Published June 25, 2010
Leah Ingram is a life-style and frugal expert, writer, and mom. She is the author of 12 books including Suddenly Frugal: How to Live Happier and Healthier for Less and writes frequently on her blog, Suddenly Frugal, where she offers daily tips and advice about living frugally to her readers. Her latest book Toss, Keep, Sell is due out this Fall. Leah attributes many of her frugal tendencies to her Yankee mother who taught her how to compost and reuse everything. She now uses SuddenlyFrugal.com as a space to keep herself accountable for her own newly frugal lifestyle and help others do the same.
Leah graduated from New York University and the Protocol School of Washington. Before becoming a full time writer and blogger, she was an editor at Women's Day Special Interest Publications. There, she quickly became the on-air go-to expert for a variety of family related topics, including gift tips and shopping suggestions. Today, Leah lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters.
Interview Transcript
BeFrugal: Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. I like your story, mother from a small town. That's sort of what blogs and social media are all about. And being frugal now is becoming vogue so you could help some people and hopefully make them a few dollars.
Leah Ingram: Right. Well, it's very interesting because I still think that frugal is a tiny bit of a dirty word, because people don't see the differentiation between frugal and cheap. I've actually gotten some slack in my book Suddenly Frugal because of some the choices that I've made on the road to saving money. People think I am a total miser; they think I am crazy; they think I am cheap. I just really was very surprised at almost how offended people were at some of the things that I was doing to save money. And, it's just very funny how in a 250-page book one paragraph is what sits in their craw. And, they can't get rid of it.
My attitude is I started the blog three years ago to keep myself accountable when our family made a conscious decision to try to live more on less. And, the blog is something that has just become a habit, and I now know that it reaches tens of thousands of people and hopefully helps them as well. I am not looking to anger people or to get a rise out of people. I am just trying to share genuine information that somebody else might find helpful.
BeFrugal: I am glad you mentioned that because that was my first question for you... Tell us what Suddenly Frugal is all about. What motivated you to start your blog?
Ingram: Well just to backup... our family, like many families in the early 2000s, found themselves, at least where I live and that's on the East Coast, equity rich. You know, purchased a house in the nineties, it doubled in value. Oh my gosh, my house is worth so much more. And wow, I have a great credit score, and I can apply for home equity loan. Wow, and I can spend this money, and... you know I will pay it back, but I pay it back at a lower interest rate that's also tax deductible. And so anyway, long story short is we used up a lot of the equity in a house we used to own and realized that while we had started out with the genuine idea of let's improve this house, let's get a home equity loan and make some improvements to the house, we were living beyond our means. We really hadn't sat down and crunched the numbers and determined how much we were bringing in versus how much were we putting out every month.
The best way to fix our financial situation was to sell the old house which cleared the debts and start anew. And, when we moved to this new house in May of 2007, not that I sat around the table and stumped my feet and said that's it, no more. But there was this understanding of okay guys, we are not doing this again, we have to change how we live... We have to live within our means; we have to figure out ways to cut what we are spending.
I have been self-employed since 1992, when my business is doing well as a writer, that's a lot easier to do because the margins are bigger, and the pressure isn't quite there. Last year, 2009, was my worst year in business ever. So, while we still maintain a frugal lifestyle, those margins were smaller, and it was a lot harder. There was a lot of stress involved. But, now my business is bouncing back, and like every six months we look and say okay, what are we spending, are there things that we can cut back? It's not a one-time deal; it's an evolving process. And, ultimately, my goal is to raise two financially savvy children. The fact that my youngest daughter, who is twelve, understands the feeling of buyer's remorse, I feel like I've succeeded at least somewhat. She understands that shopping should be a necessity, not a hobby.
BeFrugal: Right, that's great... So Leah, tell me as a business owner and author, how do you balance your personal life, your blog, and your business?
Ingram: It's hard to answer because it does vary day-to-day. And of course, you and I happen to be talking on the first day of summer vacation. So everything has just been thrown to heck, because during the 184 days of school I get my kids off to school, I exercise for an hour in the morning, I have a dog that I walk, and then I put in pretty much five hours to six hours of work. And I try not to go back to my computer at night or after the kids are home, although now that they are older, they are twelve and fourteen. If they do come home after school and have homework, I can still sneak in two more hours of work, because they are pretty self-sufficient unless they need help.
I try to plan out my blog. I try to pre-write a week's worth of blogs the previous week, although that doesn't always happen. I mean, let's be honest, life does get in the way, this being the last week of school. I've been a little truant as far as writing five blog postings. I'll probably only get three out this week, but at least it's three.
