Budgeting: You Do You, I'll Do Me

A few years ago, a well-known and much-loved blogger with a real ministry for others to feed a family on a tight budget mentioned buying margarine on sale during a group chat.  The furor that arose over that seemingly innocent statement was terrible.  Within 24 hours, the blogger had been attacked so much and so viciously over that one sentence, that she seriously considered deleting her complete body of work and leaving blogging behind forever.

Another popular blogger that I follow off and on, once made a post stating why she was no longer buying organic meat.  The post lasted two hours before the blogger removed it and all the comments following it.  She never reposted that particular post, nor made mention again of the lack of organic meat in her household.  Again, public opinions were harsh, hateful and hurtful.  Never mind the very valid reason she had for her budget adjustment.

Budget shaming is a real thing.  Seriously folks!

As small as my own group of readers are, I have come under fire from certain individuals who choose to ridicule my thriftiness, considers me in some way lacking and lazy because I even attempt to budget more without getting a second job, and apparently thinks my lifestyle overall fair game for snarky remarks and general hatefulness.

Like most people who find it necessary to budget and exercise some form of thrift in homemaking, I do so because I am trying hard to balance needs against wants, thrift against savings.  We worked hard and went without much over the years to ensure that our home was paid for prior to our retirement years and we were debt free.  We worked just as hard to sock away what had previously been the house payment into savings, so we'd have something for the proverbial and all too real 'rainy' days that come into every life.  And when we retired, we took the expected hit of having a bit less income and have hung in there now for three full years.  It's meant adjustments, true.  But we're managing.

I've been thinking about this subject overall a great deal over the past few weeks as I've juggled and rejuggled our budget to accommodate less income and extra outgo.  I wasn't unprepared for this season of life, but I was unprepared for John's unwillingness to adjust in what I felt were the most obvious areas.  Hence the current juggling trying to find the sweet spot that I might have missed in less obvious areas.

What I'm willing to do to balance our budget may or may not be what you are willing to do in order to balance yours.  People make decisions based on skills they have already, opportunities they come across, personal circumstances, or preferences they have, etc. as well as income and outgo.  No two budgets are alike even if income and outgoing amounts might appear to be similar.  That's because budgets are always customized to those using them.

I think a really successful budget includes room for things that are considered essentials by the individual making them.  For instance, if I can afford flowers, I'm buying flowers.  I do try to buy flowering plants that will last from year to year such as Amaryllis, flowering cactus, violets, orchids and poinsettias for houseplants or to buy perennials that rebloom each year.  When these are on sale, I often buy them for a reduced price. Not all of them at once, obviously, but one or perhaps two.  If I have any of those in bloom, I'll use those as my 'fresh' flowers and forgo the purchase of cut flowers.  But in other months I usually will buy a bunch of flowers per month, for under $20 and I do all I can to reasonably extend their life.  

We have a monthly book budget.  John probably gets the most value from his books of anyone I know.  He prefers to use them as notebooks, and he reads through the same book two or even four times before he puts it aside.  And before the year is out, he's likely going to take it up again and study through it two or three times more and add to his past notes.   I on the other hand, love my old 'friends' books but also want to read newer ones.  I have a budget limit for how much can be spent on books each month and usually stay well within that limit.  

John has a medical condition that makes him feel cold more easily than most.  If I'm a little chilly, he's half frozen already.  While I'm willing to layer up, he's keenly feeling cold and is miserable.  So, our heat may be set a bit higher (and so is the AC) than most people are fully comfortable with.  If it is particularly cold, I may bump up the temperature by another few degrees rather than see my husband huddled under a tower of blankets shivering.  I just take off my sweater or remove a tank top under a shirt and put on lighter pants if I'm feeling overly warm. That's what works for us. 

Some people loathe cooking or don't want to bother to cook a single portion of something.  They choose to eat out a lot but learn to utilize coupons and early bird specials and plan to spend a little higher in their food budget to accommodate that fact.  We on the other hand, don't eat out as often, though sometimes it's once a week, usually we're nearer the twice a month mark.  We call that 'entertainment' in our household, and it is not part of the food budget.  We compensate by spending our personal allowance in that area and take turns buying or going Dutch if we're both feeling the strains.

Even within a household, people may approach the budget differently.  I mentioned that I'd planned to compensate for the decreased income by reducing two areas of our spending and John objected. My compromise was to leave those two areas as they had been and reduce in other areas.  I am more than determined to absolutely stick to my grocery budget and allow no wiggle room, which we've always allowed extra for in the past.  I sat down and determined exactly how much we needed to cover certain areas and found I could trim some of the monthly portions of annual fees so that we saved enough to make up for the increased outgo.  

I prefer to dry laundry on the line except in the twice annual high pollen season days.  John however does the laundry, and he chooses to use the dryer.  I don't argue with him about it.  On the other hand, he'd happily have me buy loaf bread, but I can make a perfectly good sandwich loaf, dislike store bought bread and so I choose to make it.  Just this weekend, after we used a store-bought loaf over the holiday, he suggested I buy more bread.  I told him I'd prefer to make my own and showed him the cost of a single loaf was well over $4.50.   I can make a lot of bread, rolls, pizza dough and bagels for about that amount of money each month.  So why should I spend $50 of my food budget on it?  I'd much rather use that cash to stock up on sale priced meats, or seasonal produce that I could put by for the coming year or stocking up on really well priced savings for pantry staples.

There are those who automatically say, "If you have more month than money then you need to earn more."  I agree 100%.  However, I think it's funny how some folks dislike your method of earning that bit of extra.  

For instance, when I started Amazon Affiliate links here and installed a modest ad forum to generate income from this blog, I took some flack.  In both instances, the reader must actively click on an ad if it's something they are interested in.  Otherwise, it earns me absolutely nothing.  Not a problem for me...so why should it be a problem for the readers who choose to complain?

The money I earn here is a small help and it allows me to continue to do something I really enjoy, which is my writing.  If I went to work outside the home, there would be no such thing.  All of my time would be consumed with just the work that I'd do outside.  

In fact, though the income level is low from the blogging revenue, I'd end up losing money by going to work outside the home. I wouldn't have time nor energy to perform a lot of the money saving techniques that I use to stretch our income further.  Not to mention the extra gasoline, the wardrobe changes, etc.  Granted I'd be better off than in my child rearing days when I discovered that I literally was making $0 at the end of each week after paying for gasoline, childcare, the extra cost of groceries with more convenience food items, wardrobe updates, etc.  

I use a couple of rewards programs that pay me a minimum for routine spending, such as Fetch and Ibotta.  Admittedly, I seldom earn more than a few cents a month on Ibotta but it's some help just the same.  In the past, I've utilized survey sites but alas, as a white female of a 60 something age group, I am no longer the demographic that surveyors are looking for.  I was very blessed though during the years when I did fit the demographics required and appreciated that I could earn that bit of extra income.

Like anyone else, I find myself sometimes being critical (aka judgmental) of others.  I might watch someone cook what they call a budget meal and note exactly how it might be done for less.  I might visit a blog that has banners and flyers and ads and video ads that so overlay the content, I move away in disgust and read elsewhere.  However, I remind myself frequently that while a particular method of savings or earning isn't for me, it's something that works for that person.   In the end, I like what one of the YouTube Vloggers John follows says often "You do you.  I'll do me."

We are not all equal when it comes to income or outgo.  My circumstances are my circumstances.  Yours are yours.  In the end, we all have two choices: ignore the facts of our personal circumstances or work with them.  I've found it far less stressful to work with what I have than to wear a blindfold and hope I'm pinning a tail in the vicinity of the donkey.  

And that's really all any of us can do!