Saving Money?

[Leanna]

Any good ideas of how to save money from a regular budget? I need new ideas because we need to cut out like 200 dollars.

 

[andiesmama]

I need new ideas because we need to cut out like 200 dollars.

:o

It's hard....I had to make some cutbacks when we moved to make up the diff in our new higher mortgage. I started buying MOSTLY store brands at the grocery store (some stuff is though), that helped a little bit with the food bill. We got rid of satellite tv and went to cable only. That cut out $30 a month. The only thing we have on our home phone is local service...that runs like $25 a month...so get rid of long distance if you haven't already, just use phone cards...or even get rid of your home phone all-together & use your cell phones if that's a feasible option.

I'll think on it...but you know the best thing? Pray pray pray....sounds like a broken record, and I know that YOU know it, but God won't let you guys starve or suffer...just put ALL your trust in Him...I'll pray for you guys!

 

[Princessperky]

I had to do that withour budget, managed to get it down quite a bit. But I didn't do it overnight, and I didn't think I would be able to go as far as I have without feeling really deprived.

I found a site called savingsadvice relly has lots of useful things, and the best part is you can take it one category at a time, there is a whole section on energy saving and another of shopping, pick one read it, pick one habit and follow it till it is easy, next time grab another article and another habit.

I certainly don't do all of the ideas, and some don't even apply to my lifestyle, but everytime I go look there is something new I can do.

link:

[font=&quot]Saving Advice

BTW the first thing I did was lable all my luxuries, yes cable net is a luxurie, so is the computer and the TV, and the microwave. Once I was done with that I was rich, just not the richest in the world, and somehow giving up chicken nuggets wasn't so hard. (premade food is way more expensive than raw)
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[Entertaining_Angels]

Sell your son's clothes on E-Bay once he outgrows them. You can make extra money that way.

Don't turn the heat up to 70 in the house. Leave it down a few degrees and bundle up. It really does save money during the winter months.

 

[Linnis]

Dress in warm layors and keep the heat around 70 (my winter bills are cheaper, its the AC that hurts us)

Stock up on canned veggies and dry goods when they go on sale or buy in bulk. 10 for 3$ is great.

Pack up the left overs in containers and have left over night or use it over 2 days. Like my nephew knows if he picks green beans, it's for dinner twice in a row because we only have half a can a night.

Go to the Salvation Army or Goodwill for cloths and I agree about selling old cloths and stuff on ebay.

Generic is just as good, for things like tylenol, paper towels etc. Also store brand or no name brand is just as good normally, very rarely do I buy brand name....then again now if I tatse some brand name I don't like it because I used to store brand.

I keep powdered milk around and am now using it in baking and cooking and leaving the expencive milk for drinking. We tried drinking powdered milk and it was a no go.

Remember to turn lights off. Seriously, when I got big on turning things off, lights, computer etc I saved 27$ on my next power bill.

Watch out for deals that arn't really deals. Like dollar general sells their brand of TP 6 rolls for $1. But they sell 25 rolls for $5, so you are paying a dollar for 1 extra roll, so if you want to stock up on TP, it's cheaper to get 4 6 packs instead of 1, 25 pack.

Does your husband take it lunch to work or buy? If he doesn't buy him a lunch box and an ice pack, even more so if he's got access to a microwave at work. My husband likes left overs for work...he says works better if you get homemade meatloaf half way through.

 

[Leanna]

These are all so painful to read. Not turn the heat up to 70? I HATE cold. I don't know if I can bear it.

Then getting rid of luxuries... thinking here. I am taking an internet class right now so getting rid of the internet isn't the best option right now not to mention it keeps my sanity so I can stay home more and the computer is a good way to pretend I am not at home as much. Does that make sense? We have the slowest version of DSL, it takes a long time to load pages. (its the cheapest deal)

One thing I know I can do is stay home more because each trip to the grocery store or the nearby town is costing 6-8 dollars. So I want to go to Walmart? 7 bucks down the toilet.

I don't want to sell my son's clothes because I was kind of looking at them as an investment, because I do want to have 3-4 kids and I can use them over and over, especially jammies and overalls. Put a pink onesie under jean overalls and *poof* boy outfit turns girl.