And then I have clients that I write for: I write for custom publications, I write for newsstand magazines, I write for websites. I try to spend 20% of my time marketing myself for new business. I've found that that's the formula you have to follow if you want to keep a steady income stream. And when you think about 20% of your time, that's one day a week. If you are just dividing up a 5-day workweek, then I need to send letters of introduction, send out clips, make phone calls, go to networking events. So, it's exhausting being a self-employed person, because I am always thinking, always, always, always thinking about how can I get more business. But I also love it. I mean, I wouldn't change anything about how I work right now.
BeFrugal: Well, it sounds very hectic, but very satisfying as well.
Ingram: Yeah. I mean it's not really hectic. I just talk fast, and so it sounds hectic, but I also am happiest when I am busiest. So, it's fine with me. If my brain wasn't always moving at 65 miles an hour, I would feel like there is something wrong with me.
BeFrugal: Being frugal is basically hitting the spotlight with more and more news articles. Why do you think that more people are taking the extra steps to be frugal nowadays?
Ingram: I just think it's the mother of necessity. I think more people are looking to live more frugally these days simply because the economy dictates it. You know Ben Bernanke may tell us that the economy is on the upswing. But it's going to hurt while it's all getting better. I just think that things are not getting as better as the government would like us to think. And so people are looking for ways to seize the tag line from my book, to live more on less.
A perfect example is I do a lot of volunteer work in my community, and one of the organizations I volunteer for has a scholarship that they give to our local high school, and they said that this year not only did they get ten times as many applicants from high-school seniors looking for financial help to go to college, but a good 30% of those applicants cited at least one parent out of work. They had never ever seen anything like that before, and I live in a fairly affluent community where you don't think that job layoffs are really affecting people. You drive through the parking lot of the local supermarket and you think that rich people live here. And there are rich people who live here, but there are a lot of regular people who are really feeling the pinch.
And, I also think that there is a certain cachet that goes along with frugal. You know there is something fashionable almost about being frugal. When you've got Hollywood stories talking about loving to wear vintage, and vintage is probably cheaper or more frugal, then there is something okay with it. But, what I don't think people realize about being frugal, first of all it is an evolution, and it is ongoing. Like I said earlier, my husband and I spend time probably every six months looking over our expenses. Have we cut back enough? Are there things that we could be doing better to save more money?
Just this morning - before you and I spoke - I had to go out to an early morning doctor's appointment. I had to get blood work drawn, so I couldn't eat. And so, here I was, hours past when I normally would have had a cup of coffee or had breakfast. And I am starving, and I've got the caffeine headache. I drove by my local coffee place, and I had to consciously say to myself no, you can wait the twenty minutes till you get home and can make coffee for free. You have to flip-flop your thinking. Somebody would be like oh, it's just a buck fifty, you know who is that going to hurt. No, a buck fifty is not going to hurt you, but a buck fifty, five days a week... and then you add in the doughnut, and then maybe you go back there for lunch, and suddenly fifty bucks a week is bleeding out of your wallet.
That's the other thing that I don't think people realize is those little things that don't cost a lot of money, they add up. I am not saying that I am perfect. Yesterday my daughter and I went walking downtown. She had to buy a birthday gift. And we are halfway there and she is like I am really thirsty, and it was hot out, it was like 95° out. I just looked at her and I am like why didn't you pack a bottle of water, you know, a refillable free bottle of water. She is like well, I wasn't thirsty when I left the house, and it's hot out now. I ended up having this argument because I didn't want to spend a dollar on a disposable bottle of water. Of course, I realized I was being an idiot, and I just gave in. But that's the kind of stuff that kills me because that adds up.
Now, I also realize that I can go a little crazy and say okay, wait a minute, when was the last time you actually brought a drink out. Okay, a dollar every month, that's not going to blow your budget. So, you know it shows both ways of keeping yourself on track, and then also realizing sometimes life gets in the way and you know you've just got to buy your kid a bottle of water because she is thirsty.
BeFrugal: Right. Well, you know that kind of leads me into my next thought and that is, what is the one thing most people can easily do to become more frugal in their lives? Something simple?
Ingram: Okay. The first thing I want to say is eating at home, but that to me seems like such a knot, a no-brainer. But it really does add up. Cooking dinner at home, you know eating breakfast at home, making your coffee at home, packing a lunch. All of those things combined could easily save you $50 a day depending on where you get your coffee, where you have your lunch, what kind of dinners you have out.
The second thing I was going to say and I may age myself by saying this, but if you live in a house with a landline and everybody in your family has cell phones, then first of all, do you need that landline? And, if you don't, then why are you paying however much a month to have it? Our traditional landlines in our house cost $80 a month through the phone company. Now, because of our school districts, we want to have a landline. We feel that it's important to have a phone number in the school district. So, we said okay fine, we need to keep a landline in the house even though we all have cell phones. Is there a cheaper way for us to have that landline? It turns out that if we got our phone service through our cable company, we would save $50 a month. That's $600 a year on phone service.
