As someone in their early 40s who just bought a house, I can attest that having a well-paying job helps greatly and that watering down the shampoo leavings does not.
Also mid 40s and just bought my first house. 100% was the new job with significantly higher pay. None of my past efforts at frugality paid any dividends either.
Im in the process of buying my second house, much bigger on a nice chunk of land. I make good money nowadays but we absolutely 100% would not be able to afford anything at all if we didn’t already own a house to sell. We bought it for $100k in 2021 from a grumpy old guy who wouldn’t leave during showings and scared everyone off. Thankfully I grew up around grumpy old guys and he liked us enough.
We’re now selling that house for $230k, granted I also entirely rebuilt it the last 4 years and I think we could get more but I like the people buying it. We got lucky all the way through.
I started with a family business that underpaid me. Couldn’t get ahead in my hometown city so i moved to another city with cheaper rents and housing costs. I eventually got a job where my work ethic and previous education and experience makes me almost irreplaceable. I used that as leverage with my boss to get paid a more competitive wage for my skill and responsibility level.
Before i was employed or got my raises, saving every penny i could kept me afloat. I’d take my neighbors empty beer cans and return them if i noticed them in the bin. I had maybe a month or 2 of living expenses left when i finally found a job in my field. Had i not been frugal from the start i may have had to abandon my whole plan and move back home completely broke before i could land a job.
Doing 1 frugal trick won’t make a big difference. Applying a frugal mindset as often as you can will make a noticeable difference and can give you a little monetary boost to start getting ahead. For example if you have a little extra money, you can stock up on food during a sale. It requires more capital up front but you benefit from a cheaper price long term.
I started in pool services now i work in residential water treatment. Working with wells, filters, and softeners to provide good quality water to rural residents and businesses. I’m unofficially on call and also the emergency help line for customers with equipment issues.
I pay 100% of the cost and i get it from my trades job that i put 50+ hours a week into. I have 15 years of experience in that trade (i did get lucky starting as a young teen but it did rob some of my youth).
Its no mansion. Its over 70 years old and only 600 square feet but thats enough for me and I’m handy enough to fix most of the important stuff.
I used frugal tricks while living in my apartment to save up and invest a little bit. I now use those tricks to keep costs down. Recently I’ve been doing research on how viable a clothesline in the winter will be.
Technically the heating of your house is now taking that hit to dry the clothes. My space is already tight and it already has high enough humidity from a wet crawlspace. People have used clotheslines in the winter for centuries, especially on a sunny day with a breeze clothes dry pretty well.
Its basically got a trench all around the inside that has water seeping in from the edges and the trenches go to a sump pump. Short term im planing on installing drainage pipe in the trench then concreting over it to reduce the water exposed to the air. Long term I’ll eventually have to excavate around the house, install drainage, repair and reseal the foundation.
I guess i could try to just install vapor barrier over the trench and it would have a similar effect.
The crawlspace is closer to a short unfinished basement. I can stand between the joists in most places.
If you have sitting water then you most definitely got mold. But if its like you described treat the mold replace insulation then vapor barrier on the joists and tape over seams. Its not a huge house so that all can be done in a weekend if you know what you’re doing. But it really easy just a pain in the ass.
I want to install infloor heating so i was gonna insulate and vapor seal the main floor joists then. The walls and floor are a mix of concrete, bedrock, and cinderblocks. I’d have to install joists and insulate to vapor barrier it effectively. One of the trenches also cut diagonally to a drain line halfway along the crawlspace. I think the house started with about 1/3 of the the footprint crawlspace then was expanded later but I’m not really sure.
As someone in their late 20s who just bought a house, I can attest that these little frugal tricks did help quite a bit.
As someone in their early 40s who just bought a house, I can attest that having a well-paying job helps greatly and that watering down the shampoo leavings does not.
Also mid 40s and just bought my first house. 100% was the new job with significantly higher pay. None of my past efforts at frugality paid any dividends either.
My partner is in her 30s, works 4 days as a school teacher, and just bought her first house in London. It’s possible!
