I’m not normally one to talk about personal topics on my blog, but a few people e-mailed me about my last post, asking how the Thoughts on Translation household lives so cheaply. Given that financial management is an important part of making it as a freelancer, I thought that this question merited an OT post.
I feel well-qualified to write this post; I’ve been called cheap, a tightwad, quasi-Amish…one of my sisters-in-law even referred to me once as having “thrift issues.” But I can tell you this much: frugality works. Here at Thoughts on Translation, we carry no debt except our mortgage and we expect to have that paid off within 3 years, at which point we’ll start saving toward some level of financial independence (a term we find more uplifting than “early retirement”). The mantra of my favorite personal finance blog, Get Rich Slowly, is “Do what works for you.” Some people will cringe at these frugality tips but will have some of their own that I’m reluctant to embrace (feel free to post those in the Comments!). Here are some of my core frugality tips, separated by category:
- Credit card debt: Out of the question. If you’re consistently accruing credit card debt, you’re living beyond your means, period.
- Forced savings: We direct-deduct a percentage of our income into a savings account every month. If you never see it, you don’t miss it.
- Transportation: We have never owned more than one car, and we have never owned a brand new car. Until 2008, we drove a 1991 Honda station wagon that we bought for $2,000 from an ad in our local supermarket. Last year we upgraded to a 10 year old Subaru station wagon. We drive as little as possible and use bikes and walking for most of our weekday transportation needs including my husband’s work commute, saving the car for major shopping trips and recreational use on the weekends.
- Utilities: We don’t own a clothes dryer (hence the “quasi-Amish” reference); most of the time we can dry the laundry outside, otherwise we use drying racks in our basement. We don’t have air conditioning. We keep our heat on 65 during the day and 60 at night. All of our electronics (microwave, DVD player, etc.) are on power strips with on/off switches so that they don’t use any electricity when they’re not operating. Using these techniques (and switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs), we’ve cut our electricity usage to under 300 kilowatt hours per month, less than a third of what the average U.S. household uses.
- Entertainment: Most of our entertainment consists of outdoor activities, on which we spend a fair bit of money (our total skiing budget is about $1,000 per year). We don’t have broadcast TV so cable isn’t an issue. We do have a DVD player but we only watch DVDs from the library or borrow from friends.
- Cell phone: I have a prepaid cell phone (it’s OK to laugh…) on which I spend about $150 a year. Maybe I’m just not much of a phone person, but I’ve never found that I need more than about 100 minutes per month because I mostly use the cell phone as my personal pay phone. Probably 90% of my cell phone usage is to check my work messages when I’m not home.
- Food: Tasty, healthy food is a big priority for us. We spend $600-$800 a month on food for 3 people. For health and environmental reasons, we buy mostly organic food. This bill includes nearly all of our meals, including my husband’s lunch for work and my daughter’s lunch for school; we eat out once or twice a month but rarely more than that. We pay about $450 a year for a share in our neighborhood-supported farming program and also grow a lot of our own food during the summer.
- Furniture and home furnishings: We’ve never purchased a brand-new piece of furniture. Every piece of furniture in our house was either purchased second hand, trash picked (you can cringe, it’s OK!) or given to us. Ditto for our home furnishings; just after we moved into our current house, we scored a full set of dishes and glasses from a neighbor’s free pile (but I promise that we washed them really well before we used them). However, used sheets and towels are one place where I draw the line; some people are willing to delve into this black belt tightwad territory, but I’m in favor of buying these things new.
- Bulk buying: When anything with a long shelf life is on sale, we stock up, and I mean really stock up. If I see a good discount on something like soap, dental floss, laundry detergent, olive oil, maple syrup, etc., I normally buy enough to last 3-6 months.