Is there something simple that you could be doing to save money? Are you a parent who is so completely against texting? Well you know what, texting is here to stay. This is how the younger generation communicates, and I communicate with my kids through text. If you haven't yet stepped up your cell phone plan for unlimited texting, yeah you'll pay like $10 or $20 more a month, so that's $200 more a year. But how much are you paying every month for overages on texting? Now, I know people may not agree with me because they may say it's all about teaching my kids the rules and I want these kids to understand the consequences of going over. Fine, then have that discussion. But, if that's not working, and you are bleeding financially because of a parenting rule that isn't working, then figure out a way to stop the bleeding, stop the hemorrhaging - at least financially. Those to me are the two big ones.
Of course we've all heard change out your light bulbs, and set your thermostat higher. I just think that two things where you are going to see the biggest bang for you buck are the food at home and the technology kind of expenses that you might have.
Here is another one that people may not think about: I've got two kids. What's a constant in their lives? Birthday parties. And, a way to be more frugal about birthday presents, something really simple. Instead of going to the card store every time you buy a gift and purchasing a greeting card (which some of them are like $4 and $5), I buy our greeting cards in bulk. I just got a pack of forty birthday cards for $25. That comes out to 63 cents a card. So yes, I spent $25 upfront when somebody would be like well I only need one greeting card. But how many do you need throughout the course of a year with giving gifts? That to me seems like such a huge saving right there.
So if you like to give presents in gift bags, buy them in bulk. Recently I was able to get five gift bags for a dollar. You know they are normally $2 and $3. I made the move to putting gifts in reusable shopping bags, so that at least they are practical, and they are also cheap. You can usually get them for like 99 cents.
What it's about is looking at your life circumstances and finding ways to be smart about your money. My 12-year-old was in seventh grade this year; this is the year with the kids who are Jewish in her grade having bar and bat mitzvah. So there were a lot of parties to go to. About halfway through the year I said, guess what, you are going shopping for a new dress in your sister's closet because I am not buying you another new dress. She wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't going to spend another $50, $60 on a dress that she was going to wear once. That was another way to try to be smart. I am not going to stunt her socially. I am not going to say you can't go to a birthday party because I don't want to spend $5 on a card. Figure out ways to let your kids still live their lives, but do so frugally and intelligently.
BeFrugal: Okay. So how has the internet affected your ability to find deals and save money on purchases that are a necessity?
Ingram: Before I go food shopping, I am always going to a coupons.com or a P&G Smart Saver. And I will look at my food shopping list, and basically do a Google search and see if I can find any coupons that I can download or printout and take with me to the supermarket. You know ten years ago, fifteen years ago, that kind of technology didn't exist. That was not an option. I've finally learned the old adage: never buy something online without first searching for a coupon code for that product, or for that online retailer. And I'll say nine times out of ten, I can at least find a coupon for 10% off or 20% off, free shipping, or something like that. So the internet has helped me greatly that way.
I started doing a Freebie Friday column on SuddenlyFrugal.com a year ago. Now I've got a Google search setup for just the term freebie. And, not only does this help me find items to write in my column and share with my readers, but I take advantage of those freebies as well. Rita's Water Ice, a franchise here on the East Coast of Italian Ice, on the first day of the season always gives away free water ice. I mean my husband actually took the kids out and drove them to multiple locations to get free water ice throughout the day.
Last year Aveeno and the Skin Cancer Foundation were doing free skin cancer screenings. I was feeling particularly cheap, because as I mentioned 2009 was not a good year for me. So, I wanted to avoid a $15 co-pay at the doctor. And this was a board certified dermatologist doing these screenings for free. That was how I got my annual dermatology appointment done last year for free. It has helped open my eyes to these different ways to save money, or in some cases not to spend money.
BeFrugal: In your opinion... what's the main reason most people pay more than they need to on so many products, given the technology readily available today?
Ingram: First, I fully believe that sometimes it's worth it to spend more money on items. I believe that being frugal is about getting the best bang for your buck. So if you need to spend more on something that's quality and will last, then I say more power to you. I think that a lot of poorly made items from really inexpensive stores don't hold up, and it's just not worth your money, because then you have to spend again to replace whatever it was you just purchased. That said, I recently did a blog posting; it was on coupons. I don't remember exactly what the topic was, but 80% of the comments to that blog posting were, it's such a hassle to find coupons on the internet, and then print them out, and then cut them out, and remember to bring them.
