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Money saving tips?
Instead of focussing on the bad news we got yesterday I'm trying to concentrate on what we can do now to save money and build on our savings. Do you guys have any money saving tips, any good blogs, websites...?
What about cable/internet? We have the all the best package with Time Warner but we could cancel cable and we don't need a home phone necessarily. We would like to keep internet though. Anyone explored this and find a way to save money?
Any other money saving tips that have worked? We just started the meal planning and have been good with it the last two weeks so I hope to see some savings there.
Thanks for all the kind words yesterday.
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Re: Money saving tips?
Meal planning is a huge one! As is what you mentioned about phone, cable, etc. Also look at the little expenses and see if you REALLY need them.....Netflix, satellite radio, any subscriptions to magazines or newspapers (online or hard copy). Carpool when you can. Use coupons, just don't let them entice you to buy "extra" stuff. Order drugstore-type stuff on-line - with free shipping, it can be significantly cheaper. Have fun and free outings with the kids - picnics, the park, the capitol, etc. My parents did a lot of this growing up and we always felt like we got to do plenty of things.
Lots of luck to you.....I know it's hard and very, very stressful. It won't be permanent - you can do it! Hang in there!
"There is a fine line between a princess and a witch...thinking you're one does NOT give you the right to act like the other." my grandmother
I have called Time Warner to tell them I need to cancel stuff because I can't afford it and they offered me better deals (free DVR for a year, free turbo charged internet) to keep me as a customer. You could try that. I also am hesitant to cancel cable because we can't afford to go out much (or at all) so we stay home a lot. I need internet because I work at home.
We try to do free stuff with the kids. You probably already know about this site but this is where I find some free stuff to do. We'll also go to the park, etc. For me, I get books from the library instead of buying them.
As far as food, we never get takeout or go out to dinner. It's a pain to go to a restaurant with 2 small kids, but we also can't afford it. I try to plan meals that will create leftovers for H to take to work. We also try to do at least 1 meatless meal a week (much to my H's chagrin). I try to buy fruits/veg that are on sale, and just recently I started buying frozen vegetables to have once or twice a week so I don't have spend so much money on fresh vegetables.
Good luck! And I hope your H gets some good news soon.
Is satellite and option for you?
If you cancel cable they might be cheaper even just having Time Warner for internet. Or you could always get a land line and only use it for DSL?
Meal planning was a huge benefit for us. And coupons.
I've been looking for ways to cut costs too. We're getting rid of our home phone with AT&T but keeping internet with them. You can get DSL now w/out a phone line for $24. May not be THE fastest out there but for 24 (wireless included) it's probably the cheapest. We are currently on DISH and paying too much. DISH has GREAT deals right now for new or returning customers. I have dish through AT&T on a month to month basis for about six years now. I don't have any problems with them but new/returning customers are getting the same thing we have now for about 30-40 less. I'm going to suddenlink until I can go back to DISH. We have Sirius satellite and called to cancel and was able to get 5 months of service for what I was paying per month.
ETA: AT&T dsl w/out phone line is as low as 19.95 including the wireless router.
I have to agree with pp about cancelling the cable. We went without cable for 3 years, but mostly because we were never home. We were out and about, which cost way more money. Now we obviously don't go out as much, and cable has been a lifesaver, I'm emberassed to admit. We have the basic package + DVR in two rooms + maintenence insurance for $65 a month. Cancel the insurance and it'd be $57 a month. Cancel the DVRs and it'd be either $6 or $10 cheaper a month (I just broke this down so anyone shopping can get an idea of what DISH is after taxes).
We have Road Runner internet, top of the line high speed for $35 a month. They recently brought mine down $15 a month just because I called and asked. I definitely recomend trying that!
Good advice so far. We cancelled our cable and just have an HD antennae for the local channels. I miss my DVR but we watch most of our shows online. We have a subscription to Netflix and almost never go out to movies (it's easier to stay home to watch them too).
My parents bought us a deep freezer for xmas so we use it to store extra meat and veggies that I buy on sale. I've also been making some of our own foods from scratch - beans, sauces, etc and store them in the deep freezer. We rarely eat out - that's the budget we cut the most. We pack our lunches almost every day and we also meal plan. I don't just buy what I think we need at the store. We also use vinegar + water for a lot of our cleaning instead of harsh chemicals.
I never buy books anymore - they either get rented at the library, or I download all the free ones onto my kindle.
Ditto the pp who said we stay home a lot. We kind of enjoy it though - we're away from the home so much during the week that on the weekends we hang around home and hit up parks and stuff.
I also follow a few blogs/feeds on facebook that alert me of good deals and I try to cash in on those for coupons to eat out our activities we can do as a family or things that L would like.