There are still some areas in which we can do better. I feel like we spend too much on long distance phone calls (using the default service from our phone line provider), but I haven’t had time to research better options or to test Skype with a wireless headset so that I’m not tied to the computer when I’m using it. I’ve thought about joining a food purchasing co-op for items like flour (of which we use a lot because we bake our own bread), sugar, coffee, cooking oil, etc., but I keep missing the order deadline for the group that is active in our neighborhood. We could probably save money by hauling our own trash and recycling to the local transfer station, but I’m willing to pay for the convenience of having it picked up at our home. I also keep meaning to look into high-yield savings accounts and CDs through reputable online banks. However, overall I feel that our frugal choices have really paid off and have allowed us to a) work toward things we really value, such as great vacations and saving for our daughter’s education and b) avoid being tied to unpleasant work situations simply because we need the money. I’d love to read other people’s frugal tips and insights too!
Hi Corinne, I don’t feel this topic is off-topic at all. I too live pretty frugally. I max out my Roth IRA contributions by having it automatically deducted from my checking account every month. I have been known to trash pick (I picked three computer printers from the neighbor’s garbage a few years ago and donated one to a former domestic abuse victim and have one as a spare in case my printer dies. I don’t remember what I did with the third one… maybe gave it to a Kent State student?). I don’t carry credit card debt and bought a used car that I paid off in a little over a year. Since I work from home I don’t drive it as much as most people do, so I bought a former rental car (i.e., high mileage car) to save money and still have a bit of luxury. I also read the Tightwad Gazette for frugal ideas. I rely heavily on the public library and order books, DVDs and CDs that interest me online and pick them up as they come in (I also bike to the library in good weather). I know there are areas I could improve on. For example, I love shopping at thrift stores, but do splurge on new clothes as well. I also go out to eat too much, but hey I’m single and can afford to be a little hedonistic.
And I spent a total of $25 on my (used) washer and dryer. The washer was free. The dryer was $25. I love the personal ads and Craig’s List.
@Jill, thanks for affirming the topic 🙂 The Roth auto-deduct is a *great* idea (now you see that I secretly wanted to collect *more* frugality tips via this post). And I think you made a great point about splurging; everyone has areas that they’re not interesting in cutting back on. For us it’s food and travel, for someone else it’s something different, but frugality lets you achieve those goals! Thanks!
People always ask me how I travel the world so much and which lottery I won to do it. I only actually need about a week’s worth of translation work per month on an average per-word price to live quite well. This can be done by
1. Earning in a prominent currency like euro, pounds, dollars etc. and living in a profoundly cheaper country (in my case, India and Argentina etc.) and I know our fellow translator blogger Sarah lives in Australia, which is also great to take advantage of currency differences.
2. Not drinking coffee or alcohol, smoking or eating meat (quite expensive in a lot of Europe) have saved me thousands upon thousands of euro my whole life. Most of these addictions would be too hard for most people to give up, but they are a daily expense that can be eliminated if you are serious about saving.
3. Being extremely selective when spending any kind of money; when I look for a place to live I do it when I arrive instead of booking online. Talking with locals and haggling slices prices down, although a more adventurous mindset is really required. I never go shopping in normal shopping districts in cities or “duty free” at airports, opting for local merchants or e-bay. Unfortunately I disagree with your organic food priority in terms of saving money if it is bought already cultivated; organic food can be much more expensive in a lot of places since non-organic food is usually cheaper to produce. Although it’s possibly unhealthier and less personal, buying vegetables etc. in bulk from supermarkets does work out cheaper. Growing it yourself on the other hand, as you were saying, is definitely a better choice for saving money (and of course environmentally and health-wise), but sadly not possible in my current situation.
4. Try to do completely free things instead of paid versions. When I wanted to improve my foreign language skills, I used to have a tandem I-teach-you-English-for-30-minutes-you-teach-me-language-X-for-30-minutes. No money exchanged hands but everyone wins. I also use Couchsurfing for free accommodation in people’s houses (a lot safer than you would think, if you only stay with people with good references), Book Crossing to get my next book to read for free, leaving a book I’ve already read for the community. Couchsurfer’s that stay at my house always eat for free if they cook for me, since I buy the ingredients (always great to get a delicious glimpse into a new culture), so that’s another of the many possibilities.
