REAL WANTS VS. NEEDS AND BEING GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE

what is going on YouTube I am prepper princess the author of living on almost nothing if you are interested in purchasing my book I will go ahead and leave a link down in the description box below today I want to talk to you about extreme budgets extreme frugal living um so I live in the state of California and I purchased a house for less than two hundred thousand dollars where the average price of a home here is 783 thousand dollars I live on about twelve hundred dollars a month now the problem with that is that more than 500 of that it's about 517 or 503 is medical insurance if it weren't for medical insurance I would be living on 700 a month now just to put that into context for all of you uh 700 a month is like what is it it is eighty four hundred dollars per year and I've lived on a thousand dollars a month or less my entire adult life until I move back here in the medical insurance just it got me it got me but other than that I live on 700 a month and people always say it's impossible but there are people out there that live on less than me now I'm the only person I know of that lives on such a small amount that does not accept I don't have any low income electricity bills or welfare of any sort I don't have any sort of income coming in from the government I don't have food stamps discounted medical insurance I don't have any of that stuff I'm the only person I know of that lives on so little that does not have assistance government assistance so let's let's put it that way my home is mortgage free free and clear I have no debt I use a rotating credit card that I pay off bi-weekly I don't even pay it off monthly I pay it off bi-weekly there is no Rhyme or Reason to that it's just because I'm a I'm paranoid I get paranoid because I was in debt in my early 20s and I never want to be in that position again so I make sure that my credit card is always paid off um and and people talk about expenses in the household and how they absolutely cannot live without this they absolutely cannot live without that so my brain obviously is going to be very different from everybody else's so here's what I would like for you guys to do real quick think back to when you were a kid or a teenager back then we didn't have any money you know we didn't you don't have any money as a teenager or as a kid and think of the best memory you can like just go back and think of one of your favorite memories and what is in that memory is that memory shopping is that memory at an amusement park is it buying things or is it like mine my favorite memories cost nothing okay so way back in the day when you were poor you had some used crappy bicycle no name brand that you found on the side of the road that somebody was giving away and you went and bought new inner tubes that were like two dollars each back in the day yes they were two dollars each you'd buy new inner tubes you'd fill them up at the local gas station and you had a bike that is how you got a bike when I was a kid that's how I got a bike when I was a kid what we had was these pegs so you put pegs on the front and back of your bike and and if somebody was so poor that they didn't have a bike that's okay because you can carry two passengers one on your front handlebar using the pegs and one behind you using the pegs so what me and my friends would do and we all had the pegs going on we would go down to the creek we had this Creek that was a pretty good flow and it went from our town to the next town and what we'd do we'd all go down there and then somebody would take their turn and all of us would get into the creek and find a log and go all the way down river to the next town and you're like well how did you get home one person who didn't have a bike was so excited to be able to ride your bike that you would tell them to take your bike and meet you all the way Downstream at such and such a place and we're gonna float Downstream and we'll meet you there so that person would borrow your bike and go all the way Downstream and hang out with their friends hang out with all of the friends down at the end of the creek and you would go with your friends and Ride Along the creek that is one of my best memories and guess how much money that costs it costs nothing is I have these friends who have a cabin in the desert it's been passed down like a bazillion Generations in this place called Darwin that there are actually documentaries out there about Darwin which is crazy and their neighbor is Rick Gibson who is on all of those documentaries and Bill Bruce who's on a couple of those documentaries and Bill and Becky who own the cabin would invite us over there and the best times that we had was going to this pit where you would have this big giant bonfire and you would just be burning whatever wood you could find from old sites that used to be houses you'd be burning wood and they had bongo drums and a ukulele and a guitar and we would just sit there and tell stories and laugh and have a great time look at the stars we would we would that was the best memories for me those are the best memories for me so moving on to Today We Live in an extremely consumer driven culture which I it's not that I can't be a part of it I simply don't understand it I don't understand trying to focus beautiful wonderful memories around spending money I don't like eating out because it makes me ill the fried food or the the grease that they use to cook their food or whatever makes me I I'm down for three days and I'm not talking about like I'm pooping for three days straight that's not