super savings

SUPER SAVINGS

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Three years ago I wrote the book “Consuming To Invest”, which was how to turn your soon to be worthless paper currency into tools that could save you money ( to buy you more tools ) and make you more sustainable.  It was a step above mere consumables like ammo and wheat.  For instance, cloth diapers.  They pay for themselves very quickly and then they save you a butt metric ton of money.  Let’s say a cloth diaper costs $1.50 and throwing in pins and the plastic outer shell and a cloth insert to catch most solid matter adds another fifty cents to it.  $100 should be more than enough of an investment. 

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What are disposable diapers now?  About a quarter apiece?  Call it ten a day, every day for a year ( I can’t remember how long it took for my kids-is two years too long?  Let’s just say a year ).  $900 a year.  $60 a year going to the Laundromat on their Dollar Day, plus soap.  You’ve saved $750.  That can buy a lot of other tools such as a manual sewing machine ( which can be a business as well as savings-the point here is if the tool is more expensive than the labor, only then is it a business.  If you charge a dollar to fix a rip, no one is going to buy a $100 machine to DIY ), manual saw ( save hundreds from using a chainsaw, to buy…), galvanized stiff metal clothesline ( which saves the cost of owning and operating a clothes dryer which buys…), glass sheets for solar heating and cooking ( which saves you propane and electric which increases the saving into other tools ).

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 Think of your monthly budget as credit card debt.  With debt, you take the lowest payment and put extra towards paying it off.  Once you free up that payment, you place it towards paying off the next.  And so on until it is all paid quickly and painlessly.  If you don’t do this, you pay for thirty years until the principle is finally wiped out, an insane plan.  In your budget, you take one expense you can eliminate.  That takes investing in one tool.  Be in a rooftop antenna to replace cable, a bike with trailer and baskets to replace a car, etc.

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The difference between credit card debt and budget elimination is that the same amount will kill the debt, but with the budget, you make more money every time.  Once you get past the first hurdle, it becomes fun and games and eventually it turns into a “Hump You” budget.  The olden days plan was to make enough money to tell your job Hump You.  That is unrealistic in a contracting economy.  Now you must need so little to live you can tell your boss to Hump You. 

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But with that book, I don’t think I really covered eliminating professional services.  I went back and glanced at it quickly and saw nothing ( although I could be wrong.  I don’t remember what I wrote three days ago, let alone three years ).  Saving money on the plumber, HVAC guy, carpet layer, chimney sweep, wood supplier, etcetera, might be not just an option but a necessity.  If you are looking to increase your security by becoming self employed, you need to beware consumers making you obsolete.  Not because they want to, but because they have to.

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Am I the only one far enough removed to see the insane cost of living that is the average American lifestyle?  Can you not see the HUGE amount of fat that can be cut once it becomes necessary?  I tell you to stop driving, you tell me to get stuffed, yet nothing guarantees that you will be allowed to drive up to the start of the Apocalypse.  I won’t go off on a rant-I’ll just say Peak Oil, PetroDollar Collapse and hyperinflation.  And even if none of that were true, look at the unemployment numbers and globalization and the future of your job.  Isn’t that why you are looking to become self-employed?

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But that is NOT happening in a vacuum.  More folks are becoming unemployed or getting their hours cut.  More folks are paying 20% plus every year for less health insurance.  More folks are paying more for rent.  Why do you assume they will have the money to pay for your services, indefinitely?  Eventually they will be forced to watch YouTube videos and try to do it themselves.  Would Home Depot even be in business after the first housing bubble if folks weren’t Doing It Themselves?  In fact, you go on their web page, many, many products have the video right there on the page.

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Will Home Despot survive?  Of course not.  If I, self proclaimed and awarded World’s Cheapest Bastard will go ten miles out of my way to go to Ace Hardware and pay twice as much for both advice and help and better quality, because it is an investment which saves money anyway in the long run, how much longer will the flock of idiots stay wasting money at Despot?  Yeh, I know, they are still at Wal-Mart doing exactly that, as well as eating out, but that is because fiscally they actually have a choice right now.  My point is they won’t too much longer.

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Look at fast food restaurants, or actually any dinning out establishment.  It used to be that it was cheaper to eat out than eat in.  Your total calories were cheaper and tastier.  You had to be careful what you ordered, and where you ordered, but it wasn’t hard to beat the at home meat and potato cost.  When you could eat two burgers and fries for two bucks, that wasn’t possible to duplicate at home ( your oil would go rancid before it matched the cost per unit of the mass quantity provider ).

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When I first moved here there was a Mexican place that served Sonora style food ( yummy! ).  It was $4.50 plus tax for a burrito that oozed more meat than beans and literally filled the plate.  You could eat all the thin crispy chips with salsa you wanted while waiting. It was a dive building, cracked linoleum floors, terrible acoustics and an industrial line pay and serve.  It was right behind the library and as a treat I’d occasionally bring a book to read and pig out.  It was literally a days calories.  No way could I duplicate that shopping at the store.

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And remember, this was in a high rent, two hundred mile one way out of the way of everything high cost of living town, with the place on the main drag downtown.  The last time I went there, after all eateries everywhere had jacked up their prices, the same burrito was $7.  It was recently sold and rebranded,  and I’d hate to think of the price now that the cost of buying the business had to be included.  This was a mom and pop place.  You only needed two people to run it, the cook and the part time cashier/cooks helper.  I’m sure everything was from #10 cans ( but, oy!, was it tasty ).  But that couldn’t have counteracted the bulk buying discount the chain stores worked with.

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I could take a couple of articles to break down the causes of food price inflation, but let’s just leave it at Corporate Debt, Corn To Ethanol and Fuel BTU inflation.  And I understand that my figures could come undone if the bulk of shoppers return to market buying rather than restaurant eating ( there might be a discount to shopping at the market now, as they are forced to cut prices to compete with dining out ).  But for now, it is MUCH cheaper to eat at home than to eat out.  It just took a few specialty tools ( chest freezer, pots and pans, convection oven ).  I’m stating that this is the future of most goods and services.  Continued tomorrow.

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