Budget Living Magazine — The First Family of Frugal

Budget Living Magazine Cover

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Welcome to MoneySmartFamily.com – we’re so glad you’re here. Sadly, Budget Living Magazine closed its doors sometime in March of 2006. The people we worked with were wonderful and we were sad to see the magazine go away.

What has Replaced Budget Living Magazine?

There haven’t been any magazines that have replaced it. AllYou magazine was close, but not as deep (and they’re gone now). Real Simple is nice, not so much of a focus on frugality and budgeting – but they do present some thrifty craft and shopping ideas – kind of a Pinterest in magazine form. It appears Real Simple is trying to compete with Good Housekeeping. If you’re wanting to save money – click on our reader tips section to get lots of craft, recipe and money-saving ideas.

You can Get Lots of Budget Living Ideas in our Free Email Newsletter

Twice each month we send out our Free MoneySmartFamily Email newsletter to more than 8000 frugal minded friends. You’ll get great articles on budgeting, saving on groceries, raising money-smart kids, debt-free college and lots of recipes and videos. It’s not Budget Living magazine, but it is a great way to get your budget healthy.

Here’s a description of our experience with BudgetLiving Magazine.

In October of 2004, we hosted a writer and a couple of photographers sent by a New York magazine to do a feature story on our family.

We had a fun weekend as they asked hundreds of questions while following us through daily life including once a month cooking, repairing furniture, doing Payday, weekly schedules and coaching a Pony League baseball game.


Read the Budget Living Article Here:

You can download a .pdf version of the 6-page article here


BudgetLivingPhotoSmallWe are incredibly grateful to Budget Living Magazine for allowing our story to take up six full pages. It’s the longest feature article we’ve ever seen in this magazine.

There are a few things in the article that we think need a little explanation. One area is our four-car garage. In Arizona, most houses have no basements, and many have flat roofs, both of which make attic and other storage areas non-existent — this is our situation. Since we have only two cars and have a four-car garage, we utilize half of the garage space to house: Steve’s nine-foot workbench and tool storage area, kids clothing storage, camping equipment, large holiday decorations, collected items for a Scout troop garage sale and other Scout troop supplies — son Joseph was the troop quartermaster. Many of the items mentioned in the article are now gone as a result of our annual fundraising mega-garage sale.

Our son John (age 22) is dong extremely well and we’re very proud of him. We don’t lie awake at night worrying about his finances. He just moved into a house with a couple of buddies, is working full time with benefits, a terrific salary and is enjoying his independence.

Eric also wrote that we have, “more systems than NASA.” In fact, we have only five systems that have evolved over 23 years of marriage.

The Systems in the Economides Household

  1. Payday — for the kids. We wrote lots of details in our book The MoneySmart Family System.
  2. Once-a-Month Shopping (You can read about this in our Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half — Published by Thomas Nelson)
  3. Once-a-Month Cooking is described in Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half
  4. Schedule Night — we all sit-down and discuss the week ahead and – discussed in our third book – The MoneySmart Family System
  5. Our Household Budget — (You can learn more about this in our America’s Cheapest Family Book — Published by Random House) or from our Budget Kit Page

But overall, Eric portrayed the lifestyle we’ve chosen in a positive light and as a result, we’ve received lots of media attention, new subscribers and many encouraging letters and emails.
William Howard photographer at Economides home.The photographer William Howard (behind the camera) and his assistant Joe (on the left) were some of the nicest people we’ve ever met. They took great pictures too — you should see the photo of son Joseph, peeling onions with his swimming mask on. It’s a hoot!

By: Eric Dexheimer
Photos by: William Howard

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