Save Money and Free Up Your Lifestyle

Have you ever just wanted to get away and do something out of the ordinary? Save money and free up your lifestyle? That’s what has been hitting us lately. We have been looking for ways to minimize, simplify, and have more fun — without having to worry about the house, our jobs, or anything else that might tie us down to one particular place.

My husband and I have discussed the issue several times in the past. We have wanted to free up our lifestyle but weren’t sure exactly how to do it.

Since we have full time jobs, as well as commitments outside of our jobs, we do not yet have the luxury of retiring.

But, it dawned on us about six months ago that if we were going to escape the work-a-day world, we would need to take  more aggressive measures toward budgeting.

For example, it is always tempting to go out to dinner somewhere. Who wants to cook after getting home from work in the evenings? Plus, we know many of the business owners and enjoy the social aspect of going out for an evening meal.

But, it was playing havoc with our healthy lifestyle as well as costing us more in weekly expenses.

So, one of the first things that we looked at was reducing the number of times we eat out.

Now, we eat out a couple of times a week and purchase most of our produce at the local farmers market.

We also looked at eliminating other extra expenses. We cut out movie going and expenditures of unnecessary clothing and household items. But it still wasn’t significant enough savings to enable a more flexible lifestyle.

So, three months ago we took a bigger leap and found three more ways that greatly reduced monthly outgo. We’re pretty excited because it’s more than just a nickel-and-dime type of savings.

I wrote an article detailing our methods and posted it on the Building Your Own Bank website. You can read my article here.