I am thinking seriously about the phone issue... maybe we could go without. We did it for a month last year and we thought we would kill ourselves.... yes exaggeration. Our cell phones don't work unless we stand outside so that's the major problem. Getting rid of long distance service would be a pickle because then we couldn't call

1. Our cell phones
2. My parents
3. Actually, anyone we know

Know why? Because our phone company rips us off by making only the people in this town, this dinky 1300 people town local and everyone else is long distance including our own cell phones. In Minneapolis all the area codes around the city were local, we could call up to 2 hours away and it would still be local. Anyway, all that aside, I'm going to ask my husband what he thinks about going without phone.

We have a contract on our cell phones not to mention we drive through the country and our cars could break down so for safety reasons I can't see getting rid of the cell phones. We only got cell phones a couple years ago after everyone else already had them and we kept saying no because we knew once we got them we'd never be able to go without..... eeek!

We have dish network for our tv service, and we went without for a month when we moved in but we decided to get it because its 29.95/month and its sort of like the most worthy item of our entertainment budget. I don't know how it is in the city, but out here in the country you actually can't get a SINGLE channel, no not one, without cable or something. We can look ahead, see movies on, and plan on staying home on a Friday night and I'll make lasagna or something and its a "date" after David goes to bed.

Man this is so hard because it SEEMS like everything is a necessity even though I know its not.

 

[Leanna]

Dress in warm layors and keep the heat around 70 (my winter bills are cheaper, its the AC that hurts us)

Stock up on canned veggies and dry goods when they go on sale or buy in bulk. 10 for 3$ is great.

Pack up the left overs in containers and have left over night or use it over 2 days. Like my nephew knows if he picks green beans, it's for dinner twice in a row because we only have half a can a night.

Go to the Salvation Army or Goodwill for cloths and I agree about selling old cloths and stuff on ebay.

Generic is just as good, for things like tylenol, paper towels etc. Also store brand or no name brand is just as good normally, very rarely do I buy brand name....then again now if I tatse some brand name I don't like it because I used to store brand.

I keep powdered milk around and am now using it in baking and cooking and leaving the expencive milk for drinking. We tried drinking powdered milk and it was a no go.

Remember to turn lights off. Seriously, when I got big on turning things off, lights, computer etc I saved 27$ on my next power bill.

Watch out for deals that arn't really deals. Like dollar general sells their brand of TP 6 rolls for $1. But they sell 25 rolls for $5, so you are paying a dollar for 1 extra roll, so if you want to stock up on TP, it's cheaper to get 4 6 packs instead of 1, 25 pack.

Does your husband take it lunch to work or buy? If he doesn't buy him a lunch box and an ice pack, even more so if he's got access to a microwave at work. My husband likes left overs for work...he says works better if you get homemade meatloaf half way through.

Yes he brings his lunch, usually leftovers, we are getting better and better on the food aspect. I've become a better cook over this last year (allow me to toot my own horn ) and I've figured out some great meals that will feed us for 2-3 days straight for a great price, yeah. We're a small family so lasagna or chili will last for 2-3 days and David doesn't each much yet.

I've been told that turning lights off and on actually costs MORE than leaving them on, the intial "spark" is the main cost.

We get our milk for free through WIC.... they give us 5 gallons a month and thats enough for everyone and everything we do.

 

[Linnis]

Well I did 1 month of turning things off to test it, from one billing date to the next and the bill went down. We kept AC and everything else the same. So I don't know.

Sometimes since it's only the 3 of us, I'll switch it up and save something from monday for wednesday and tuesday and thursday to mix it up.

 

[RooMama]

I've been told that turning lights off and on actually costs MORE than leaving them on, the intial "spark" is the main cost.

I think that's only true of flourescent lights.

 

[andiesmama]

I think you can get rid of long distance...just buy the phone cards at WalMart or your grocery store...like 200 minutes for 10 dollars or something like that. Then use those whenever you need to call long distance.

I also agree with turning off the lights...it's the flourescents that cost more to turn off & on..I'm always going behind my DH & Andie, turning off lights in the rooms, etc.

Do you have ceiling fans? If so, you can turn your AC up higher/warmer, & just leave the fans on low all the time...cheaper that way. I keep my AC at 78 but leave the ceiling fans on & it stays really cool in the house.

You can make it work sweetie...it'll all be fine, I promise!! Maybe make a list of EVERYthing, then you & hubby can discuss whether or not you can do without it?

 

[Leanna]

We are definitely cutting out long distance phone, maybe even the phone altogether.

