Buy Nothing Challenge June Update: Summer Sunshine Savings and Frugal Wins

Buy Nothing Challenge

At the beginning of the year, I enlisted my wife and I to join other personal finance bloggers in a buy nothing challenge.

Fast forward to now and it’s already July. I can’t believe the year is half way over! Time sure seems to fly when you’re either busy or having fun. Luckily,  most of the time we’re busy having fun :).

So how are we doing on this challenge? I would say “not too shabby”. Sure, we actually do buy a few things. But that’s okay. The point of this challenge is to be more mindful of what little things we do spend money on. Plus most of the big purchases in the first half of the year were on items that I clearly listed in our exemptions list. This includes my Tesla.

Something Different

Followers of my blog have probably noticed that these monthly “Buy Nothing Challenge Updates” tend to encompass more and more facets of my life each time.

If you notice, I have added something different each month. At first, I started including pictures of food (who doesn’t like seeing pictures of yummy food?). Then, I started posting updates on our baby. In one of the months, I even talked about a frugal fail.

By doing this I hope to keep things more interesting. I don’t want to bore anybody by simply posting a laundry list of the things that I had bought throughout the month. Besides, I’m sure people would get tired of me saying: “Well, this month I didn’t buy any new clothes again. Hooray me!” (And surprise surprise. This month is no different. We still haven’t bought new clothes and we’re darn proud of it!)

For this month’s edition, I’m adding a few more elements. To be more transparent with respect to our expenses, I’m listing a few “non material things” that we spend money on. I’m also going to include a few details on how we “frugalize” purchases by getting cash back on the “stuff” we actually do buy. And finally, I’ll share a big “frugal win” that I’ve scored this past month.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Non Material Things We Spent Money On

While I consider my wife and I to be relatively frugal, the fact of the matter is that our living expenses are quite high.

If you consider the gold standard of being frugal to be Mr. Money Mustache and his “living beautifully on 25-27k per year” lifestyle… then no, we are not that frugal. We probably spend about 4 times what he does to maintain our lifestyle. Nevertheless, I still think we are frugal because we live below our means and save about 50% of our after tax income.

Most of our living expenses goes toward housing. It’s the price we pay for having a nice home within an affluent neighborhood in a HCOLA state.

Taxes

I don’t count taxes as part of our living expenses. But it was an expense that we spent money on this month nevertheless since my estimated quarterly taxes of federal and state income tax were due on June 15. And what a huge expense it was! It’s the price I pay for being a high income earning professional.

If you are wondering how much, it was about $32,000 this quarter. Yes, I know. It’s more than what Mr. Money Mustache spends in a year. Please don’t shame me.

At any rate, it’s one big fat check to Uncle Sam. Only I did’t write a check. I generally earn a profit by paying my quarterly taxes online using a cash back card.

This time, however, I used travel rewards cards to generate 220,000 in points and miles. If redeemed effectively, these points are worth far more than the cash back profit. I’m not going to get into details of that here because I might outline what I did in a future post.

Utilities

This is the first month in which I am sharing our utilities expenses. I think you’ll find it interesting, especially our electric bill…

Water

We paid the water bill this month, which was $176.74 for the months of May and June (we are billed every two months).

One of the reasons why started closely tracking our utility bills more closely is because we are using cloth diapers for our baby. Our reasons for using cloth diapers are many. It’ll save us money in the long run, it’s better for the environment compared to disposable diapering, and it may be less irritating to baby’s skin and possibly better for baby’s health. I go into greater detail about cloth diapering here, but the bottom line is that we could potentially save about $1,800 per child. Get it, “bottom” line… (sorry, butt sometimes I “crack” myself up!)

Anyways, enough with the bum diaper jokes. Because we are constantly washing our baby’s cloth diapers, I expected our water bill to increase dramatically. Each washing requires a pre-rinse then an extra duty cycle in the washing machine. Sounds like a lot of water!

In reality, our water usage only increased by 2-3 HCF units for a two month period. (1 HCF is equal to 748 gallons.) Check out the chart of our usage below. Ignore “Aug 2017” because we unfortunately had high usage that month due to a leak. But as you can see, our water usage didn’t increase by much.

Surprisingly, our water bill only increased about 10 to 20 dollars!

Gas

Our gas bill was only $7.28

Electricity

At this point, we don’t really pay an electricity bill.

In fact, the local electrical utilities company PAYS us. (Or at least they will at the end of the year.) This is because our house has solar panels and our bill is calculated on an annual net metering basis.

So far, the electrical company owes us $526.05!!!

Sure, we pay the “sunshine tax” by living in California. But that same sunshine provides us dividends in the form of $60-100 a month (depending on the amount of sunlight the solar panels receive). Maybe I should consider this as one of my many streams of passive income…

On top of earning a significant bill credit, the sunshine provides a healthy amount of Vitamin D (something that most people are deficient in) and gives us a good dose of happiness by helping to prevent seasonal affect disorder. These are among the many perks of living in Southern California.

