Unfortunately, the closest one to us is 7 hours away… Not a sane choice for everyday! It sounds great however.
I also researched Amish/Mennonite stores near me. The closest of those is only 4.25 hours away!
I think, if I do either, it had better be in conjuction with visits to family in the MidWest, it just isn’t sane otherwise.
I had friends who used to get together and buy a quarter cow, or half a lamb, receive it packed frozen. Not sure if that is the sort of thing you’re thinking of.
Anything that’s practical. I had a neighbor who offered to buy a pig with us, but unfortunately they moved before we got the chance.
Thanks! I hadn’t remembered that.
We know people who’ve started neighbourhood coop.
And there is a house down the street that buys organic meat, eggs and veggies from a few farms and resells in the week.
Once there was an orange guy
A few times a year there are mango cars
(We live very very far from mangos or oranges)
G bought something from a different FB marketplace garage guy once. (Something food, we buy non food more often from garage guys).
I used to have a coworker buy me sea moss from her sea moss guy (I think a patient at another clinic?)
And more likely to be reproduceable, we source our coffee at the office of a national maybe international website, they have a small showroom and someone from the back shows up when you ring the bell.
We also have a chicken IDK what in the middle of town (maybe restaurant supplier) where you can get a 5kg box of your preferred chicken frozen for cheap (@plainjane @okits @star if you want to visit in the winter or have the website for when visiting family let me know. I’d be very happy splitting a box since I don’t have a chest freezer)
I look forward to seeing “find a coworker with an Irish moss guy” in the book
Oh! My brother used to get sorrel from his MIL’s housekeeper. Madeup and dry depending. I think she did ginger beer and black cake too
Ooh yeah this is a good point- we found out we could buy direct from the roasting warehouse in as little as 5lb bags for a substantial discount. Still crazy expensive since it was a local roaster and all, but for what it was the price was great. Did that for ages, amazingly fresh coffee (like, still hot when we picked it up and we had to age the CO2 out a bit before use). Same sorta deal, weird side door and a bell and a “business account” that was just our names at the warehouse.
This is sorta tangential to a food market but depending on your geography and time of year can offset some expenses on produce: https://fallingfruit.org/
We are in a position right now where saving more money doesn’t feel like it will make a big impact for us and our future. Things are automated and boring and we do not have a compelling reason to optimize further. Some of that is intentional lifestyle inflation (#richlife) and some of it is plain ole lifestyle inflation and forgetting how to flex our frugality muscles.
Right now saving an extra $100 here or there doesn’t feel like it will change our lives at all when we see such swings in our net worth from month to month because of the market (sometimes the value of a nice car!).
Basically I feel like who’s line is it anyways? The rules are made up and the points don’t matter. My husband and I often lately have said “what even is money anyways?” in a joking way because it all feels fake.
I want to get to a point of intentional lavish spending and ruthless frugality in the categories we don’t care about.
Something I was thinking could help mindset wise: If we save an extra $100, $1,000, or $10,000 how much money does that buy us per year forever? Using the 4% rule would this logic stand up:
If I save $100 now that buys me $4 every year forever. If I save $10,000 now that buys me $400 every year forever?
Is this the wrong way to look at the 4% rule? Do you have any ideas of how to change this mindset? I feel like if I had a tangible worth of saving compared to spending it might help save more money. Do I want this $6000 couch or do I want $240 every year forever? Then the $4, $40, or $400 forever amounts start to add up and get us to retirement faster. $240 every year forever could be a night in a fancy hotel every year, etc.
Have you looked at “beyond rule 4”? (Only works if you use YNAB I think). In a lot of ways I’m in the same position and while I really like your “$100 = $4/year forever” calculation, the incredible thing about frugality is that you have to save 25x times whatever your baseline expresses are. So maybe pairing that with “spending $100 regularly means I have to save $2500 to cover this cost in the future” would be motivating?
Idk, it’s not like I’ve actually managed to cut my costs particularly so this is very speculative.
I’m not sure that fits in quote the same way in my head! That could totally work for you though.