Maybe it would make a difference for you all to know that we use flourescent lights.... lol.... in the kitchen and the living room, just not in the bedroom. So that explains it. We bought them for energy efficiency.

 

[andiesmama]

Maybe it would make a difference for you all to know that we use flourescent lights.... lol.... in the kitchen and the living room, just not in the bedroom. So that explains it. We bought them for energy efficiency.

Our new house has them in the kitchen, laundry, and garage. We also bought some of those new flourescent light bulbs...they're pretty cool and supposedly more energy-efficient than regular light bulbs.

So yeah, the turning off/on thing wouldn't be a good idea for you guys, at least in the kitchen and living room!!

 

[Leanna]

Yes they are the little light bulbs and with the shades being off white in the living room lamps you can't tell they're fluorescent

 

[shainamsu]

when we found out we were pregnant, we hadn't even made our first mortgage payment on our first house yet, and i was so sick in my first trimester that i had to leave my job, cutting out half of our income, and we had to seriously get into a stricter budget.

we did most of the things that have been mentioned so far, but the best thing that we did is keep a written budget. there's the quote "if you don't tell your money what to do, it will leave," and that was true. once we had a written budget and we could see, on paper, where everything was going, it was much easier to decide what could go and what was absolutely necessary. anything -- anything -- that was left over was promptly put into savings. it seemed kinda sad at first, b/c the day after he gets paid, we pay all of our bills, get out cash to put into envelopes (grocery, haircuts, clothing, gas, etc) so we don't overspend with a debit card, put everything else into savings, and our checking account is at almost zero dollars. it was funny, but the written budget made sure that everything was taken care of, and there were no worries, and it helped us save a lot of money over these past few months.

hope it helps.

 

[Leanna]

Have you read The Complete Financial Guide for Young Couples by Larry Burkett? Thats where I first heard of the envelopes. We have a budget, and it doesn't work and thats the problem.... it doesnt work because we dont make as much as we have expenses...eeeek!

 

[shainamsu]

Have you read The Complete Financial Guide for Young Couples by Larry Burkett? Thats where I first heard of the envelopes. We have a budget, and it doesn't work and thats the problem.... it doesnt work because we dont make as much as we have expenses...eeeek!

i actually got the idea from dave ramsey's "total money makeover," just for couples or people who were in way over their heads. funny enough, i had no financial worries when i read it -- my pastor had my husband and i read it as part of our premarital counseling. but i think it's saved us from some serious blunders and help us put our finances into perspective.

 

[KristyAnne]

I second (third?) the phone card idea. We always used to have huge long-distance bills, due to the fact that the majority of our family are long-distance. We've made it so it's impossible to call long-distance and mobile calls through our phone provider, and we each have a ten dollar card to use a month, with the same flat rate at all times of the day. It's so much cheaper, we are saving about $50.00 a month. I don't know how phone pricing is in the US, though, but it's definitely worth checking out.

Also, go through your shopping receipts and see if you are buying things that you don't really need. And take note every time you buy little things, then add them all up at the end of a week. It's amazing how much money is spent on junk (in our case, at least ).

Do you use hot or cold water for washing clothes? It is cheaper to use cold water.

I hope everything goes well for you.

God bless.

Kristy

 

[Princessperky]

These are all so painful to read. Not turn the heat up to 70? I HATE cold. I don't know if I can bear it.

So don't go straight to 70, just drop it down two degrees, you don't want to know how cold my house will be this winter, but I can assure you it didn't get there overnight .

On the phones, shop around for a plan on the cellls that includes free long distance, ours does, we have no home phone, the cell is more than a home phone is, but like you a lot who we call is long distance. (and all of those are made under the free minutes included in the plan)

 

[snarfywarning]

On the topic of Florecent ligh bulbs,be sure that you dont use them in recessed lighing fixtures!
We just had a major blow out in our house because of a florecent light that blew out in a recessed lighting fixture. It gets too hot, and causes the plastic on it to burn and short out. It threw the braker, and it smelt like bruned plastic for like a week.

 

[Linnis]

Have you thought of prepaid cell phones? They work for my husband and I. We use U.S Cellular and I can use my minutes to call any US area code for no extra cost...I call my friends in FL & CA and it's just $51 a month. We pay it the same day of the month and haven't once used up the 400 daytime minutes.

Well actually it's 45, but we pay an extra six dollars for phone insurence so if it's lost or stolen, we get a replacement cell phone.