Tightwaddin'

I'm Lewis and I'm a massive tightwad.

My partner and I save about 60% of our pre-tax income. I do it because (in the long run) I want to retire at age 50, or at least have the choice of doing a nice relaxing part-time job in my later years. Eventually I plan to move into the garden shed full-time.

I also do it because, after having being an intentionally terrible consumer for a few years, I've realised that buying more and more consumer products was not actually making me (or anyone) happy. This was an ironic realisation as I was formerly a product designer.

Neither of us is on an amazing salary - both decidedly average, in fact (admittedly we are DINKYs).

Here are some tightwaddin' highlights:

• For years we were housesitters instead of renting. We lived in a university town in NZ, which meant that the professors would often go on sabbatical for six months or so (because every other university is so far away). We were offered a three-month housesit, which led to another, and another. It culminated in a year's sit in a very grand five-bedroom house with a tennis court and a sea-and-mountains view. We didn't pay a penny in rent for nearly four years.
  
• Housesitting hasn't worked out back in the UK (I suppose since it's so easy to travel) but we can still make choices about where we live. We rent a very modest 1-bed flat that's within cycling/walking distance of our jobs. A friend of mine rents a 2-bed flat because he needs another bedroom for all the shit he doesn't use, and a garden to enjoy all the beautiful northern weather. He pays twice as much as we do, and we have a park literally on our (back)doorstep.
  
• Bangernomics. I drive a 15-year-old Ford Focus. I bought it for 600 quid, with 80,000 miles on it, from a man who had owned it since new. A lot of my co-workers lease their cars 'because new cars get better fuel economy'. My car gets 50 to the gallon. Maybe your car gets 60, but it costs you 400 a month to lease. How far are you driving to claw that back? All for the privilege of driving on the same shitty congested roads that I do.
  
• Holidays. My friend and his partner went to Iceland last year to do a 5-day hike. It cost him something daft like two grand. Iceland looks great and I'll visit one day, but Scotland's just as beautiful and our 5-day hiking trips cost maybe 40 quid in petrol plus a bit for food (and hiking food is cheap, because you can make your own flapjacks and dehydrated noodle soup). AirBnB is amazing. You could pay good money for a hotel in some European city and end up in some shit cafe where coffee is 14 quid a cup, or pay peanuts for an AirBnB which comes with a host who tells you where the best places are.
  
• Gadgets. I had my old Motorola smartphone for about 6 years before I lost it, and the fucker still didn't have any cracks on the screen. I replaced it last month for a Huawei something-or-other which is a fiver a month for more data than I can use. My colleague pays £20 a month because 'he wants to watch Youtube on the toilet'.
  
• Food. My friend and his wife spend £120 a week. Half on frozen meals and takeaways, and the other half he just throws in the bin. And he looks really unhealthy (spotty, overweight, breath so bad he leaves residue on the phone etc). We shop at Aldi and eat a lot of soups, stews, chilli, curries - all cooked up in big batches and frozen. Weekday dinners are as effortless as a shitty ready-meal. All this for maybe £40 a week, for both of us.
  
• Unexpected bonus - my family thinks I'm poor because I have an old car. This means there's always a new shirt or pair of socks waiting for me when I visit. So by saving money, I save even more money... amazing.
  
  

Reading this back it is clear I am frustrated by my peers. I am not doing this as a sanctimonious protest, though - I genuinely am a massive dirtbag. Anyone else out there? What are your reasons and goals?