Also note that cell phones are drastically cheaper in every country I’ve ever been in compared to the states if you get pay-as-you-go. If I exclude my time in San Francisco last year, I probably only spent about €50 on my mobiles (including buying several SIM cards; mostly for sending texts, receiving calls and checking work emails). That one month in San Francisco cost more than the rest of the year put together for the same style of use since it was pre-paid.
I realize that some of these suggestions might be a bit extreme for most working professionals, but they are a few more suggestions!
“Relative” splashing out is always possible. Don’t forget my $3 massages here in India 😉
@Benny, thanks so much for your tips; when my daughter goes to college, I’m there on the road with you 🙂 I think that you’re exactly right; if you travel and go the local route rather than the packaged itinerary route, you can do it really, really cheaply. I always love hearing about your adventures; keep it up!
Timely post, Corinne! Living frugally is smart for the wallet and good for the planet. Here are a few more things one can do:
– LED lightbulbs use the least amount of electricity and are now finally available in warm white.
– Collect rain water for use in the garden, washing the car, mopping floors etc. (even better if feasible is to have a rainwater tank that provides household “bathroom” water, free!).
– In summer, I also grow most of my own food; production is often enough to can and freeze goodies (jams, ratatouille, soups, tomato sauce, fresh beans, pesto, fruit pies, and so on) to supplement our needs in fall and winter and add variety to repetitive seasonal fare.
– I’ve swapped some of my print subscriptions for their identical on-line versions > cheaper + less waste to recycle.
– Freecycle.org has groups in France now too and it is a great way to source things one might need and to dispose of those one does not.
– A great way to save is never to skimp on the important stuff – be it clothes (well made lasts, cheap falls apart quickly) or even household insurance. When lightening fell on the house a couple of years ago and fried my computer, was I happy I had opted for a level of coverage about €80 more than budgeted: the insurance replaced my €1800 laptop without a peep.
– And finally, with a little perseverance, most things that break down can be fixed rather than pitched and replaced.
Having said that, I should reassemble the iron. Just hope the cat didn’t play football with all the screws…
Hi Corinne:
I love this post!
I am with you on ALL of your points. Never had credit card debts, never owned a new car, we grow our own vegetables, we shop at Thrift stores (the kids’ clothes and toys I have found were amazing!), we save money, we don’t own a TV and the library is a great resource for much more than books, and we still travel and enjoy our life by eating out and other entertainment activities.
Few tips that have worked for us:
-we recycle bottles and cans (Kacey, who is a teacher, picks up a trash bag full of cans from his classroom every day) and we use that money for the kid’s college funds. We started when Lucia was born so almost 4 years ago and we already have more than $4,000.00!
-We trade when possible: Kacey is a beekeeper in his spare time and we trade his honey for food at a local organic, vegetarian restaurant. Here is some of our outing paid for!
-And Craigslist has become my best friend for furnishing the house we just bought (and we intend to keep it our only debt too)!
-We love traveling and airline tickets have become so expensive so we are becoming smarter with accumulating and using miles. For instance, since we live in San Diego, we have discovered that flying out of the Tijuana, MX airport (30 minutes from our house), we don’t need to use as many miles as we would to travel to Europe. So we are all going to Europe this summer for free! The most expensive “ticket” was our lap child son!
I don’t think living frugally means being cheap (I think I am a generous person), I think it just means thinking about how you spend your money and your time.
There are some things I still need to do better, like immediately putting aside some of my income for my retirement fund. I tend to think I am never going to get old…!
Thanks again for such a great post and the conversation it creates.