Because I’m not really considering the cost of items, telling myself they will cost 25x more in the future doesn’t feel authentic or motivating. I don’t really feel connected to our FI goal number so there is not the same context.
Let’s say my FI goal is $100k/year of spending or $2.5m. Saying “this $100 purchase needs $2500 to pay for it” $2500 is hard to quantify and I can’t think of numbers like 2500 or 100k in the same way as $4 or $400.
Plus I’m trying to make smaller improvements so knowing I can string together a few thousand dollars per year and buy myself something of significance feels different.
Money is all fake right now so more fake numbers doesn’t seem to help. But I’ll think about it!!
I feel like I need not number things to give myself the trade off I’m giving up by spending. “If I spend $1000 now on something I don’t value I’m giving up $40 every year of something that I really value” then I can have 10 decisions that add to the bigger “goal”.
Idk, I’m probably only half coherent right now lol. I’ll look up that rule though!
for a while I did number of days I’d bought my future self. So if my annual spend is $55k, I need $150 per day. Under the 4% rule, that means every $3750 I put into investments bought me a day. (numbers rounded for ease of concept)
When we were putting aside 2k a month, then each regular $40 brunch out pushed our FIRE date out by 2 weeks. It made it clearer to us when we wanted to take on recurring spend, vs. less frequent splurges, because they had a different impact on what we needed to cover in the future.
Do I want to work another 2 weeks so I can have this type of brunch with a friend once I retire (yes, that’s cheap for supporting a regular joyful point in my life), vs. do I want to work another 2 weeks because I am too lazy to make toast or too unorganized to bring a couple of apples with us (no, that is a waste of my life).
If I ever start to lose my frugal mindset, I look at an inflation calculator to see how purchasing power erodes over time. That gives me the motivation to save and invest more.
Also going to estate sales, whether we purchase anything or not. They really drive home the point that you can’t take it with you. I suppose that can go either way, but I see it as reinforcement for not buying stuff, since someone has to deal with it once you pass on.
Link to the inflation calculator I tend to use:
We’ve also gotten to the stage where our savings are more or less automated, and it’s hard to be motivated by the numbers anymore. My husband and I both also sort of like our work, so we don’t even have a target retirement date in mind, or an amount.
Plus, some things really are easier, and perhaps more frugal in the long run, if I spend a bit of money. Kitchen items, for example. The past few years, I’ve gotten a stand mixer (gifted), food processor, instapot, Dutch oven, cast iron pan, silicone tongs, etc. These tools have helped me cook healthy meals at home and maybe avoided getting taking-out some. But I can’t know what items will be really useful until I start using them. The garlic press went to donations after a while, the terrible leaky honey dispenser into the trash. Right now, I have a couple of wide-mouthed mason jars sitting in my cart. This trial and error process costs some money.
These days, I’m more motivated by thinking about waste, and the amount of resources we’re taking up. Everything is going to end up in a landfill in the end, how much do I want to contribute to that?
I have the $5000 couch, bought when my kid was born. It’s gotten a bit ratty over the years. I wish I’d gotten the $300 IKEA couch instead, so that it wouldn’t have been as stressful every time my kid threw up on it. The couch I have is basically still fine, though, I have no plans to replace it.
I love my beater bike because it’s not a target for theft in NYC. And our 2010 Mazda3, because it’s totally fine if it gets dinged and scratched on city streets.
We continue to save 40-50% after our lifestyle inflation the past few years. Some of my IRL friends are so stressed out by their budgets; they NEED to save $100 here and there to be able to pay all their bills each month. I’m so glad I don’t have to do that. My MIL needed a new car this year, and we were able to write the check for it, without hardship. This kind of freedom and ease is worth so much more than more stuff.
I am also part minimalist and get a lot of my things used and my spending is not really concentrated on physical things in my home. The environmental impact is typically a large portion of my purchases (how long will I use it, etc).
I like the idea of how many days of freedom the purchase gives!
