Reading Brandi The Prudent Homemaker Saving Money

Once a month if not more often I reread through Brandi's site of The Prudent Homemaker.

Today I reread Saving Money. Brandi gives 41 suggestions of saving money. We do all but 7.

This afternoon I decide to really look at why we don't do that 7 and what do we do instead.

We have cell phones, we don't share a plan. Both plans are below $50 each. Hubby is a weather spotter and connected with Homeland security(unpaid both jobs), he needed a better phone than what he had for apps he needed and found a really good phone(made the grandkids green with envy because they paid 3 times as much for the same phone) at a provider and still was below $50 plan unlimited. I stayed with what I had and where I was...I keep a cell phone on me since I had a heart attack driving home to the boonies from the city....AND there was no houses around. I dry swallowed 3 aspirin that I do carry to get myself home to the phone.

We have a home phone because we can't have internet without it here AND the local fire dept/squad does home phones with their 911. Cell phones go through another trace. Already takes over 10 mins to get to us , don't need to add more.

1 car...we have a SUV, a truck and a motorcycle all paid off and over 10 yrs old(truck will be 20 yrs old next yr) We both can drive the bike. Hubby uses it for work weather permitting, the truck gets driven the most , good old work truck. we limit trips to town to no more than twice a week if that. The SUV is for when I can't walk right and can't climb in the truck or when we go to my Dad's because he no longer has a car and he can't get in the truck any more. We do acknowledge with age we will be giving up all 3 and getting a car that I can drop into.

We no longer resole shoes...ONLY because the nearest repair is 1 hr away from us 1 way. Cost is gas is more than the cost of replacing our shoes. When we move at retirement this will go back to being done as there is one within  10 miles of our son.

I don't go to the library. It's out of the way and an extra trip. I do borrow books from my one daughter as she is a reader like I am and enjoys the same type of books as me and I don't have to worry about an over due fine. That still saves money.

I stopped baking my own bread when it became the two of us...bread will mold faster when it's home made. I am looking at starting this back up since I have found a couple recipes that makes smaller loaves. We just aren't big bread eaters.

We don't unplug most appliances. I do unplug my laptop and the tv in the bedroom after Hubby gets out of bed (he goes to sleep watching the weather) ....but Hubby just refuses to work with me on this. I will have to say that our landlord's wife requires he unplug his alarm clock daily but she refuses to open the windows and turn off the AC...I really think this choice is weird LOL

We don't collect water from the shower....one is we turn it on and get in, our hot water tank is right below the shower., wait time is not there, two we don't live in town or I would probably insist on this even without a wait time since we are on a well here and would be paying for water in town. We do turn off the water while brushing teeth and have used rain barrels over the years for the gardens.I have a watering can that sits out also for rain.

Soup once a day, I'm lucky if I can get Hubby to eat soup once a month at this point. He does hard manual labor around furnaces that  have him in heat over 100° daily.We have talked about him eating soup instead of cold cereal before he lays down but he isn't willing at this point.I will say he used to farm, pigs and cattle and was raised with meat and potatoes 3 meals a day....he has adjusted a lot since we married to not having that. His favorite meal is what we call 123 pasta with very little meat at all in it.

What are your thoughts on saving?