I was reading some articles this morning on money saving tips and I was surprised to see how many of them I was familiar with. Many I have used in the past and some I still use today. The article(s) clearly showed how a few cutbacks can save you enough to have a cash only Christmas or vacation, something we strive for every year since that is where a lot of American's get into trouble with debt.
The article got me to thinking about my "poor" days...back when a home, a new car, or gourmet ice cream and coffee were not even on the radar. The days when I would put $5.00 of gas in my tank at a time, $25 was all I was budgeted for groceries, and my rent was the biggest bill of the month. In those days, I religiously practiced "money saving" tips because it was the only way I could survive.
While I am not "living on Easy Street", I take home a nice salary every 15 days. By comparison, I make about 4 times what I did during my last "blue collar" corporate job 17 years ago. Back then, I had apartment rent of $400 a month, a car payment of $225 a month, and about $1500 worth of credit card debt (with a $3,000 limit). The rest of my money went to utilities, food, insurance, and gasoline. I ate off of the Taco Bell ".59/.79/.99" menu (mostly .59 bean burritos, but .99 chilitos were not uncommon) when I ate out and my home diet consisted of a lot rice, beans, and cheap frozen dinners.
Money was tight. I did however make a little extra money every now and then by doing "short notice jobs" for the national audio/video retailer I worked for. This particular store had a policy of making every customer a happy customer and if they needed something done that the store could not "officially" do, I (a general warehouse worker) was asked to do it. Generally it was just a same day TV or stereo delivery, but once in a while I would do a refrigerator door reversal, ice maker install or build a TV/stereo stand for someone who couldn't/didn't want to do it themselves. Sometimes I cold not do the delivery (I had a car and not everything would fit in it) unless I found someone with a truck and then we split the money 60/40, with 60 going to the person supplying the vehicle. Most of the time I was getting at least 1 of these a week. This helped out my bottom end by giving me some extra money to keep in my wallet, which was normally empty which was normally devoid of such a luxury.
I look back at those days and think how scary it was. I was living paycheck to paycheck, but just barely. I remember my checking account having $10 in it and being 2 days from payday and not having anything to eat in the house. It was times like that you learned to be creative. For example, when the sales staff would have a breakfast meeting at the store, I made sure that I was nearby when it broke up so I could grab some donuts, fruit, and juice from the leftovers. I checked the seat cushions (home and car) for change, worked the loading dock (sometimes people gave tips...but not often), and offered to work through lunch during the busy season if mgmt would spring for hamburgers from the steak house down the street...just to name a few.
Life has changed.
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