It gets even better. Summer has just begun and the days are long. The summer sunshine savings will continue to increase in the next few months!

Material “Stuff” We Actually Bought

Again, my wife and I did not buy any new clothes. We also didn’t buy any personal care products. The only “stuff” we buy these days is baby stuff

Baby stuff ($202)

• A set of 2 baby “onesies” for 3-6 month olds ($15). While we want our baby girl to grow, it was sad to pack away her newborn clothes. She outgrew all of them and we are already missing her as a newborn. For this purchase, we used a prepaid Visa gift card.
• Tula Free to Grow Baby Carrier ($172 including tax, and not an affiliate link). My wife has been carrying our baby in a sling for the first 3 months. Eventually she’s going to need something sturdier and more ergonomic for when baby grows even bigger. She had borrowed various carriers for the purpose of trying them out to see which she liked best. The Tula baby carrier came out the winner. We can use it up to when baby is 45 pounds and it is made by a local company in Southern California. We used a Target gift card (which was a baby shower gift) to purchase this.
• Under The Nile “Scraptopus” baby toy ($15, not an affiliate link). This was also purchased using a Visa gift card. The toy is called “Scraptopus” because it is up-cycled and made from the scraps of 100% organic Egyptian cotton left over from the Under The Nile clothing production process. It was hand crafted in a Certified Fair Trade facility free of pesticides or toxic chemicals. (We try to be eco-friendly and non-toxic when we can.) So far, it is our baby’s favorite toy! Truth be told, other than the books, it is our baby’s only toy. (Remember, we are minimalists.)

Consumable Items We Purchased

Gasoline ($30)

Unlike in May, we actually spent money on gasoline for the month of June

Now that our baby is 3 months old and much more sturdy, my wife feels more confident about taking her out of the house. This includes trips to see friends and to attend various new mom support groups. Since I drive the Tesla to work, she drives one of our old gasoline-powered cars. It’s nice for her to get out of the house once in a while to avoid “cabin fever”.

Food ($420)

For food, we spent a total of $240 at restaurants and $180 on groceries.

We are lucky to have my wife’s mom continue to make us food once a week. I know it’s not fair, but I don’t count this is as an expense.

I also don’t count the fact that a free lunch is provided for me every day at work. Also, it’s worth noting that I generally don’t eat breakfast because I practice intermittent fasting.

Below is a sample of some of the dishes my mother-in-law made for us this month.

And this…

When we cook food at home, our meals are generally simple.

But once in awhile we make an Instagram-worthy dish. Below is one such dish. We made sweet potatoes topped with a delicious chickpea “mock tuna” salad. It was nutritiously yummy.

Restaurants ($240)

• I treated my dad out for a Father’s Day dinner at one of his favorite restaurants: $75
• My wife and I went to our favorite local vegan restaurant twice: $50 ($25 each visit)
• We ordered two party trays full of food from a local Thai restaurant for a small party we were hosting: $115 (this was paid for using the Discover It! credit card, which earns 5% cash back on restaurants this quarter!)

Groceries ($180)

Most of our groceries are bought wholesale at Costco or at discounted prices from our local natural foods grocer. We usually buy oatmeal, berries, avocados, or any seasonal fruits and vegetables to fuel our whole food plant-based diet.

Frugal Wins

Earlier this month I was selected to be one of the lucky winners of a contest on Twitter.

As a travel aficionado and a points/miles junkie, I have been following The Points Guy since he first started 8 years ago. His site, along with many others, has helped me amass more than a million points and miles, which I have used to take my wife on very luxurious trips for pennies on the dollar. It’s a hobby of mine that many people sometimes call “travel hacking“.

Anyways, on June 7, The Points Guy tweeted this:

So I nonchalantly tweeted him back this…

A few days later, I was mentioned on the following tweet.

Just so you know, I had no idea I was entering a contest to win a free giveaway.

But obviously, I was pretty stocked! Who wouldn’t be happy about winning something free? Certainly not me.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I had won until he had personally contacted me. And then a few days later, I received a $500 gift card in my email inbox.

Yes, I won a $500 gift card for Southwest Airlines. I could have chosen American or Delta. But I chose Southwest because of their flexibility and because there are so many great destination that they fly to from my local airport. Plus, I have the companion pass, which means that every flight will be effectively buy one, get one (or two with a free lap infant) for free! SCORE!

In Summary

• I paid a lot in quarterly estimated income taxes, but I received 220,000 in points and miles in return
• Our water bill isn’t as high as I would have thought considering that we frequently wash cloth diapers
• We are making around $80-100 a month of passive income from our solar panels
• We still haven’t bought any clothes for ourselves this year
• The only “stuff” that we buy is “baby stuff”, and we “frugalize” these purchases by using cash back cards, prepaid gift cards, or shopping portals
• We continue to minimize our consumable expenses such as gasoline and food
• I won a $500 gift card after I unknowingly entered a giveaway contest on Twitter. Thanks TPG!

Over to You

Readers, what do you think about our expenses and savings for this month? Comment below and share your thoughts!