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None, but I did order a new iPad because my old iPad was not working after my husband cleaned the surface. But today it does, so I will return the new Ipad, don’t like to buy and not using it. I’m happy with my old iPad.
There really isn't any new steps I'm taking; just the opposite there's many steps I'm not taking because the restaurants, clubs, casinos, theaters, VEGAS and such are not open. Otherwise life is more restrictive but no new steps that needs to be done that wasn't already practices to some degree.
I'm driving less due to lessened work requirements, so less money spent on gas.
I'm eating out less and meal prepping more, so less money spent on food. I will say that I'm not spending more than $100 a week on food, which is down from between $150-$200 a week on food.
The stimulus bill essentially makes me not have to pay anything on student loans for six months and still have that period count as if I made payments (I could opt to make payments, but choose not to), which saves another $350 a month or so.
I've spent more on food, because I used to buy everything when it was on sale. Now I buy what I can and damn the price. I'm driving a bit less, but I didn't drive much before.
I just did a few small stupid things. Specifically, a moratorium on any sports collectibles or many other discretionary purchases, with the exception of some movie rentals on iTunes and some video games to pass the time (they were all on sale, fortunately, not new games). I also cut my Verizon plan from unlimited to 8 GB of data, because we're always home, and anyway 8 GB was fine until last summer, when I spent so much time traveling to the new house that didn't yet have Internet that I was eating into my data cap. We had on previous occasions come close to the cap because the last house had spotty WiFi, so you'd be in a bedroom and suddenly you'd be in and out of the WiFi, without actually realizing it, so you'd think... how did all of this data get used when I was mostly home?! I work from home, it didn't make sense to me. But then I noticed it happening on a few occasions. The new house has light commercial level WiFi, a very expensive system the builder installed that has Access Points on both floors, it's robust enough for a mid-sized office so put into a residential setting it's simply amazing. There was no more need for unlimited data, saves me about $30/month.
I looked for other areas to cut, but most of them were done for me like Geico cutting rates by 15% for people renewing, which I'll do soon, and my AMC $20/month subscription put on hold, so that saved money for movie tickets, and then the gym membership (I only pay $6/month, I got a lifetime plan 15+ years ago, but I have a home gym so I really never use the gym except if I'm out of town, but it's too cheap to cancel because you'd never get that deal back - if I ever fell on hard times, I'd appreciate having a $6/month membership to 24 Hour Fitness! lol). I think cutting back on most "luxury" or unnecessary purchases has saved the most money, though, even though somehow it feels better to cut down on "fixed costs," sometimes they're just not that high to begin with or the ones that are high (mortgage) can't really be addressed at this time.
Umm, I am So embarrassed by the fact that, I guess, I may have panicked a little bit. It could be that seeing empty shelves, lots of empty shelves brought out the 'lizard' part of my brain and pushed frugality out completely.
I bought Every little thing we could possibly ever need for.....well, a very. very long time. Our freezer is stuffed, the pantry has over-flowed into the linen closet. We have enough Bales of tp I think we need to include some in our wills.
We will (probably) use up all of this stuff....eventually.... but I completely ignored cost, hardly flinched at all seeing $30 for a package of tp..nope just joy at seeing.... A Package Of TP!!!!!! We are accustomed to seeing a few empty shelves and common items out-of-stock in the low tourist times of year but this is way different.
At first they kept reassuring us that the supply chain was unbroken, even posted pictures of the big barges coming in to port but every time we risked Certain Death by going to Costco and the other stores- never any tp, no cans of corn, no potatoes, no sweet potatoes, no regular coffee, no rubbing alcohol, etc etc and each time fewer and fewer things.
The mad dashes from store to store paying Insane prices at Safeway, etc. so exhausting. Maybe it has to do with feeling a bit trapped on an island because.....we are trapped on an island! I admit that even though I must turn in my Frugal Forever Badge I do feel better knowing that we have lots of...most everything.
Wait, what is that about Pork??? Meats??? Proteins becoming short supplied???
Yeah, I swear nobody pays any attention to common sense. I wish someone would write a paper on this. On one hand, you have a group of people (usually liberals) who bemoan the right for anti-science propaganda and a scorn for "elitists" and intelligent science. I agree with them -- to an extent. But on the other hand, you have too much junk science that circulates around, bad assumptions, and flat out idiocy that proves "the elites" actually have no clue what they're talking about much of the time. The average person is left in a very tough spot -- do you trust the experts or is there something else you can do? For me, I filter all information through what I call "the BS meter." It's really very simple, if your "science" doesn't make logical sense, I will ignore it completely. If your science says you need to drink 8 glasses of water a day, as an example, and this went around when I was a kid, it was completely obvious to me even when I was 9 years old that it makes no sense. People are different sizes, they are in different environments, some work outside all day, some sit at a desk. Some people exercise heavily, others don't. It fails the BS test. NO amount of research, studies, or data would ever convince me of something that is obviously nonsense. That one being the prime example. Lo and behold, years later, "Drink when you're thirsty, scientists proclaim," because -- wow this is crazy -- humans have a BUILT IN thing that tells you when you need to drink water and it has evolved over thousands of years.