Our lifestyle inflation has been mostly in travel/services/eating out/fancy groceries/gifting areas. We have outsourced alot of things in our home instead of doing it ourselves, etc. When I drive to work I take the toll road if there is bad traffic which is now up to $14.20 per day instead of taking public transit or sitting in traffic. Lots of examples like this - some that are really inline with our values and we want to support the services and some that are not. It is many things that just add up. We are currently sitting at a savings rate of 51% when in the past it has been 56-57%.
This is the sentiment that I am feeling strongly. For things that add value and enhance my life I want to spend more not cut back. For things that don’t add value I want to have a better phrasing in my head to push for the “harder” option.
I also still have the feeling of failure from my MMM days that we aren’t saving 60%+ of our income. But I don’t know if that is a target that we really want in our lives right now. Maybe 50% or 45% makes more sense.
I think there are lots of things at play, but once we realized we’d saved enough to retire early without sweating the small stuff it became easier to loosen the purse strings on some things. Environmentalism is now the primary driver for a lot of our choices over straight cost. I was early in my career during the 2008 recession, so it also probably drives some things for me too.
One thing that works well for me is to gamify some of my splurging - travel hacking, finding an expense I can trim to afford something else, etc. But at this point, the market drives our progress more than our savings rate. Obviously if we said f it and started living above our means, that would be different than a few % of savings rate.
It’s like you said this straight out of my head!!
I would rather spend $7-9/lb for our beef that we got from the organic farm/butcher. Spend more for the better lower environmental impact item. Stuff like this.
I like the way @lhamo phrases things: it is fun and important to splurge on spending in our local community to make sure things we value stay longer. Like the backyard yoga my neighbor does, I don’t want the discounted rate, I want to pay double to make sure they keep doing it!
Basically there are very few areas I want to spend less on right now 
but that feels irresponsible especially when I don’t have a good alternative reason not to spend and splurge. Which is what I was looking for with my original post.
Could it be that you’ve already really dialed in to spend 99% on the things you love/value?
Is future flexibility a good driver for you? I dropped to half-time this year and we didn’t blink - we just have a lower savings rate but we didn’t have to cut back on anything. The only way that was possible was because our expenses were lowish before cutting back.
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Also: what noodle said. I’ve heard it called “the boring middle” before and it’s true. You’ve optimized a lot and dialed things in. Sometimes you just get to sit back and let it ride.
money and large numbers are both extremely fake! I am in a somewhat similar position. I’ve automated just about everything, including my savings, so it’s all very boring and it would take a lot to rock the boat. Depending on how long I want to work, I’m probably some version of COAST FIRE (I don’t want to work that much so I’m keeping up with the automated retirement savings)
I feel like I’m probably repeating what everyone else has already said, but +1 to how much more working does this expense represent, etc.
I’ve never really done the ‘check YNAB before making a purchase’, but one of the ways I keep track of how sustainable my lifestyle and spending is is to reconcile my budget every few weeks (still using old desktop ynab lol buying monthly web ynab is not ~*~worth the splurge~*~ to me). If I want to save X for retirement and Y for the roof replacement, then I have Z to spread out amongst everything else and I need to sink a, b, and c so I can pay for the property tax at the end of the year etc etc etc. That gives me a more realistic view of how much spare money I have floating around.
One thing I think about a bit is that its all very well to have my average annual spending, but buying a car or replacing a hot water heater is a once-a-decade expense (if that), and thats something that’s harder (for me) to build into an annual view of spending, so I’m trying to build a bit more flex into my understanding of my monthly and annual expenses. Its probably reasonable to assume it will mostly come out in the wash, but it is something I think about wrt my ‘FIRE number’ and savings rate.
there is also just not a lot for me to optimize at this point. My discretionary expenses are very low, my grocery and other basic spending etc is in a place that is about as low as i’m comfortable with and that sustains me in a way I can sustain and find enjoyable. etc etc
This maybe isn’t super effective from a ‘reduce spending’ perspective, and is maybe just re-phrasing you initial question, but: if I was going to live at this lifestyle forever, is this workable or do I need to do something else? I need to budget for nice-ish veggies every week but I don’t need to buy that much meat because I don’t care/need that much meat. I budget for the fancy yougurt to go on my fancy homemade granola because that’s an easy morning meal that I will actually eat instead of only having coffee in the morning.
