My brother-in-law, Gene Kuhns, calls it being “rich in the tapestry of life.” Over the last few years, I’ve learned from my husband that you don’t have to be rich or make a lot of money to live a fun, full life. You can live large on a budget.

I decided to write this blog post because people replied to my husband’s food and travel photos, suggesting that we had money to burn. Umm…no. We just appropriate our money differently than other folks do.

12 Tips for Living Large on a Budget

My husband and I do a lot of traveling and attend live events and concerts. While some concerts can cost “a lot,” we save money in other areas to afford them. This may seem like we are rich, but my husband is just incredibly resourceful and brilliantly creative. Here are some of the things I’ve learned from him about how to live “rich in the tapestry of life.”

1. Don’t waste your money on car payments. Buy old cars for cash that are still in good shape for $2-3k.
2. Don’t buy a bunch of stuff you don’t need. If you need it, get it used if you can (estate sales, thrift stores, FB market)
3. Buy your food at more economical places like Aldi or grocery outlet. And grow your own garden.
4. Live in a house that you can easily afford.
5. Only use credit cards that earn you airline miles and never pay interest. You can use airline credit cards to pay your various bills and buy groceries and then pay them off completely each month to earn lots more miles.
6. Go to free events. There are lots of them. Check out Facebook events for wherever you are. In the Chattanooga area we have a free sculpture garden, free music nights, free events, festivals, etc. Look for them and go!
7. Buy memberships. National park passes, local art museum passes and local aquariums give you a full year of activities for one low price. Much cheaper than you’d pay for individual events. Then USE your passes! Go!
8. Buy experiences, not stuff. Save the money you’d normally spend day-to-day for food and junk you don’t need on experiences and memories.
9. If you have a business, always do business where you are traveling if you can. For example, our Phoenix trips are business related AND we get to see Dave’s family, so they’re tax deductible.
10. Don’t waste a bunch of money on hotels. If you travel, see if you can stay with a friend or family member or use Airbnb or Hotwire.
11. When traveling, eat a couple of your meals as sandwiches, nutrition bars and fresh fruit and have one nice meal at a restaurant. My hubby’s favorite travel food is cheese and apples. Intermittent Fasting has helped me a lot with saving on meals while traveling.
12. If you’re flying, get on Frontier’s list. They practically give away flights. Or check American if you want to fly to/from Chattanooga. Many of their flights are cheaper than long term parking or a shuttle to get to Atlanta or Nashville.

So there’s a few of my husband’s secrets. It helps that personally, I’m a minimalist. Give me a piano keyboard, my phone, and my computer; and I can entertain myself indefinitely.

• The featured image is a photo of me that my husband took at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in February 2020. Entrance to the show is free. There’s usually a $5 parking fee, but we didn’t even have to pay that because we stopped by toward the end of the day and the parking attendant said we didn’t have to pay.