Marianne
Hi Corinne
Adding my voice to the comments above – I also think this is a great topic, and not OT at all! I think freelance translation is as much a lifestyle choice as a career. And it sounds like many of us translators have very similar lifestyles! That’s great. But “thrifty” is such a subjective term, don’t you think?! One translator’s trash is another’s treasure, after all 🙂 I think a great tip is to break down every cost into how many words you’ll have to translate to pay for it – a good way to weigh up the real cost of things! Most important though is realising something’s value to you, as well as its cost.
Like you Corinne, we’ve worked really hard to get to a position where we could live off one salary and bank the second. We decided a few years back that we really wanted to live within our means. This was pre-GFC, and as we’re both products of the era of easy credit, it felt like a really radical decision at the time! It has taken a while to get to this point and it’s definitely been hard work – especially when everyone else around us was spending like it was going out of fashion. But we’re really glad we set those foundations now things are looking gloomier and it’s taken a lot of pressure off (although we’re very lucky so far, Australia hasn’t been as badly hit as Europe or the US yet).
At first everyone thought we were mad when we were furnishing our new place here in Australia with all free or secondhand furniture (this was pre-crunch). I can’t count the number of times I heard, “but you can get an interest free loan for that!”. And the fact that we don’t have a car at all also makes us very odd here. Initially we thought we’d just make do without one until we’d saved up enough cash to pay for one outright, rather than get a loan (yes, we were being pretty stubborn about it :)) The public transport’s not great here but it is very affordable, so we thought we’d rent a car one weekend a month and schedule all our “car” stuff for then. But we’ve found the once a month option works fine, so we’re going to try stay with that for as long as we can. Plus, everyone said it would be impossible to live in Brisbane without owning car, so now we feel even more stubborn about it 🙂
But then we spend on things that I’m sure others would think were unnecessary. For example, we have good levels of household, health and life insurance (again, I think this is unusual for our age-group and life stage). I like my Apple computer(s), and couldn’t imagine life without my iPod (although I got excellent deals on both 🙂 ). I invest a lot of time AND money in CPD. Sometimes I buy take-out coffee, even though I have nice beans here at home… I’m not interested in being a tightwad for no good reason, and ultimately, being able to do more of the things I really want is my good reason!
Incidentally, I am aware that we’ve been fortunate generally, and are lucky to be able to make these choices in life. But we’ve worked very hard and we’ve made a lot of our own luck too, and there’s plenty others that could do the same if they wanted to.
Fabulous! Long may this thread continue! For years I’ve thought I was the only one living on a shoestring.
Simple things like switching off lights and heating when not absolutely needed can help the budget (and the environment).
A neighbour of mine rents an allotment where he grows his vegetables (we have very limited outside space where I live). Every week I give him my kitchen waste (vegetable peelings, etc) for his compost heap. In the summer he returns the favour by giving me produce from his allotment. Very satisfying form of recycling – nothing goes to landfill – and so it’s good for both the pocket and the environment.
Taking a basket when you go shopping saves a few pence each time (in the UK supermarkets are now starting to charge for carrier bags).
I may return with some more ideas!
I get the same questions whenever I go on a long climbing trip – “Where did I inherit … steal …. the money.” I’m taking my son to Australia in March for two months. The RT airline ticket was $870 – cheaper than Europe! We’ll stay in a tent the whole time ($2 per person per night) and cook our own food. I’d rather camp, eat cheaply, and climb for two months than stay in a fancy hotel and eat at restaurants for a few days.
We live in an Earthship (solar adobe home) that I built, without central heat. We heat using
1.) solar heat – our home at 9,500 feet never goes below 50º; and is often over 80º on a sunny day. The last few nights, it got so hot in the house (from the sun) that I slept with the door to the outside open because it was too hot for me.2) a wood-burning stove during blizzards
My monthly electric bill has been:
Jan 2009: $32.13
Nov. 2008: 24.90
Oct. 2008: 28.90
Last summer we traveled from June 20 until November 15, visiting Idaho, Yosemite, Oregon, and British Columbia. We Camped the entire time and I used my laptop at local libraries to submit writing assignments and work on my climbing book.
