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Meet a Reader | Ruby

We’ve got another reader-requested interview subject today: Ruby, a Georgian reader who, like many other FG readers, was originally inspired by The Tightwad Gazette!

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I’m in my early 60s and a life-long Southerner, having lived mostly in Georgia and for the past eight years in Tennessee.

Reader Ruby in a mask.

(Note: I doubt my own mother would recognize me with my Covid mask on, but this photo tickles me because I sewed the mask out of remnant quilting fabric, my shirt is thrifted, I’m sporting a self-haircut, and I’ve reused those glasses frames for six years running, just putting new lenses in them. So it’s my portrait of frugality.)

My parents grew up on small farms during the Great Depression, which shaped their thinking about money all their lives. My husband and I have been married for coming up on 35 years.

We have a young adult son who is on the mild end of the autism spectrum and who lives with us. He works, drives, has friends and just needs some occasional help navigating life now.

I was a stay-at-home mom with him for seven years and for the past 21 years, I’ve worked as an office manager for churches and in various university jobs. Right now I’m working in student services at a university.

We have five rescue pets: two cats and three dogs, so our house is always full even though our family is small.

Ruby's puppy Foxy.

I love to sew, cook, read, and grow an herb garden when the weather cooperates.

2. How long have you been reading The Frugal Girl?

Oh, gosh, years. None of Kristen’s children were taking high school classes when I started reading, as I recall.

3. How did you get interested in saving money?

Being frugal was pretty much baked into me by my parents, who had a big garden, raised a calf for the freezer, and both my mom and my dad knew how to sew and taught me. My dad was very creative: give that man a soldering iron and a junk pile, and he could have made anything.

When our son was born, my husband and I were facing the reality that babies can be expensive. We both worked in low-paying white collar jobs and were buying our first house, so we had to really buckle down and use every skill we had. It was still very hard and we were scraping the bottom of the barrel every month.

Around about 1992, I was in the dentist office and read a magazine article about The Tightwad Gazette. I subscribed to the newsletter and it completely changed my life.

My husband used to grumble about the penny-pinching extent I’d go to: he was served some meals he definitely did not care for, but we:

  • used old-fashioned cloth diapers and hung them to dry in the back yard on a clothesline
  • bought a little chest freezer from Sears that we still use today
  • wore thrifted clothes
  • sewed the baby’s outfits
  • had a fully stocked pantry
  • couponed judiciously

And we did a thousand other little things that made a lot of larger things possible.

Ruby's cat sitting on a desk.

 

I think it’s much easier now, with community resources and the information offered by the internet and online communities, to be frugal than it was for my parents in the 1970s when they were hit by inflation and high oil prices.

Cars are reliable and last much longer. Clothes and shoes were so expensive new then, and now we can cherry-pick from thrifts for pennies on the dollar.

Word of what’s a deal and what to avoid is at your fingertips.

Information on how to make repairs, how to container garden and a thousand other topics are there for us. It’s great!

4. What’s the “why” behind your money-saving efforts?

The why is to have a comfortable retirement as early as possible. I do not want to work until I’m dead!

It’s been a rocky road, as my husband and I started in low-paying jobs and had employer-provided health insurance that was often not particularly good, leaving us with sizeable medical bills outside of insurance almost every year.

For a couple of years, none of the therapy our son needed was covered by our insurance. It was like making a payment on an expensive car every month to pay for that.

We started catching up in the mid-90s when he went back to school to retrain for a career in IT. However, we realized last year that if we stopped all “silly spending,” we’d most likely be completely debt-free, including our mortgage, by the end of November 2021.

Ruby's homemade bag

A bag Ruby made from Salvation Army fabrics

“Silly spending” is shorthand for saying “nothing not required for food, shelter, and maintenance of the house, cars, and ourselves” and even that’s going to be scrutinized and done with utmost frugality. So we’ve been eating down the freezer and pantry.

I used a work perk and cut $33 a month off two of my husband’s newspaper subscriptions by getting the educational rate. I just did a deep dive into our online check register to see exactly where and what we spend money on and what can be cut back and out.

I did the math and determined that over the course of the year, the budget frozen entrees and bottled drinks I’d been buying on sale to take for my work lunches added up to TWO house payments. So that gave me incentive to always bring leftovers and drink home-brewed iced tea or water.

Red and orange homemade bag with handles.

another bag that Ruby sewed!

Sometimes I hear people talk about frugal fatigue, but I always remember something Amy D. said in The Tightwad Gazette, that frugality without creativity will feel like deprivation. So I look on it not as an onerous slog but as a challenge with little prizes along the way – we saved X this week! – and the big prize at the end.

5. What’s your best frugal win?

I don’t tend to have big frugal wins. My wins are small and add up over time, but probably my best one was last year looking at our Verizon cell phone bill and saying, “Hey, this is way, way too much for two people.”

We switched to Google and save $100 a month and have no complaints about the service. We briefly tried Mint, but the service did not work well enough for us.

Ruby's cat Ollie with his tongue out.

6. What’s a dumb money mistake you’ve made?

One made rather out of desperation instead of dumbness: We sold our last house in the depths of Great Recession for $25K less than we paid for it after it had been on the market for 11 months.

However, we had sold our previous house for $27K more than we paid for it, so I guess it balances it in the big picture.

But at the time in the Great Recession, we really needed to move out that deeply depressed area and closer to where my husband was working. That move ultimately saved us thousands of dollars of year in taxes and commuting costs, but it hurt to lose that much on a really lovely house.

7. What’s one thing you splurge on?

Our dogs.

Three rescue dogs.

They all have health issues related to the circumstances that led to them being rescued which we have spent a lot of money sorting out. They live like princesses since they came into our family.

