Save Money Strategy for Government: Do Without

If I counted the ways people could save money on food, clothes, electronics, toiletries, cars, car insurance, cell phone service, movies, and other stuff, I'd still be counting. A search of Yahoo Network publications alone yielded 71,336 hits on the keywords "save money."

How we save

We save money on what we buy through coupons, rebates, discounts, sales, frequent buyer rewards, bonus programs, substitutions, less costly brands, lower quality products, less frequent buying. Innovative ways to get more for less abound in the private economy.

Saving money, however, takes time and effort. Yes, it yields savings, often measured in pennies. If the time you spend saving those pennies is worth more than the pennies you saved, the effort--in effect--saved you nothing. Nevertheless, we do it.

Do without

But the best savings of all comes from not buying at all. "Do without" is the best buying strategy for saving big bucks. Of course, you don't have the thing you wanted to buy, but the decision not to have it was yours to make. You will do without. Perhaps do very well by doing without. Life goes on.

How the Fed saves

If I counted the ways our Federal government could save money, I wouldn't be counting at all. A search of Yahoo Network publications yielded 1,643 hits on the keywords "save money Federal government." Unfortunately, few of those publications discussed the Federal government saving money.

We have discussed how we, as individuals, save money. What does the Federal government do to save money? Coming up blank, are you? Me too.

Gimme gimme government

As far as I know, the Federal government has no collection of coupons or rebate offers for saving on products or services it needs to buy. Yeah, they take bids on stuff that they order. But the orders wind up less with the lowest bidders than with the best cronies.

For individuals, saving money takes time and effort. For the Federal government, spending takes time and effort. Saving money--while the term is bandied about--really means spending money when uttered in government. Here's how that opposite logic works.

Whatever money is spent buying things to save money takes 1.) a study manned by political scholars of the subject, preferable a committee thereof, 2.) a committee to appropriate the required dollar allotment, 3.) a study of the appropriate agency to do the paying from their budget, 4.) and finally, hiring thousands to staff said agency, which doesn't yet exist, needs to be formed, have a building in Washington built to house all its employees, who are paid to stay home rather than to work to develop the budget, which is perpetually late and limitless, for paying for all the stuff they don't need.

What, do without?

The Federal government doesn't practice the "do without" strategy. But the Feds are the first to advise other Americans to "do without." Let us expend our time and effort in ways to save money while government confiscates more of ours than ever before.

Our Federal government is the biggest spender on earth. If individuals spent like the government does, we wouldn't be here talking about ways to save money. Somebody needs to demand that government start clipping coupons, stop buying, or do without superfluous agencies or itself entirely.

Yoo hoo, Yahoo!

And I'd like to see more demand from Yahoo Network for articles about Federal government saving money instead of articles about how penny-wise Americans bear that burden. Take some cues from regular folks who know what it means to save money. Because it's ours.