Oh – and My son I get paid to ski, because we teach skiing! So I get paid to play!
Corinne – for long distance calls cheaper, maybe check out Comcast’s VOIP? They usually offer free domestic long distance. So many phone options these days, no reason to pay for long distance, I say. I have a deal on my cell where I pay .03 to Europe (to a landline, not cell to cell). As you know, I am from Alaska, and in college days, I spent a lot of money on long distance, so love all this competition now for my communication dollars (or lack thereof). Fun post! I am going to try to do the power strip idea!
I’m with you on several of your habits (Like the prepaid cell phone! You’re not the only one. I pay $20 per quarter for all I need).
Vonage’s VOIP works nicely for long distance and international telephone and might save you some money.
I too max my Roth each year but didn’t think of doing it automatically. I’ll look into that.
What is ruining our budgeting is plane tickets to Europe x 5 in the summer. We’ve found as of 2006 that prices rose a great deal and now we find that many familiar routes have been dropped, so choices are limited.
Karen
We in the MT household do many of the same things (prepaid cell phone, no credit card debt, rarely use the AC, buy in bulk, max. Roth contribution, the style of language exchange Benny suggested, fix things that break, make things from scratch, grow some of our own food, etc.). I’m not a cheapness zealot, but I do what I can to keep my expenses down. Some of the things I do to save money 😉 include the following:
– Our household seldom eats in restaurants. We find that by sometimes buying fancier, more expensive ingredients at home (crab, lobster, phyllo dough, fiddle-head fern, fancy mushrooms, nice cuts of meat, heirloom tomatoes, snooty cheeses, etc.) we can make the kinds of meals that we would want to go out to fancy restaurants to eat. For way less.
– We eat our share of legumes. People undervalue this whole category of food. They can be really cheap (especially dried beans!) and they’re not hard to make and to make well.
– In our wealthy youth we used to be $30-bottle-of-wine fans. We still occasionally get an expensive (and good—though the two are by no means the same) bottle. But mostly we’ve switched to a Frencher, more table-winey approach. And we’re happy.
– We never buy clothes. Since we work at home, we just translate in the nude. 😉 Well, we haven’t gone that far yet, but we rarely buy clothes.
– No air travel unless you can get someone else to pay for it to attend a conference or be a guest speaker or whatever.
– If you’re going to buy something, try to make it be a deductible business expense.
– Our household has had some very old hand-me-down cars (the kind that lost any bluebook value in 1982) and some new cars, but we trick other people into buying the new ones for us (as a present for completing an advanced degree or what have you). “Tricking” other people into buying you things is a great way to save money 😉
– We don’t hire other people to do the things we can do and enjoy doing ourselves (walk the dog, raise the kids, prune the bushes, etc.) And we hire other people to do the things we hate that it makes financial sense to outsource (housecleaning, bookkeeping/tax prep, roof repair, etc.) MT earns a lot per hour, so if I can get someone to mop my floor for less than the $35 – $200/hour I earn (depending on the translation), it saves me money to pay someone else to mop and use my time translating.
Love this post — I am all about being thrifty, too! I am not quite as good at it as Corinne et.at., but I feel very comfortable where I am at.
For long-distance phone, I recommend Vonage or http://www.jajah.com — you can use your land line and aren’t tied to your computer like you would be with Skype.
I am a voracious reader, but get most of my books from the library.
I don’t shop at malls. My favorite store is Ross. Great deals.
We buy pretty much everything at Costco. The shopping trips are more expensive, but the per-item cost is incredibly low. We buy 2 gallons of milk for the price of 1 at the grocery store. Even stamps are sold UNDER face value. Cereal is half the price. Incredible.
I print using both sides of the paper. Good for the environment, too.
