City Kitchen Chronicles: Three Frugal Rules I Break (and Three I Swear By)

City Kitchen Chronicles is a bi-weekly column about living frugally in Manhattan. It's penned by the lovely Jaime.

A big part of my journey into living on the cheap is figuring out my boundaries. Everyone has to do this – determine what can be cut ($10 cocktails) and what can’t ($90 haircuts?). Could you do like this guy and live on $30 for 30 days? Well, sure, if you really like eggs, bread, and potatoes and don’t care so much for greens. (And maybe if you have a really great multivitamin.) It’s cheap, but not healthy or very good. Still, it’s good to see what’s out there, what other, crazier people are doing. (Hearing about other NYCers living without air conditioning was what inspired me to go for my unplugged, uncooled summer, and a month in, I and my spray bottle are going strong!)

The internet is full of these sorts of ideas. You can hardly sneeze in the frugal blogosphere without running into a list of ten or 25 or 101 tips/pointers/VITAL RULES for living on the cheap. I love these lists – there’s always something I haven’t thought of or heard before – but I also consistently run into a few Rules of Frugal Living that I consistently, willfully don’t follow. I am such a rebel. Check it out:

RULES I, BIG CRAZY REBEL, DO NOT FOLLOW:

1) Budget budget budget! Live and die by your budget! You know what? I tried going on a rigorous budget. More than once. I tracked every penny I spent, and in about three days I wanted to tear my hair out. That sort of precise monitoring drives me crazy, makes me desperate to break the rigid rules I've set. But I can’t just spend money willy nilly – that’s what got me into this mess in the first place. (Well, that and the awful dollar-Euro exchange rate.) So what do I do? I guess I still budget, but very roughly. I set an amount for groceries each week, and spend about that, give or take a few bucks. The important thing about this is that I’m not allocating every penny into this (or to bills or rent or whatever). I always leave a cushion so that, say, if I want a frozen yogurt or an occasional cup of coffee, I just do it – no checking with my budget, no counting pennies. I leave room for these small impulse purchases that normal people make, and when I run out of cash, I run out. And then I feel normal, and sane, and all is well.

2) Put your stimulus check/bonus/birthday money towards paying off your debt or building savings! I go eleven months of the year being rigorously frugal. I foodshop the bare minimums, I almost never eat out, I rarely buy new clothes, and every month, on schedule, I pay the same amount towards my debt – there just isn't room for big indulgences in my budget, and I accept that. So when the government wants to send me $600, or I work a freelance job that actually pays cash money, sure, some of that goes towards debt. But some of it also goes towards new jeans, or movie tickets, or a fun dinner out with friends. Constant tightwad living creates tension that can just build and build. This might be my particular psychology, but planned splurges make the rest of my life totally manageable. (And reasonable, because otherwise I would never have money for new clothes without not eating for a month.) When my hand-me-down iPod died last year, I lived without it for months, doing quite well for a while. But I got to really miss the music and listening to NPR on the subway, so when I got a freelance producing gig this spring, some money went to my credit cards, and some went my lovely new silver iPod. Could I have put it all to my debt, and paid things off a month earlier? Sure. Is that extra month worth the countless hours walking around the city with my own personal soundtrack? I know my answer.

3) Quit the gym! This seems like a small item, but I've seen it pop up on many lists. The gym is expensive, they say. The outdoors is free! Then they cite a statistic about how most people use their gym membership, like, twice a month, which works out to about $40/hour, which is ludicrous. So yes, those twice-a-month people shouldn't waste their money on gym memberships. But I know that my gym membership is a big part of what gets me exercising. I love the facilities and the myriad options the gym provides. I don't run – I lift weights and use machines and take advantage of lots of fancy equipment. Not only do I not have the money for even a solid set of freeweights, let alone the desire to lug 50 lbs of iron home from a store, but I don't have space for any of this stuff in my apartment. The gym keeps me healthy, keeps me strong, and since I go a few times a week, is, for me, a vital investment.

RULES I FOLLOW LIKE A LITTLE LAMB:

1) Cook your own food! I can't stress enough how crucial this is to me not being a big, broke, debt-ridden mess. If I'm really sneaky, I can buy a decent wrap at a place near work for $5. Or I can bring my own food from home – a sandwich, left-over stir fry, eggs, veggies, hummus, whatever – for usually under $1. Dinner? If I eat out, at least $10. Made at home? More like $2. This adds up so quickly. For a few extra minutes in the morning, I spend a fraction of what bought, prepared food would cost, and since I'm controlling the ingredients and avoiding processed foods, it's a ton healthier, too.

2) Ditch the cable/internet/air conditioning! I am lucky to live in an apartment building with several unprotected wireless networks. (Slightly unethical? Perhaps. But totally frugal.) When I moved into my own apartment, I couldn't imagine how I would live without cable, having previously been an unrepentant DVR junkie. Ten months later, I don't even think about it. Heck, I don't even watch regular, uncable TV. I get some shows online, and have TV nights to watch “The Tudors” at my plugged-in friends' apartments, but that $60 a month is totally worth the slight inconvenience. And a month into the summer, my AC-less lifestyle is going strong! I never thought I could manage without these expensive "necessities," but I read about how other people did, and got inspired and tried it myself, and am so glad. Thank you, internet! (And the unprotected wireless router you came from.)

3) Pay yourself first! You see this a lot around the frugal blogosphere, and at first it's hard to parse. Pay myself first? You mean buy myself that new dress right away? Sadly, for me and Urban Outfitters, no. It makes more linguistic sense when you're talking about saving, but it means that the first place my paycheck goes is to your debt. On payday I take a few minutes with my online bill pay and pay my credit cards, electric bill, and phone bill. (I'm not up to living cell phoneless just yet.) It's a sad-looking instant depletion of several hundred dollars on just the day the money came in, but once it's paid I'm sure not to run out of money for the vital stuff. Can I live off of pantry staples for a week? Yes. Can I miss a credit card payment? No. This makes sure that even my shoddy budgeting doesn't get in the way.

Everyone figures out their own way to save money and cut spending. For some people, the gym is a waste and an expensive haircut is a stupid extravagance. For me, I know where I can cut down to bare minimums and what spending keeps me sane (and feeling pretty, dammit). And I work out my (rough, cushioned) budget to make room for what I need to do to make this lifestyle sustainable. As long as my friends stay subscribed to Showtime, I’m golden.

Readers, how about you? What rules do you break/follow religiously?

(All photos courtesy of Amazon.)