I'm having a hard time finding areas to cut back on in our life. Maybe it's me.
We had 3 cars. No car payments. 1997 Ford F-150 (DH's daily), 2005 Ford Escape (my daily and our weekender), 1991 Ford Mustang (DH's toy). Yesterday, DH sold the Mustang. It wasn't practical. We can't all fit in it, well, we can't all fit in his truck either, but that's another story. So we don't have "new" cars. My car has 120K miles on it already.
Food - I already shop at the A L D I by me for most things...the rest I get at the Wally Mart. And by rest I mean deli meat and cheese for the most part and the occasional snack food that the discount store doesn't carry. A L D I doesn't accept coupons...but I do use them at Wally's when I am buying something that I have a coupon for.
Household items - Things like toilet paper, soap, laundry detergent and the like I buy at Tarjay. I use the RedCard to get 5% off and any coupons I managed to find. My RedCard is the debit kind...not a credit card. I buy generic whenever possible.
Entertainment - We don't go out. I take that back, we do play in a FREE poker league every Tuesday. We wind up spending about $30 for dinner for the 3 of us...when we don't have a gift card. See, the 1st and 2nd place prizes are gift cards to the establishment. We usually have a gift card. When we do go see a movie, we make sure it's a matinee...we took Lexi to see Brave last Friday. We went to the 9:55am showing...the first showings of the day are usually deeply discounted. So it cost us $15. We took our own popcorn...and did buy a soda. Any other times DH and I go ourselves, which is hardly ever, we go because we have free passes. We have a zoo membership ($108 annual) that we bought last year, so we're able to go to the zoo for free.
Cell Phones - This I'm looking into. We are on the cheapest family plan right now...and we've signed up for all the "qualifiers" that get us 5% off our bill (e statements, auto debit etc). But we might be able to cut this more. Right now our bill is $150 total for both our lines.
Internet/Cable - This is the hard one. We have AT&T. We've cut our movie channels and HD service. We have basic cable. We have basic Internet (which I need to work from home). We do have a home land line and a business line I use for work. The home land line we may be able to cut...but I have to look into the bundle and make sure cutting it doesn't increase the cost of the business line. I can't cut the business line.
Clothing - DH and I wear the same clothes we've worn for the last 5 years. Lexi gets new clothes as she grows out of the ones she has (though she's still wearing some 18 month size pj's because hey, they fit). But I go to the second hand store for them. Shoes are another story. She has 3 pairs right now. Gym shoes, sandals, and a pair of "nice" shoes. But her feet grow like weeds.
What other areas am I missing? There may be things that seem obvious that I'm not thinking about...
2 comments:
I commented on yoru savings entry for ideas. You already on cell phones as did I. As for your cars...if you work from home then DH could sell his truck and you could be come a 1 car family. This will cut your gas and insurance payment. It would suck I know...but the $$ savings for now would be great and you can always rebuy when things improve.
Just wanted to give you a [[Hug]] or two.
I have been unemployed for over one year--and my unemployment extension will be over in 2 weeks.
We are cutting childcare--we have been having W in preschool twice a week so I can have time to job interviews, etc. I don't know if your husband is watching Lexi, but perhaps at least cutting back on the childcare costs to like two days a week helps.
Wishing you guys the best.
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