I drive a hybrid car.
After 3 years with no A/C in his car in Vegas (!), poor hubby finally bought a new car. Well, new to us. Used, of course.
I took my lunch to work when I was an in-house translator for years.
When I drive, I combine business miles with a non-business stop on the way and get the tax deduction (minus a few miles).
Amen on credit card debt. Don’t have it/like it either. I maxed out my 401 K and Roth IRA contributions for more than 5 years, but after my switch to freelance wonderland a few months ago, I’ve had to scale that back a bit.
Thrifty freelancers unite! It feels good to be thrifty. 🙂 I have really enjoyed reading everyone else’s comments. Thanks @MT for the priceless image of you guys translating in the nude, hahaha. You are right, though — after I left corporate America, I spend less on clothes, even though I wasn’t spending that much anyway — a $200 dress at Ross for $7. I love the looks I get when I tell people my Jones New York outfit was cheaper than their lunch.
Hi Corinne –
Great post! And as your friend in Boulder, I have really admired your frugality and have picked up many, MANY great tips on living a more frugal lifestyle from you. The question I’ve still got is this…how do you balance spending time and energy with doing some of these things yourself or in a more frugal way with being able to work extra hours and earn more cash each month?
There’s a whole school of thought (4-Hour Workweek is a good example) that says you should outsource everything that you can to people to do whose hourly rate is cheaper than yours. For example, if you pay someone to do your bookkeeping or hang up your laundry, and they charge you $15/hour, can’t you then use the hours that you’re not doing those things to earn more income? I don’t know where the balance is.
I’m just wondering where you draw the line and say “I’m not willing to do that to save money because it would just take too much time”?
cheers,
Beth
What a wonderful post – a woman after my own heart:-)
We’re the same with food – I believe it saves a lot of medical expenses in the long run. We buy eggs, dairy, meat, produce and grains directly from farmers whenever we can and the price of gas doesn’t make it more expensive than walking down to the local natural foods grocery store. Some of our farmers come to town on a more or less regular basis and we try to arrange convenient pickups. I would bet we spend less time shopping for food than those who run to the grocery store every time they need something, and we develop great relationships as well as save a lot of money on the food we really want.
We have also chosen to live in the inner city where we can go almost everywhere by bus or walk. Where we are, the housing is a lot cheaper, too, because its not the “middle-class” thing to do – living downtown.
One thing that we do to save money is to use Vonage – no extra charge for long distance in the US, Canada and to some of Western Europe. If we have to call outside of the “free” countries, we compare the rates with those of a service like Skype or Yahoo. When staying at the film school in Pune, India, which had campus-wide wireless internet, we used Yahoo Messenger on a laptop with a headset to call back home to the US, and it cost us only 1 cent per minute. It’s more expensive from the US to India, but worth looking at.
If you are in a situation where you need to send SMS messages to someone’s cell phone abroad, using a service like Skype is much less expensive than sending directly from your cell phone. For some reason, it seems to be more expensive if you are sending within the US, however.
We don’t have a dryer, either – a constant source of consternation to certain relatives, but we don’t care. And we heat only part of the house in winter. The dining room, kitchen and a small sitting alcove are the only rooms we keep really warm. The rest is pretty cold, but warm clothes and heavy blankets are just a lot cheaper than natural gas right now.
Dawn
Thanks to everyone for your great comments on this topic; maybe someone could start a whole separate blog on freelance frugality since it seems like so many of us are practicing it!
@Beth, that’s a really good question about outsourcing. I wrote a whole post about outsourcing a while ago, and people submitted some great suggestions about that too. I have to admit that I’m a rather feeble outsourcer (taxes, oil changes, can’t think of much else!) so probably not the best person to hold forth on this, but…
My issue with outsourcing (and disclaimer, this may sound awful!) is that I really don’t want to free up my time so that I can work more. In a neighborhood with an ample population of high school and college students, I’m sure that I could hire someone to do the laundry or go grocery shopping or mulch the gardens for a lot less than I make per hour, but those activities are things that I enjoy doing to take my mind and body off working.