what I mean it means it makes me so lethargic and tired now on here I talk about free cheap Frugal meals but the truth is I eat one meal a day and it's just meat and vegetables you know I I can't go beyond that and that is the cheapest way that you can eat and that's the only way that I can eat and then when it comes to people in cars the the debt that people accumulate I think that there is a huge culture shift that needs to take place where people think that they need certain things advertising every time you step every time you sit on your couch or step out your door you just gotta think to yourself everyone is trying to get my money every single person that I come in contact with every single place that I go they are trying to get me to take money out of my pocket and give it to them when you go to the grocery store you go to the mall you go to the thrift store you go to the clothing store every single person is trying to get your money so when I do things I make sure that they get as little as possible if it is a product or service that I need okay so let's talk for a second about first of all student loans mortgages medical debt you got to get rid of them those are the first things you have to get rid of because student loan debt is not forgivable in bankruptcy and medical debt is something that will follow you forever if you don't get rid of it same with student loans if you already went to college you got your degree it's too late you can't go back and get scholarships and grants you can't go back and work your way through college you have to get rid of those as soon as possible and I can tell you from personal experience that living without debt I've been living without debt for about 20 years maybe a little bit less for about 20 years debt free and I have so much more opportunity than people who are in debt have I have so much more opportunity it's not about you know flipping off your boss and walking off the job that's not what it's about it's about okay I live in this house maybe I want to move so you save up your money for two or three years and you move you just buy a house somewhere else because you have the ability to do that because a hundred percent of your income is staying with you because you're not or not a hundred percent but close to you I save about 90 of my income but that money is staying with you and you're not allowing other people to take it away there's a lot of other things that I find I I don't understand I have a 25 year old car it just hit 90 000 miles it was a garage kept Grandma car a 98 Toyota Camry runs perfectly it runs brand new it still has the new car smell and it's been 25 years almost no maintenance just oil changes and tire rotations and then eventually I'll need a new battery but that's about it 25 you 25 years old I have liability only insurance and people always tell me I need full coverage let's talk about wants versus needs for a second here you want full coverage you don't need it you don't you simply don't need it um there is a huge again with marketing they're trying to get your money there is a huge problem with people not understanding anymore because you are bombarded with ads 24 7 all day long all the time there is a huge disparity a big disconnect between wants and needs what you need is food water and shelter what you want is steak soda and the nicest house in your town that's it and then every time I tell somebody something like you know you don't need that big fancy house they will rebuttal with something like but the school district I want them to go to perfect schools the dumbing down of America it doesn't matter what school you go to I see people graduate from school that are morons I I met somebody who was I don't know 45 years old had a master's degree didn't know what a CFL or LED bulb was or incandescent they didn't know what any of those were they didn't know so you can graduate from college and be a I don't believe in college anymore I believe in trades because trades are going the way of the dodo and if you are a plumber or a contractor or an electrician right now you have the ability to become a multi-millionaire because they are few and far between they're hard to find in their heart you'll never be out of work if you have those jobs people but people always say that they need something that they don't and it's it really is a justifiable thing in their mind they're just trying to justify a purchase in their head so I say I have little liability only car insurance and they'll say but what if but what if you get into a huge accident with so and so and it's all your fault well for starters that's not going to happen I very rarely drive my car I'm a defensive driver and even if I had full coverage full coverage that person can sue me for the entire amount of my what my car insurance will pay they'll say it's not enough and then they'll go after me personally in in civil court and they can do that to anybody so what's the point and then having full liability coverage if my car is only worth Kelly Blue Book three thousand dollars but I have full coverage and I'm paying two thousand dollars a year for full coverage a year and a half I've already wasted the money of what it would have cost me to replace my car and people always have a butt there's always a butt always a butt in their mind I tell people to switch to Mint mobile their cell phone and they'll say like um they'll have some cell phone plan that's a hundred and twenty dollars a month and I'll say switch to Mint mobile it's 15 a month oh well I like my service well how do you know you're not going to like the mint mobile service and then