Gearing Down, part 7 -- Personal Care

Personal care expenditures are one of those things where it may be easy or difficult to reduce when confronted with a sudden financial reverse. Obviously, if you are one of those people who routinely spends hundreds of dollars on hair styling, manicures, pedicures, facials, high-end makeup and the like, it may be painful to give them up, but it is possible to realize substantial savings by making the sacrifice. However, if you're already in the habit of using off-brand soap and shampoo from the dollar store and trim your own hair when it starts showing too many split ends, it's going to be difficult to squeeze much savings out of this area, for the simple reason that you don't want to fall into the trap of false economy.

Personal hygiene is an important part of physical health, and especially when you're in bad financial straits, you really don't want to become ill with preventable problems. So essentials such as soap, shampoo and toothpaste, things that enable you to maintain basic cleanliness, need to stay on the shopping list somehow.

It may be possible to make things last longer by changing your habits of use. For instance, do you usually run a bead of toothpaste the entire length of your toothbrush? Although advertisements usually show toothpaste being applied in this way, since it is more aesthetically pleasing (and helps sell more toothpaste), you generally can get an effective cleaning and decay protection with a lump about the size of a pea or kidney bean.

Also, it may be possible to get free samples here and there that will help you stretch your own supply. For instance, our dentist generally gives out free toothpaste, toothpaste and dental floss with every visit. If a family member regularly travels on business and stays in hotels, they may be able to bring you spare bars of hotel soap and bottles of hotel shampoo. (One trick if you're staying multiple nights at the same hotel is to hide the used soap and shampoo before leaving in the morning. The maids won't throw it away, so you can use the rest for your second or third stay, and will put out fresh soap and shampoo, which you can save and take with you at the end of your stay).

If things get really desperate, some food pantries and other charitable organizations also give away personal hygiene items. So there is never any reason that you should have to go without the fundamental basics of personal hygiene, even if you have to give up some of the creature comforts of personal care that you've been accustomed to. It may mean needing to know where and how to ask and require the humility to be willing to ask, but there is always a way to make sure that you are clean and presentable.

Gearing Down, Part 3: Transportation

Like clothing, transportation is something in which reducing expenses quickly may not be possible in the face of suddenly straitened financial circumstances. Unless you live in New York City or a few other large cities with excellent public transportation, you probably rely upon a personal car to get you the places you need to be.

Yes, you could consider trading down to a less expensive vehicle. However, if like most people you still owe on your car, you need to think carefully before making any decisions. During the early parts of the loan, it is very possible that you owe more than you can get for your car. That means that trying to trade down to a less expensive car would not realize any significant savings in your monthly car payment unless you've been driving a really high-end car. Even if you are driving a paid-off car, unless it's a real gas hog, you're probably not going to be money ahead to try to trade down to something smaller and more fuel-efficient.

However, there are other ways that you can reduce your transportation costs. Most immediately, rethink your driving habits. Most of us go about our daily errands without too much thought. When we need to get something, we go and do it. As a result, we may make a dozen small trips over the course of a week, picking up one or two things at each time. If we can plan out what we'll need over the course of a week and make one or two major shopping trips do, except for the sort of emergency we simply can't anticipate, we can save enough gas that we'll have money for some other bill.

On the other hand, don't skimp on the really important stuff. For instance, it may look like a short-term savings to skip routine maintenance such as oil changes and put that money somewhere else. However, while you may get away with delaying your routine maintenance for a week or two to get you to a paycheck, in the long term it's a false economy. Forcing your engine to run too long on dirty oil can do damage that will quickly negate the savings, and if you can't afford to repair or replace your vehicle, could leave you without transportation altogether.

Another sensible way to reduce your transportation costs is to rethink your leisure time activities. Obviously you don't want to cut them out altogether, because you need some form of rest and recreation for your mental health. But you don't have to spring for expensive airfare to distant places, or even gasoline for a day-long drive, to have fun. Instead of one long trip for a vacation, you might want to look at the possibility of several short day-trips to local destinations. You might be surprised at the range of activities your local area offers, including parks, museums, art galleries and concerts. Many of them don't even charge an admission fee.

The Green and Thrifty Intersection

Although it's common to regard environmentalists as all a bunch of hippie wackos, there's a strong congruence between the resource-conservation positions of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and "Waste Not, Want Not." In fact, I've often observed that the environmentalists could have gotten a lot further with conservatives if they'd packaged their messages in terms of thrift and saving by avoiding excess instead of in terms that came across as Gaia-worship.

And while groups such as Freecycle were originally organized in order to keep usable goods out of the landfill, they can also be a great way to pick up things that still have plenty of use in them. In fact, many Freecyclers will use need as a criterion in deciding whom to give an item when they have multiple responses to an offer.

Rediscover Your Public Library

How much are you spending each month on books that you only read the one time? How much goes into video rentals? Especially if you're on a program such as NetFlix that charges you every month whether you watch anything or not, those fees can add up fast.

How can you stem this outflow of money without having to do without books or videos altogether? Your local public library may be able to help. Most libraries not only have a broad selection of books, but also boast sizable collections of videotapes and DVD's on both educational and entertainment subjects.

And if you're having bad memories of getting dinged with overdue book fines because you lost track of a book, worry not. Today most libraries have online catalogs and circulation systems that allow you to log into your library account from any Internet terminal and check what items will be due when. Many can even send automatic reminders to your e-mail address when books are close to coming due.

So be sure to check out your public library, and discover the savings.