Totally enamored of Poorcraft.* I'm about ten pages in and I love it. It's about living frugally but AWESOMELY. Hello, everything I'm all about. There's one issue for frugal living and one for frugal traveling!
I've tootled You Need a Budget's horn before (I know it's supposed to be tooted, but tootled was a much more fun typo), but wow. Daily, that application helps us out. Day. Lee. ($6 off that link there, if you wanna try it, because that's how we roll, yo.)
From YNAB, I've learned things I didn't want to know, but that we needed to know. The next panel after the one above points out that you can't do anything to help yourself until you figure out exactly what you're buying, and how much each of those categories costs a month. If you'd asked me–before we started using YNAB–how much we spent on the animals a month, I would have guessed about $150. If you'd told me it was almost $500 a MONTH (including food, flea treatment, and vet visits), I would have smacked you across the mouth for lying (no, I wouldn't have. But I might have tootled you smartly).
We're spending almost a hundred bucks an animal, per month. Holy crap. To be totally honest, that helps with the essentialist kick I'm on right now. Recently, a sweet little kitten ran in front of my car, held up his teeny little paws and said, "STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE." There's no way I normally would have been able to relinquish rights on a baby kitteh. But thinking to myself, "If this guy lives for sixteen years, that's a twenty-grand investment…" Well, I figured two cats were enough. (For now. No guarantees for the future, mind. You never know when an asshole like my Digit might show up again.) But now the kitten we saved is named Crowley and lives with my darling friend M and plays video games all day!
Crowley's face is all business.
We know how much we spend a month for all the categories, even the rather silly categories, like What Rachael Spends at the Cafe While Writing and What Lala Buys for Lunch. And that makes all the difference. When the electricity bill goes up, I start snapping off lights. When we spend too much in groceries one month, I make sure we cook more at home the next month. I know how much we need to live, and I know what our discretionary spending goes to, because it's all in the plan, man.
It helps me sleep at night.
(I can't repeat this too much: If you're broke, that doesn't make you a bad person. If you're spiraling downward in debt and feel shame about it, talk to someone. Email someone. Say the truth out loud: "I don't know how much I owe, or how much I need to live, or even how much I make, and I'm too scared to find out." Say it. Then say it again to someone who can help. The only way to climb out of the shame pit is to speak the thing you're scared of. Speaking cures shame. And then you'll be able to take the steps (and there are steps!) to pull yourself out. Email me if you need to practice on someone. Even better, leave a comment here so people can read it and support you, cheer you on. You might not hear it, but I bet you'll feel it.)
Hey, did you get my letter? I've been sending out TinyLetters, and they're kind of a new way for me to blog, flying right into your email inbox. You can view the letter archive and/or subscribe here. I'm loving this way of communicating.
* Affiliate link 'cuz I grab my money where I can