they'll say oh well I don't get mint mobile service in my area okay well mint Mobile Works off of Verizon or at T or whatever it is and then Boost Mobile Works off of Sprint this is not accurate I'm just saying Boost Mobile mobile is 15 10 or 15 a month you're paying 120. go with them it's the same network we'll we'll um I can't because my husband says so you know whatever reason it's always a justification in their mind and then I will say things like they'll say whenever people are freaking out they've got their back up against the wall they're about to declare bankruptcy the first thing that how can I save money on laundry really okay so let's do the research on laundry the majority of the cleaning is done by the agitation cycle in the washing machine not by the soap the soap is first of all people overuse it like crazy and what happens is that the soap suds stick to the fibers onto your clothes and then they attract dirt and they make them more dirty so that you'll have to buy more laundry soap in order to get your clothes clean stop using laundry soap if you want to save money on laundry stop using laundry soap or get a zote bar which they sell for 58 cents now and just do spot cleaning and then the residue left from the spot cleaning throw it in the washing machine there's your laundry soap 58 cents per bar and it'll cost you 58 cents for probably six months worth of laundry washing and if you want to save more money wash it in a bucket you know you know trying to save money on something so trivial and so small and so little is not going to make a large impact on your finances over the long term you have to go after the big stuff the big stuff so you have to go over your mortgage your medical insurance your debt your debt is the biggest thing that is going to stop you from becoming free financially free financially independent is going to stop you from becoming wealthy and people you have to stop making excuses in your head stop justifying these huge purchases that are unnecessary that you say are necessary they're not you say um oh that's a nice seventy thousand dollar truck you just bought for commuting that gets 12 miles to the gallon oh well I need it because the kids have to go to soccer practice or something I don't know what it is well couldn't you do that with a sedan no but it's way way better to do it in this big giant truck I've met people who have five kids and have one car and it's a sedan and they can do it why can't you uh well because they just wanted the truck and they're justifying in their mind that the reason they bought a seventy thousand dollar truck was for their kids which is ridiculous and then you start talking about houses well if you are dying in your mortgage and you can barely afford to make the payments and then people will say well it's an investment for my future no it's not because if you're taking out a 30-year loan and you have a 20 down payment with interest rates the way that they are right now if you buy a 500 000 house over the course of 30 years you've paid over a million dollars for the house then you go to sell the house for a million dollars which is what you paid for it but you think you only paid 500 000 for it but you really paid a million for it because of the interest you go to sell it and then after all of the improvements that it you have to put ten thousand dollars into improvements and then you have to pay the realtor fees of whatever percent it is four percent so forty thousand dollars so that's fifty thousand dollars in the hole that you are because you were making an investment a house is a liability not an investment so if you're going to buy a liability buy the cheapest liability that you can buy that's what I do that's what I did cheapest house I could buy in the area that I was looking in and and that goes with everything you know somebody will say I need a new phone I but they'll buy an iPhone and it's like well you know this this LG or this Samsung was 150 or you could have bought a used iPhone for two hundred dollars but you just paid twelve hundred dollars for this iPhone why oh well I I needed a new iPhone well that was a new iPhone too why didn't you buy that one that's the older model I need the new one no you don't absolutely not that is ridiculous it's ridiculous and so when it comes to saving when it comes to not spending it's not even about saving it's about not spending I simply don't spend money on things that I don't need I don't I don't need a lot of things if I'm and if I do need something it's going to be the cheapest thing possible I buy imitation Dawn dish soap about once every two years because I water it down I have laundry Tide Pods that I paid nine dollars for now they're up to like twenty three dollars on Amazon because that's how long it's been since I bought laundry soap because I only use one pod every three washes because like I said the agitation cycle does most of the work look at my shirt it's white it's it has no stains no problems my shampoo is VO5 my makeup is from the Dollar Tree I make my own dog food I have one television I I don't I don't need more than one television I actually don't need a television at all I could watch it all on my laptop but um I only have one TV and that's going to be a new rule in every house that I live in one TV in the house that's it because if you're watching TV in the living room and you're trying and you're like I need to go to bed and then you go to bed and you turn on the TV in your bedroom you might as well just slept on the couch um just household stuff I I no longer buy decorations I don't try and update my wardrobe on a yearly