Re: How did you save the money?
Candace, that's a great arrangement! May not be conducive to helping you encourage him to quite, but hopefully there will be enough intrinsic motivation for him to go it alone!!!
As for us, we set a minimum budget and stick to it. We feed our family based on NZ$25 per head per week, we purchase clothes secondhand, we love the outdoors, museums and books and so have no need to purchase entertainment (but still have a rich life)......we never spent money we didn't have as newlyweds, never got into debt (just a small mortgage that we paid off in seven years), got in the habit of not really spending, also believe in being generous with what we have....and saving then naturally happens.
We keep our food budget down by growing some of our own fruit and veges and eggs, accepting excess from others, cooking everything from scratch (bread made with sourdough starter, crackers, pasta, corn chips, jams, pickles, yoghurt, cheese, kefir, sauercraut etc), eating with teh seasons, running food co-operatives (I organise an organic food co-op and a raw milk co-op so we have very healthy food for a fraction of the cost of supermarket junk food). We rarely eat out and simply do not buy highly-processed super-packaged foods from the supermarket (I have one main rule of thumb - if it cannot be replicated at home, then it probably shouldn't be eaten - this rules out a lot of products) Yes, this all takes time, but I think living intentionally does. Plus I am time-rich and have a good number of slaves;-)