This claim was another one that failed the BS test -- "don't worry about the food supply, there's plenty of food!" My brain immediately went to, "Well... but if the virus is so contagious, and if we're all worried about getting it... what would happen if people in the food supply chain got the virus and that temporarily closed some sources of supply?" It's obvious, it doesn't require a study, or believing an expert, it's just flat out common sense, which I just don't think most people have.
Don't get me wrong, science is always right *in the long run*, and the experts may be right on any given point, but I worry about people who just trust what they read because "it's from the experts." I will be the ultimate arbiter of any information I hear, I don't care who it's from. Their credentials don't impress me, their actual research is what's going to impress me. Someone gave AOC an economics degree. A doctor on CNN just said a virus with a mortality rate between 0.1% and 0.3% could kill "millions of Americans" even though the data agrees he's just flat out wrong. You can't kill millions of people with the Coronavirus, it simply isn't capable of that in a country of 325 million. One million? Maybe... but that would be, what, 100% of everyone getting it? How would it continue to spread if 70% of the population already had it? No virus is ever going to touch 100% of people, it's impossible, and if he's the expert he claims to be with all these fancy credentials, he should know better. Some guy on the Internet who took a college biology class shouldn't know better than him, and yet here we are -- I'm right, and he's wrong. That's why you trust the experts at your own risk. Otherwise, trust common sense.
Stocking up on groceries when there's obviously a shortage of many of them at the moment makes good common sense as long as those groceries can last for a while and you can eat them all. If you end up being wrong, what's the worst that happens? You don't need to buy cereal for the next 6 months because you have enough. Alright, that's not so bad. What's the worst that can happen if you trust the experts and only buy the next week's worth of food? Next time you hit up the grocery store, there's less for you to buy because of disruptions to X, Y, and Z industries. The risk-reward here is clear -- there's no risk to buying too much of something, there's a lot of risk to not buying enough.
Umm, I am So embarrassed by the fact that, I guess, I may have panicked a little bit. It could be that seeing empty shelves, lots of empty shelves brought out the 'lizard' part of my brain and pushed frugality out completely.
I bought Every little thing we could possibly ever need for.....well, a very. very long time. Our freezer is stuffed, the pantry has over-flowed into the linen closet. We have enough Bales of tp I think we need to include some in our wills.
We will (probably) use up all of this stuff....eventually.... but I completely ignored cost, hardly flinched at all seeing $30 for a package of tp..nope just joy at seeing.... A Package Of TP!!!!!! We are accustomed to seeing a few empty shelves and common items out-of-stock in the low tourist times of year but this is way different.
At first they kept reassuring us that the supply chain was unbroken, even posted pictures of the big barges coming in to port but every time we risked Certain Death by going to Costco and the other stores- never any tp, no cans of corn, no potatoes, no sweet potatoes, no regular coffee, no rubbing alcohol, etc etc and each time fewer and fewer things.
The mad dashes from store to store paying Insane prices at Safeway, etc. so exhausting. Maybe it has to do with feeling a bit trapped on an island because.....we are trapped on an island! I admit that even though I must turn in my Frugal Forever Badge I do feel better knowing that we have lots of...most everything.
Wait, what is that about Pork??? Meats??? Proteins becoming short supplied???
Oh, my son decided to fill his small freezer with pork and chicken a few weeks ago. I don't usually eat pork. I'll eat chicken. I'd much rather eat fish or seafood, but that's not really going to happen. I do have some frozen shrimp, so I'll live.
Oh, my son decided to fill his small freezer with pork and chicken a few weeks ago. I don't usually eat pork. I'll eat chicken. I'd much rather eat fish or seafood, but that's not really going to happen. I do have some frozen shrimp, so I'll live.
That was smart of him! I would not be surprised if fresh, even frozen, fish and seafood become hard to find and more expensive. Part our our lock down said only 2 people at a time could be on a small boats but I think that is more to discourage a 'tourist type' of outing.
Not sure what is happening with the whole commercial fishing/seafood biz right now, nothing good I suspect.
Many people here are fishing from the shore now, a lot more than before. Not sure how productive that is, in the past I saw people catching mostly eels -and throwing them back but maybe they eat them now!
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