Personal Improvement Project: Foray Into Frugality Marian Moore Bihrle November 4, 2008

1. Personal Improvement Project: Foray Into Frugality Marian Moore Bihrle November 4, 2008

2. “It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, til I have paid what I owe.” -Benjamin Franklin

3. Aim: To reduce total spending for the period of 9/25/08 to 10/17/08 by at least 75% compared to the baseline period of 9/2/08 to 9/24/08.

4. Contemplation: Rationale for change • Dartmouth tuition • No income • Economic uncertainty • Financial crisis

5. Contemplation: The Good Old Days

6. Preparation • Baseline data was readily available • Identified and then stratified spending by three major categories: Food, Clothing, and Other • Looked for patterns of preference sensitive spending, optimal places to intervene

7. Preparation: Food Organic groceries Specialty coffee drinks Really expensive sandwiches Take out

8. Preparation: Clothing Makeup Really expensive socks Cardigans

9. Preparation: Other Travel Misc./ No idea Gas

10. Action: Mapping the Process Opportunity to spend money presents Decide whether purchase is a “want” or a “need” Want Need Decide whether the benefit of purchase outweighs the cost Make purchase Reflection Yes No Conclusion Make purchase Reflection

11. Results: Total spending was reduced by 82% from Baseline

12. Results: Weekends were hardest

13. Conclusions • I was able to greatly reduce preference sensitive spending without detrimental quality-of-life outcomes • Intervention was not without trade-offs • Transparency of data capture system was essential

14. Maintenance