basis I don't update my betting on a yearly basis um if I need something I'll buy a kitchen table and see if if somebody can give me their chairs which is something that I did over there and I renovated my kitchen and I did I did not I only bought new cabinets where I had to buy them in order to meet code in order to meet the code in California in case I ever want to rent or sell the house again so everything else was just refinishing what I already had and putting on new countertops because those got tore up but that's it I mean it it's hard to say in so many ways because I've been doing this for so long that you really do I mean retraining your brain is the best way to do this and and I get comments all the time I mean every day I'd rather die than live like you you know and and we also live in such a self-entitled society that people don't realize how lucky we have it in America the UK Australia there are literally people starving to death that's another pet peeve of mine when people go oh my God I am starving no you're not that is disrespectful to people who are starving people in North Korea and Ethiopia parts of Africa where they have distended bellies and they're covered in flies and they have no strength to move and they all they can do is hold their hand out hoping that the next traveler passerby who has a camel or a horse or something will give them something some sort of food except those people that are on those Caravans don't have any food either so they just have to sit there and watch a child starve to death and then people here in America they're they're so ungrateful and I think about those things every day and I Think Jesus and I thank God every single day for the privilege that we have here in the United States and I'm not talking about I'm not talking about crazy white privilege or female privilege or whatever if you live in the United States Australia UK you have a roof over your head and you have food in your belly you are a privileged human being and people are so ungrateful and then they say well I need full insurance I need to get that degree in uh sociology or I need to get my degree in gender studies I need to do I need a new car and then they don't think about the other people in the world they really don't and and that makes me sad sometimes and whenever I feel like I need to buy something like I need to buy something that is just a complete luxury I look at that item and it's like okay it costs 150 dollars can't I just take this hundred and fifty dollars and send it to this company that will feed that child that starving child that I keep seeing in my head on the side of the road but people don't think that way people are extremely self-centered that's something that needs to be brought back that's an old-fashioned habit that needs to be brought back think of others before you think of yourself it's a sad sad world that we live in that we can't even see the abundance and great and amazing things that are standing right in front of us and we uh sit here and act like it's not good enough like I don't get paid enough um my house is a piece of junk I hate my car uh just ridiculous things anyway okay so um there are a million different ways to save money around the house you can use less soap you can use no soap you can turn off the lights to save on electricity you can put things on a power strip and turn off the power strip at night and then when you come back home from work the next day turn the power strip on because there's not anybody in the house anyway that's gonna save you at least 30 or 40 percent off your electric bill you can wear clothes two or three times before you wash them you can use dirty socks for dusting instead of buying a professional duster you can dust with water instead of whatever dusting thing people use and you can start looking at companies that are taking your money every single time you walk out of the house and start thinking about it you know why am I walking down this laundry detergent aisle that has 300 options of laundry detergent I only need one and then I actually get overwhelmed in the laundry detergent aisle why am I buying paper towels when I can use washcloths that are reusable better for the environment and just as convenient and then people will say I need paper towels because my dog has accidents well that's what toilet paper is for um just every single purchase that you all make consider it is it a need or is it a want and if it is a need are you buying the lowest cost need that you can or are you buying the expensive one because you want that more expensive one we need if you need a car you know you can you can buy a Corolla or a Ford a Ford whatever those little forwards are or a Chevy Aveo or you can buy the big Z71 Chevy something or other and you can get 12 miles to the gallon instead of 35. it's up to you long-term choices and then you can when people say I would hate to be you it must be horrible being a Hermit try and keep up with me for a day okay you wouldn't be able to because I am almost never home me and the dogs are out having fun all day long every day I'm getting my exercise you don't know my life and I don't know yours but I do know that if you're on my YouTube channel making negative comments that your life is probably a lot worse off than mine is all right folks I hope that this video has been helpful wants versus needs do what you can with what you've got prepper princess out

Channel: Prepper Princess

Views: 44,189

Keywords: abundance, low income living, finance, budget

Id: BDELW6BMzew

Length: 26min 14sec (1574 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 12 2024