In addition (and again, this is just me), I can’t get past the idea with certain tasks (such as housecleaning) that it’s just not the kind of relationship that I want to have with another person. I really think I would be uncomfortable watching someone else clean the bathroom while I ate lunch or talked on the phone or even worked; and I feel the same way about lawn care and other similar jobs. If I wanted to free up time in order to work more, I think I would probably look for a gal/guy Friday type of person who I could hire for 10ish hours a week to do whatever I really needed right then; admin work for the business, errands, package books to ship out, pick up kid at school, etc. but right now I actually enjoy doing that stuff myself.
Corinne, I LOVE this post. We are soul mates in terms of frugality. A few differences: we have a dryer (in MA it’s cold a lot,), but no dishwasher. We use cloth diapers for the babies, which saves tons of $$$ (an investment of about $200 per child for their entire “diaper life.”) We don’t have a landline but we do have cellphones, with no data. Still, after your recent post I think we can save more by using Skype for home and tracfone for cells (I work in an office and could stand to talk less). We drive more than you do, but ditto with used quality cars (we never owned more than one either).
I especially appreciate you sharing the food costs. I have been wondering about our 500-600/month bill on groceries, which includes CSA for veggies and grass-fed meat. Now I see we are doing okay (we are 2 adults and 2 small children, under 5) and could even invest more in organic food. I believe quality food is important and worth the extra money, just like you.
Thanks for the excellent posts, as always.
Thanks Elena! It definitely sounds like we are frugal soulmates! And I even used to live in Massachusetts for about 8 years; we could have gotten together and shared frugality tips. I did cloth diapers with my daughter but through a diaper service, so you have me beat there. Honestly I think that spending $500-$600 per month on food for 4 people is not bad at all. We spend about $800 per month but that’s essentially 3 meals a day for all 3 of us because my husband takes lunch to work, my daughter takes lunch to school and I eat lunch at home. Unfortunately our neighborhood CSA went out of business and this year we didn’t grow as much fresh stuff as usual because we were away for 2 months. But all in all we are doing OK! Let me know how you do with TracFone and keep up the freelance frugality 🙂
Reblogged this on jeremyrmro.
How can you make money online and make a comfortable living?
I am currently working as a translator for the gov of an overseas country.
I am a US citizen, and would like to know how to get started on becoming a freelance translator. Do I have to be based in the US?
I found your blog very interesting and helpful, I’d greatly appreciate any tips on how to start my own freelance translating business.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Warmest wishes,
Isa
Your way of living sounds a lot like ours (except we have the heating at 65.3, because it’s a nicer number on the Celcius scale ;)). Your remark on the Amish style made me laugh – over here in Europe, not having a laundry dryer is not a strange thing at all.
Some more frugality tips:
* check out unbranded food – just try if it tastes nice, and if it does, you can ditch the expensive brands.
At the input side:
* Much depending on where you live (climate and electricity rates): install solar panels on your roof.
* If you’ve got a long way to go to retirement/financial indepence (;)) and got money to put away without needing it, index stocks are a good investment. Read any of the books “What Wall Street Doesn’t Want You To Know” by Larry Swedroe, “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” by Burton Malkiel, or “Stocks for the Long Run” by Jeremy Siegel. Then, either make your own planning if you consider yourselves financially literate people, or ask for help from a trusted (i.e. really independent!) financial adviser.
Thanks Edith! Great tip about the investing strategies; I’m 44 so (knock on wood) have several decades until retirement, so I’ll check those out!
44 … Really, you should hurry up, then 🙂 Calculations on expected investment results in these books will probably shock you, and you would have wished you had started with it when you were 25 … We even have index investments for our kids, who are 1 and 4 😉