I’ve also switched my focus from long term plans (eg retirement, absurdly big numbers) to more near and mid-term needs. My car was 12 years old so I was saving up for a new one/to go electric, which I did last year. Eventually, you will need a large <something>, what is it and where will the money come from and will it impact your other plans/savings/etc.
My next large <something> is the roof needs to be replaced within the next few years and I want to make some energy efficiency improvements to the house. One of my goals is to not cut back on retirement savings for that. I’m also looking at things from an environmental/climate change perspective. There will probably never be a monetary payback period on buying new windows in energy savings because I use so little energy, but saving up for windows that don’t leak will cut the absolute amount of energy I use going forward (lol texas energy grid fml) and make the house more comfortable. So from my values, it’s worth it to me to be a bit more strict with my other spending so I can do fancier/nicer/more efficient stuff like that.
Another thing is that I L O V E not worrying about money, so in a form of ULTIMATE IRONY, I worry about money a Little Bit so I never have to worry A Lot. As an example, a friend needed a small loan this month and my home/car insurance is due and premiums have SKYROCKETED. But since I say reasonably frugal, it’s all NBD. Like, yes, it’s all a shitton of money, but in the big picture, it’s fine. If I have to do this every month (or every year), I need to re-assess things, but. It makes me feel good to be able to help out a friend like that and barely notice despite the insurance fuckery.
I also think about the weird space I’m in where I really don’t worry about money in a day-to-day sense, or even in a moderate-to-large one-off expense sense, but really big moves like replacing the roof with a recycleable metal one w/ extra insulation or jointly buying a vacation condo in the mountains with some friends to escape the insane summers or quitting work arent quite within reach, and do I want those things? More than whatever other shiny thing I’m thinking about? If money were no object, what would I want, and are there things I’m willing to forego to have those?
I am also trying to look at things through the lens of ‘I’m not a grad student anymore’ so what does it make sense to invest in so that the next few decades of my life are enjoyable. So that’s yes to the absurdly fancy yogurt which means I eat a reasonably healthy breakfast most days and the new climbing gym and stuff to keep the body working the way I want it to. But I’m also wfh and don’t care about clothing that much and already own SO MUCH CLOTHING, so I’ll keep buying clothing 2nd hand when I need something because it’s cheaper and theoretically more eco-friendly, and save my splurging for fabric for sewing because that’s a hobby that brings joy to my life.
I’m also very committed to a minimum of 50% savings rate. Is there a minimum savings rate or other minimum metric that works for you? My other minimum is also maxing out my tax advantaged accounts. I figure if nothing else, that puts me miles ahead of most people, so even if I have to work longer than I particularly want, I will probably have my actual retirement covered ¯\(ツ)/¯
Since I’ve become a parent, one of my motivations is what kind of spending and values I want to model for my kids. Sometimes there’s some tension between what I would enjoy and can budget for vs. what baseline I want them to mentally have. We splurged on a really nice set of hotel rooms this summer for a family wedding and it was totally worth it because (1) we treated my parents and (2) they were the only connected rooms in the hotel and that made travel with a toddler and 2 month old that much more doable. But I don’t want fancy rooms in fancy hotels to be their baseline, and thus forcing them into a hamster wheel of spending and working, ya know?
Something that cost a dollar when DH and I got married costs $3.75 now. If you go back to 2018, before the pandemic and inflation, it was $3.05.
We got married in double-digit inflationary times. I got used to the idea that inflation would take a piece of any dollars we had. So, when the inflation happened suddenly in 2020, it didn’t alarm me very much, because my mind-set was already there.
So, I agree with you! Depending on < 5% inflation annually isn’t realistic, to me. And, I’m not sure it’s ever happened before as long as it had before 2020? Don’t know.
I remember wanting to get our first mortgage loan terms down on paper ASAP because the interest rate would likely go up before the process ended.
After that, figuring inflation as “normal” wasn’t a stretch.