Scavenger Life Episode 194: If You Don't Spend Money, You Don't have To Work So Hard!

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We’ve been enjoying digging into the newly discovered blog, Frugal Woods. It’s nice to find others who are documenting their process of “financial independence and simple living” (we like that tagline!) They recently posted about how to be frugal as a couple which is an extremely important topic for any couple/family deciding to quit their job and depend on eBay for full-time income.

The Frugalwoods team are interesting because they’re working hard making all their money now while they have jobs that pay big salaries. They’re extremely focused like a laser beam. Then they’ll buy their rural homestead, have a nice investment account and rental that generates interest and enjoy the simple life (at 31!) We’ve done it backwards where we quit our jobs and bought the homestead first…and are now building businesses to make the money we need to live this simple life. Good news is: there’s no one right way to do it. As Ryanne said in this podcast, the internet really has opened up all possibilities for people like us to disconnect from any one system of living.

If we weren’t equally frugal as a couple, this life we’re building couldn’t happen because it’s very narrow path we’re traveling. If we had a big expense like needing to buy a $20k+ new car, or a desire to take an expensive vacation, or requiring a diamond wedding ring, it’d immediately throw off our current investment in our future like buying another rental property or paying off our home. A huge expense like that would set our plans back for several years while we work hard to pay it off before we could start building again.

Instead, we’re always talking about our plans and what we want out of life. Every detail and purchase matters. We keep track of numbers and share them with each other. The specifics can change as we gain experience and information, but the direction is always the same. WE DON’T WASTE MONEY ON BULLSHIT. The most precious thing to us is our time and spending it with each other. Any purchase that would get in the way of this is laughed off. We recently shared our plan to aggressively pay off all our debt (ie the Mortgage) in the next five years. And of course, we love the life of the Scavenger. It’s the glue that keeps us together.

So if you’re striving for a different way of life by selling on eBay, make sure your partner is on board. (Frugalwoods has a guest post for single people). Many aspects of scavenging and selling can be fun for sure, but it is a lot of work. This is why every dollar we make on eBay needs to count towards our larger goal. If we had a big hole of wasted spending that sucked our profits each month, then I can imagine that we could get discouraged quickly as we list on eBay. The feeling of “what’s the point?” could loom larger and larger if we didn’t have a handle on our spending. (See the conversation about the Tightwad Gazette) Selling on eBay works for us because it’s a wealth generator versus just a sweatshop we’ve built for ourselves.

In this is episode we discussed these links:
–We use eBay’s “Private offer” all the time to sell items to people who simply ask us questions.
–A listener asked about our Ting referral link. We each get $25 if you sign up. But no matter what, please kill your current phone bill by signing up for any of the discount carriers (TracFone, Virgin, Republic Wireless). It’s the easiest monthly bill you can reduce.
–Are you a member of the Oregon Trail generation?
–This month’s throwback episode will also be the answer to one listener’s question: How we buy and sell artwork and How we pack delicate artwork. And check out the supplies we use on a regular basis to pack.