Making frugality & saving into a game?
I read this post the other day and thought it was an interesting idea.
It’s easy to stay focused and frugal when you have clear debts to pay off or when you’re saving something in particular, and it’s easy at the start when you can make huge changes to your outgoings by changing a few wasteful habits. But as time goes on, as those debts disappear/you met your immediate savings goal and it gets harder to cut back because you’re already as low as you can/are willing to go, it can get boring.
This post – Gaming the System: score points with your savings – suggests a couple of ways to make it into a bit of a game. I love the idea of getting the kids to reduce utility bills but worry about the situations when the reward is buying something…
As an avid strategy gamer though, it’s definitely something for me to think about.
I usually tell te kids that if we don’t save money they don’t eat, Eldest can’t get to school (no transport in our village) and they will have to walk round naked and in the dark surviving on cold supervalue baked beans out of the tin in the middle of winter. Seems to do the trick!