8. What’s one thing you aren’t remotely tempted to splurge on?

A fancy car. I love my little ten-year-old econobox Honda.

9. If $1000 was dropped into your lap today, what would you do with it?

Make extra mortgage payments!

10. Share a frugal tip with other Frugal Girl readers

Unless it’s a basic necessity, always ask yourself, “Is this a need or a want? Is it an urgent need, or can it wait until next week? If I buy this, can I get it repaired? Do I own something else that can do the job?”

You’d be surprised how often you don’t actually “need” something when you ask yourself those questions.

______________

Ruby, thanks so much for participating and answering my questions. And I especially appreciate you sending the picture of your cat with his tongue out; so cute!

Readers, I know Ruby would be delighted to respond to any questions or comments you have.

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Janet

Wednesday 24th of March 2021

Hi Ruby - it's very nice to meet you! We're definitely of the same generation but I'm almost 65 and happily retired for two years now. I borrowed the Tightwad Gazette books from our public many times for encouragement and ideas of how to be frugal.

And would you believe it - I have not had a haircut in over a year!! Luckily it looks quite nice long and I have kept up my colour myself with discounted, on sale hair colour of course!

I am a Canadian and will start receiving Old Age Security cheques in July, the first full month after my 65th birthday. I started collecting my Canada Pension Plan as early as I qualified (at age 60) even though I was still working. If I deferred until 65 I would have received a larger monthly cheque but my logic in collecting early is that it's when you're younger and healthier that you're more likely to travel and need the money. And you must live until you're 75 until everything evens out and as you know there are no guarantees in life! And boy did I find that out when I was diagnosed with breast cancer last April! Glad to say I made a full recovery and have resumed all my normal activities including running! I run 5 km three times a week and in between I snowshoe, cross country ski, ice skate, go biking, hiking, walking, gardening, etc. Certainly not one to sit still for long.

I have been a vegetarian for over seven years and eat very healthily. I have never drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes (or anything else for that matter now that marijuana is legalized here - something I don't agree with!). This past year has been very humbling for me as it made me realize that no matter what health precautions you take, it's no guarantee that you won't get ill. I am very grateful for Canada's universal health care program as there were no out of pocket costs for the surgery or radiation. Reminder to you all not to skip your mammograms! And please use aluminum free deodorant.

I utilize a lot of the same strategies as you do for saving money and still have a 40 year old wool, kick pleated skirt in my closet! I don't wear it a great deal but whenever I do, I still get a lot of compliments because it just fits so well. It was part of a suit and the blazer was made of a different material and has long been discarded as it was worn out.

It was great to get to know you and we share a lot in common!

Ruby

Thursday 25th of March 2021

It's great to meet you too. I love meeting others of my generation and hearing their long view on frugality.

Health care costs outside of insurance have long been a big expense for my family. It's kept us in debt a lot of years. I keep hoping the US will come to its senses and make the health of the nation a priority as Canada has.

My husband originally had a plan to work a couple of years past his official retirement age, but he's scaled back. In the past two generations, no men his family have lived past 68, so he's decided that retiring at 66 and 10 months instead of 70 is just fine.

Sally Stoddard

Wednesday 24th of March 2021

Hello Ruby. I love reading about people who save money! I'm Sally and I live in Daventry, Northamptonshire in the UK. I'm 56 and very happy, even with very little spare money! My husband and and I rent our little house, he is ten years older than me. If you ever want to get in touch, I would love to hear from you, like old fashioned penfriend! Sallystoddard5@gmail.com. Best wishes, Sally. X

Ruby

Wednesday 24th of March 2021

Hi, Sally. It's very nice to meet you. My husband has been to England several times, as a student and while working for a company that had a UK branch, and some day we hope to visit there together, if travel ever becomes a thing again.

priskill

Tuesday 23rd of March 2021

Hi Ruby -- lovely to meet you and be inspired by your story! Cheering for you to be mortgage-free and retired so you can enjoy some "you-time" -- that really resonates for me. Love your pets and your beautiful and unique bags. And the frugalista picture that says it all -- thank you for sharing with us!

Ruby

Wednesday 24th of March 2021

Thank you. It's been wonderful chatting with everyone, and I'll take all the cheering we can get. It's been a year of chugging like the Little Engine that Could, in the frugal sense.

Madeline

Tuesday 23rd of March 2021

I’ve been enjoying “meeting” Kristin’s readers and it is nice to meet you,Ruby.I am also in my 60’s so it’s fun to meet up with others who are not young moms, online on the frugal blogs. Many of us started out frugal when we were young and out of necessity—but over the years, the habits stick..and, well, they do serve us well in retirement,I’ll say that! It’s always fun to save money,I think, and to save the splurges for when and where it really counts.

Being frugal is also good for the environment and is a good example to younger generations!

Ruby

Wednesday 24th of March 2021

The habits really do stick. Sometimes I'll be doing something and realize it's a frugal thing and that other people may not do it, but I can't imagine not doing it. What else would I be doing with that few seconds that's saving a few pennies? A few pennies over a lifetime really adds up.

That reminds me: I never explained about the three pennies in the photo of the striped bag. Almost every day, I find pennies on the sidewalk outside the entrance to the building where I work and I pick them up. Don't know if it's students or the construction workers next door, but someone hangs out there and cleans out their pockets of that "annoying" change.

MB in MN

Tuesday 23rd of March 2021

Hi Ruby! So wonderful to "meet" you and have a face (even a masked one!) to put to your name. Enjoyed seeing your lovely home, beautiful handmade bags, and precious pets, too. Thanks for sharing!

Ruby

Tuesday 23rd of March 2021

You're welcome. It's been lovely chatting with everyone.

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