“Dear Penny: I’m So Frugal I Make My Own Toothpaste, So Why Am I Always Broke?”
Dear Penny’s response to this reader that sometimes ‘income is the issue,’ not frugality, is spot on. You have to make enough money to allocate. Yes-s-s.
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Yep. You can only cut out so much before you have to look at bringing in more.
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Here’s a link to the full Dear Penny column: https://www.thepennyhoarder.co…gal-but-still-broke/
I think these words particularly run true: “Now it’s time to take stock of how to maximize your income, even if that means your passion won’t be your full-time job.”
I’ve definitely been there – scraping by trying to turn passion projects into financial stability. For me it was running an arts and entertainment website and being a professional musician. While those stints were fun while they lasted, and invaluable experiences, I had to eventually take a job with decent pay and benefits, sending my career path in a new trajectory.
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I agree. Sometimes, saving is just not enough. There’s a hard limit on how much one can save. If you earn $10/day living in NYC, it doesn’t matter if you don’t buy any toothpaste ever.
The second thing that’s related is the mentality of making one’s own toothpaste. If you don’t enjoy making toothpaste, you shouldn’t make toothpaste just to save a few bucks. This is a remarkably bad use of time. On Amazon, a 6-pack of toothpaste seems to cost $7.92 right now.
If you spend an hour making 6 packs of toothpaste, you’re paying yourself $7.92/hr.
Of all the potential action one can do to save or make money, one should focus on things that has a very high $/hr. For example, saving $10/hr isn’t worth it, just like how getting a side gig that gets you $10/hr isn’t worth it. Both are equivalent.
One strategy to litmus test whether something is worth saving is this:
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Think of how much $/hr you’d save by doing what you’re doing.
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Compare that $/hr to the following: If someone were to hire you to do something you don’t really enjoy doing that much for the same $/hr, would you do it?
Both are equivalent since your rate of saving is your rate of earning. You get the same amount of extra money to spend at the end of the day (ignoring taxes). Most of the time, you should just say no because time in life is limited and we really should opt for higher ROI plays.
In other words: not everything that can be done should be done. Doing every single strategy to save/make money is like playing every single hand that’s dealt to you in Poker. Those players are called ‘calling stations’ and tend to lose a lot money very quickly.
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Thanks for that invaluable post. It helps to have it in words!
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@will.s posted:
Here’s a link to the full Dear Penny column: https://www.thepennyhoarder.co…gal-but-still-broke/
I think these words particularly run true: “Now it’s time to take stock of how to maximize your income, even if that means your passion won’t be your full-time job.”
I’ve definitely been there – scraping by trying to turn passion projects into financial stability. For me it was running an arts and entertainment website and being a professional musician. While those stints were fun while they lasted, and invaluable experiences, I had to eventually take a job with decent pay and benefits, sending my career path in a new trajectory.
And I’m glad you did, @Will S. You’ve found your niche. I do some part-time editing work remotely and one of my co-workers is a musician as well. He took the job to make ends meet while he still pursues his craft. It offers him the flexibility so he can work while he’s on the road for gigs. Of course, there are no benefits, but he knows that every two weeks, he will get a check, and that counts a lot.
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thanks for sharing, i always learn so much from this great community
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