(I don’t need to add that I’m in tech and have a very convenient salary, since that’s not at all related, right?)
At least it’s not so bad outside of London. I’m on the south coast and bought a few years ago while saving up was done at/near minimum wage.
Not as long as they purchased their house independently of you, no.
Im in the process of buying my second house, much bigger on a nice chunk of land. I make good money nowadays but we absolutely 100% would not be able to afford anything at all if we didn’t already own a house to sell. We bought it for $100k in 2021 from a grumpy old guy who wouldn’t leave during showings and scared everyone off. Thankfully I grew up around grumpy old guys and he liked us enough.
We’re now selling that house for $230k, granted I also entirely rebuilt it the last 4 years and I think we could get more but I like the people buying it. We got lucky all the way through.
I started with a family business that underpaid me. Couldn’t get ahead in my hometown city so i moved to another city with cheaper rents and housing costs. I eventually got a job where my work ethic and previous education and experience makes me almost irreplaceable. I used that as leverage with my boss to get paid a more competitive wage for my skill and responsibility level.
Before i was employed or got my raises, saving every penny i could kept me afloat. I’d take my neighbors empty beer cans and return them if i noticed them in the bin. I had maybe a month or 2 of living expenses left when i finally found a job in my field. Had i not been frugal from the start i may have had to abandon my whole plan and move back home completely broke before i could land a job.
Doing 1 frugal trick won’t make a big difference. Applying a frugal mindset as often as you can will make a noticeable difference and can give you a little monetary boost to start getting ahead. For example if you have a little extra money, you can stock up on food during a sale. It requires more capital up front but you benefit from a cheaper price long term.
I wish I could express to you exactly how little of that I read
Yea, how dare people share their life stories on a discussion forum.
care to share your line of work with the rest of the class?
I started in pool services now i work in residential water treatment. Working with wells, filters, and softeners to provide good quality water to rural residents and businesses. I’m unofficially on call and also the emergency help line for customers with equipment issues.
I did it on UK minimum wage, pretty easy tbh. So line of work shouldn’t matter if you live in a 1st world country.
Where and how much money comes from you?
I pay 100% of the cost and i get it from my trades job that i put 50+ hours a week into. I have 15 years of experience in that trade (i did get lucky starting as a young teen but it did rob some of my youth).
Its no mansion. Its over 70 years old and only 600 square feet but thats enough for me and I’m handy enough to fix most of the important stuff.
I used frugal tricks while living in my apartment to save up and invest a little bit. I now use those tricks to keep costs down. Recently I’ve been doing research on how viable a clothesline in the winter will be.
A folding clothes horse inside the house where it is warm would be more effective, depending if it gets cold where you live.
Technically the heating of your house is now taking that hit to dry the clothes. My space is already tight and it already has high enough humidity from a wet crawlspace. People have used clotheslines in the winter for centuries, especially on a sunny day with a breeze clothes dry pretty well.
Do you have a vapor barrier in the crawl space? Idk what you mean by wet but its probably fixable.
Its basically got a trench all around the inside that has water seeping in from the edges and the trenches go to a sump pump. Short term im planing on installing drainage pipe in the trench then concreting over it to reduce the water exposed to the air. Long term I’ll eventually have to excavate around the house, install drainage, repair and reseal the foundation.
I guess i could try to just install vapor barrier over the trench and it would have a similar effect.
The crawlspace is closer to a short unfinished basement. I can stand between the joists in most places.
If you have sitting water then you most definitely got mold. But if its like you described treat the mold replace insulation then vapor barrier on the joists and tape over seams. Its not a huge house so that all can be done in a weekend if you know what you’re doing. But it really easy just a pain in the ass.
I want to install infloor heating so i was gonna insulate and vapor seal the main floor joists then. The walls and floor are a mix of concrete, bedrock, and cinderblocks. I’d have to install joists and insulate to vapor barrier it effectively. One of the trenches also cut diagonally to a drain line halfway along the crawlspace. I think the house started with about 1/3 of the the footprint crawlspace then was expanded later but I’m not really sure.