s not just the cost of tools and the expenditure of time—there’s also the space to store your tools and supplies. Space costs money.

So what do I do instead?

A typical finance blog would leave it at that. But this isn’t a typical finance blog. This is a blog about trying to live a better life, so let’s go over what to do instead of these three things.

Don’t make a grocery list. Make a list of meals instead, and be flexible. This is a good practice not just because it makes grocery shopping nicer, but because it can help you plan your day by knowing when you need to start food prep, and it takes the stress out of having to think up something at 6 o’clock. Review your meal ideas before you go shopping or take the list with you. But when you see a bargain, don’t be afraid to modify or scrap one of your meals for something else.

Don’t use a budget. Instead, consider every spending decision on its own merits, and review your spending regularly. Sounds obvious, but here’s the difference: budgeting is a kind of dangerous proactivity that can lead you to spend money you don’t have to just because you have it. It allows you to decontextualize purchasing decisions. Every decision should be evaluated on its own merits. It’s not as much work as it sounds, and as you practice doing so you’ll build up those decision-making muscles to the point it becomes pretty easy. (Post to come on that soon!)

Don’t buy a house. Rent, obviously, but rent the smallest and/or cheapest place you can. Cheap means less expense, and small means you’re less able to fill your apartment with crap—crap you’ll have to sell or take with you when you relocate. Less obviously, don’t be embarrassed about co-living. Whether it’s with your parents, a cousin, a friend, or somebody you met (and hopefully vetted) on Craigslist, the cost of living drops drastically when it’s shared. In fact, Young Christian Mom and I have talked for a long time about wanting to share land and/or a house with another family or families. We love community, and we see the positive effect that socializing has on our kids, and we long to have more of that. Plus, parenting is a lot easier when you have other parents around to complain to talk thoughtfully with.

Like everything else, good finances are the result of winning the battle of thoughtfulness vs. thoughtlessness. It takes work to make smart choices, but it’s worth it. What other advice are you seeing in the wild that just doesn’t add up?

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I look like this most of the time.

I’m a father of four kids under the age of 5, husband to my greatest blessing, and a reborn-a-couple-of-times Christian. Professionally I'm an editor, writer, and creative consultant, but my real job is trying to be a better husband and father. I started YCD because fatherhood is really damn hard, and we don’t talk about that enough. Let's change that.

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