Cost of Living

So I’ve been thinking a lot about budgets recently.

The Iron Chef Mom’s Challenge really made me ponder the definition of frugality, because while I obviously respect these ladies and admire their ability to stick to a budget, I was surprised at the shock and awe occasioned by other readers at the ability of one of the challengers to stick to a grocery budget of $50 a week.

Of course, these ladies have more kids than I do. But then, we have people over for dinner and bring meals to families who need them, so it probably all evens out.

Also, they are accounting for more than just groceries: they’re including many household goods (tp, laundry detergent, personal care, etc.) because most of these things get bought along with the groceries. So I ran the numbers (which we have at our fingertips because we’ve been tracking our receipts with vicious accuracy for the past 2+ years) and found that our recalibrated totals, including all these household items, still beat out the experts’.

It’s delightful to feel really on top of one’s game. But after pondering what makes our food budget work, and why it seems so effortless to spend so much less on groceries than the average family, I decided that I have the personality factor in my favour. Quite simply, it’s easy for me to budget because I like bargains and I enjoy the things that bring our food costs down.

Therefore, it’s a personal fulfillment issue as well as a budgeting issue, and the quality of life is improved, not dragged down. If I didn’t enjoy budgeting and baking, then pinching pennies would merely be a drudge and a toil and I should probably resent the budget for its shackles and constraints.

The factor that enables me to keep our food costs down is the matter of convenience food. I really don’t rely on convenience food all that much, so in essence I am not paying someone else to do the work for me. I am not paying Betty Crocker to pre-mix my cookies for me, or Uncle Ben to strip down the rice to quick-cooking (and, incidentally, less nutritious) levels, or the instant mashed potato people to peel my potatoes for me, or Perdue to skin and bone my chickens for me. With a minimum of effort and time I complete these tasks myself, and thus save myself a lot of money in the process.

The fact of the matter is that I enjoy baking. I like to mix up recipes, and the two or three minutes that it takes to measure the dry ingredients is more than worth the dollar or two I save by not having someone else do it for me. If I hated the feel of flour on my fingertips, or detested touching a raw potato, then I might consider it worthwhile to hire someone else to do it for me. But that’s not my personality.

I could save even more money on our food budget by not buying, oh, cheese or mushrooms, or cutting way back on our butter consumption. But I like those things more than the money I would save, so I continue to work them into the budget.

There are obvious contrasts to this in my own life, which clearly illustrate the cost v. quality-of-life continuum: diapers and laundry. I could save a lot of money using cloth diapers, but I really detest the idea of washing them, so I spend a lot of money not to have to deal with that. Washing out diapers is not something I enjoy, it is not something that improves my quality of life, and it is not something I want to devote my time to. Hanging up laundry to dry would save a tremendous amount of money on the electricity bill, but it is not something I enjoy nor something I really want to budget time for. Therefore I continue to use my dryer even though it costs more money.

So budgets aren’t really about just scraping by on the bare minimum. They’re about seeking balance in a well-rounded life. Therefore I concluded that comparing budgets is so much more than contrasting the bottom line in dollar signs. Whatever your budget is, for whatever category, if you can afford it and it makes you happy, then embrace it and enjoy!