People think it's too much of a time commitment to shop with coupons. They don't feel that they'll get enough savings and they don't bother. And I am just astounded that even in this day and age, with money as tight as it is, people can justify being that lazy. I don't mean to offend people by calling them lazy, but to me your investment of time is an investment in saving money. And yes, it may only pay off in $4 or $5 saved here or there, but why would you spend that $4 or $5 if you could save it.
BeFrugal: Tell us a little bit about your latest book Suddenly Frugal?
Ingram: Suddenly Frugal is my newest book, but I actually have another book coming out in the fall, which I would like to tell you about as well. But Suddenly Frugal is the book that grew out of this blog that I started in 2007, and it really is all about living more on less, and finding ways not to feel like you are sacrificing everything just in the name of saving money. I include a lot of my own advice. Many of the topics in the book I have covered on the blog, but it's important for me to point out that blog postings are usually five hundred words or six hundred words long. And each of these chapters is five thousand words or six thousand words long.
So I feel like I am offering people much more in depth information, advice, and anecdotes than they would ever find on the blog. And, you know the greatest joy for me is getting emails from people who have read the book, who wrote me and said just in the first chapter alone, you told me how I can save $500, and that's like wow, that's what it's all about. That makes me really, really happy. It''s about shifting how you shop, determining appliances that won't use a lot of energy.
One of my recent blog posts was on how my husband and I saved $35,000 on home renovations because of so much of what we did ourselves. And the $35,000 came out of the fact that if we had, you know priced the job out, that's what we would have paid a contractor. He is actually downstairs right now spackling. I sort of took a snapshot of my own life as a wife and mother living in suburbia, and hopefully shared advice with people that they will find useful. And, I think that that is actually happening because I've gotten one royalty statement for the book, and it was for the first month that it was out, and it had already sold more copies than any of the other books I had ever written. And I've written twelve books. So I was pretty happy to see that.
The next book that grew out of Suddenly Frugal is called Toss, Keep, Sell, and it is the Suddenly Frugal guide for clearing out the clutter and cashing in. And basically, it's looking internally on a different level on ways to save money and/or bring in money. The notion being that there is probably a lot of clutter in your house. If you all, meaning my readers, like to shop like I used to shop, you probably have a lot of stuff in your house that you don't actually need, or no longer need, or have duplicates of, or whatever. And there are ways for you to cleanup your clutter, get organized, and make money from what you already own.
So this book is all about finding the extras in your house that you can sell, that you can consign, how to do a yard sale using Craigslist, swapping. All of these different ways that you can bring in money from stuff that you might be looking around your house and just say that's clutter. That will be out in the fall, and it's also being published by Adams Media, which is the person who published this book.
BeFrugal: What is the most unique tip that you've written in your last two books, Suddenly Frugal and Toss, Keep, Sell?
Ingram: This isn't very unique, everybody knows about Craigslist. But I think so many people don't use it to it's fullest potential. I haven't gotten rich from selling my stuff on Craigslist, but I am sure surprised at what sells on Craigslist. One of the anecdotes that I include in Toss, Keep, Sell is about a woman who was renovating her kitchen. She was doing a DIY like my husband and I did, and they were gutting the kitchen, and the cabinets, and the appliances, and they were all perfectly fine, but she just didn't want them anymore. She wanted to upgrade to more energy efficient prettier cabinets. She sold everything on Craigslist and made like a thousand bucks, which isn't that much money for a refrigerator, a stove, and kitchen cabinets.
But, if you take that and say wow, something she was going to put out on the curb for free, or put in a dumpster, she was able to bring in 1,000 bucks. Holy cow, why aren't more people doing this? Again, that's not so unique, not very ah-ha, but too few people think about doing that, and you can get real money in your pocket that way.
I was thinking about one more thing just because I am looking outside, and you know I have some small container gardens growing. And this is something even somebody who lives in an apartment can do. Cut your produce deal at the supermarket by $10 or $20 a week by growing lettuce, tomatoes, and something else in a container so that when you go to make dinner at night, you don't have to run to the store. And the reason that I mentioned container gardening is when I originally blogged about gardening, you know the push back I got was, well I live in an apartment, or I live in a small house, or I don't have a patch of land that I can turn into a garden. Well fine, then get some pots and get some dirt, and get some plants. All you have to do is put it in a sunny spot. Cut a little bit of your food bill by growing some of your food yourselves. Anybody can be a gardener on a very tiny, tiny level.
BeFrugal: Thank you again for taking the time to speak with us.
****End of Interview****
For more money saving tips and advice from Leah, check out her blog at SuddenlyFrugal.com and look for her new book Toss, Keep, Sell due out in the Fall.
An itenllignet point of view, well expressed! Thanks!