Best of luck, M. So sorry you guys are going through this.
You are my hero. I'm going to check these out.
We don't have cable, and it is a pretty painless way to save money.
We also don't have a home phone. Our cell phones have more than enough shared minutes. We could possibly even go down to a lower plan as we never use our whole 700 minutes each month.
We don't text and have plain jane cell phones (so no data/text plans needed).
Eat based on whatever is on sale at HEB and Sprouts. I buy a bunch of chicken when it is on sale and freeze it for later. I buy whatever produce is on special and base meals around what is cheap and looks good.
Buy store brand and generic when possible unless you have such a good coupon or sale that it is less expensive than the store brand.
If your pantry/fridge/freezer is anything like mine, you could probably eat for a long while with a minimum of purchases.
Stay out of Walmart, Target, and other stores as much as possible. The less you are in stores, the less you buy. If I wanted to stay on a very tight budget, I would actually probably make a list and send whichever person is most likely to only buy the item or items on the list.
Try to keep your house warmer in summer and cooler in winter. We have saved a lot on electricity doing this in summer, but the savings are pretty minimal since our house is heated by gas. (We actually don't follow this one as much any more since we are not on a tight budget.)
The obvious stuff--don't eat out at all if you can help it, do only free or super cheap things for entertainment, shop goodwill/garage sales/craigslist for items for your children that you can't put off buying, use the cheapest diapers you can stand, etc.
If you are about to buy something, walk around the store for a while mulling over whether you really need the item. I do this and sometimes end up putting things back after I think about it for a while.
First, I want to say I'm so sorry to hear of your situation. It is such a shame - and so frustrating!
We cancelled cable and I have to say, I really don't miss it. All I watched on cable was crap tv anyway, and a decent amount of that is online. We do have netflix though and my husband uses that a lot for streaming stuff (the whole ordering of videos thing doesn't really work for us but there is a lot available instantaneously).
Photo by Melissa Glynn
I'm assuming that you'll be writing our your budget and taking a good look at where you've been spending your money. I found that it was nearly impossible to know where to cut (or even we even need to cut a specific thing) until I had an idea of how we spent our money.
Areas to cut have been mentioned already and they really sound great. Here are my tips.
-Cook at home. Take snacks with you if you're going to be out and about for the day. Remember that $1-$5 treats/snacks add up fast.
-Menu plan and stick to it. Make big meals that will freeze well and save the leftovers for Leftover Night or lunches.
-Make a budget!!! I can't stress enough how important this is. It's also very important to see what kinds of debts you may have. I don't know how long your DH will be unemployed so any extra dollars you can save need to go into a savings fund for emergencies.
-Use local resources for entertainment such as free kid/family friendly events, the local library, playgrounds, etc.
-Communicate, communicate, communicate your finances together with your DH. This is a really scary time for you both but y'all need to sit down and really look at this situation together. It's a lot easier to get through this rough patch if you're on the same page.
My thoughts and prayers are with y'all that your DH finds a job really soon!!!
Everyone has given some great advice. One thing that has really helped us is to make a budget. We use mint.com, too, which is a great site to combine info from all of your accounts.
Take a hard look at cable. What do you watch? Do you really need it? There are so many ways to watch shows online these days. If you stream Netflix it is cheaper than cable, too.
We only have a home phone because at this point, it is about $6/month with our internet. We don't have it plugged in, but if we cancelled the phone, internet would actually be more expensive. If you don't need your home phone, definitely cancel it.
Also look at your cell phones and get on a family plan if it's cheaper. We're saving only about $5/month, but little things like that add up over time. When you're on the phone with your cell provider, you can ask for better plans or discounted rates.
Good luck! Once you make little changes it is actually kind of fun to find other ways to save.
Ditto PPs - so sorry to hear about your situation. I've been seeing many of my teacher friends succumb to the same issue over the last couple weeks and devastated for everyone.
I don't have many suggestions to add that haven't been said already, but to piggyback on the cable thing -
Unless you guys are sports nuts, you can save $$ by cancelling cable and keeping Netflix which is 7.99/month for streaming only or 9.99/month for one disk a month + streaming. For just $60 (one time charge, no subscription fee) you can get a Roku box which will allow you to stream Netflix to your TV unless you have a Wii/Xbox/Playstation for which you can get a disk from Netflix which will also allow you to stream. Roku also recently started letting you stream from Hulu which I think is just $7 a month, and that will let you watch many shows without having cable which is what $30+ a month? There is TONS of kids shows and movies available, and always good movies and shows for the grown-ups.
You'll most definitely need to keep internet as I assume your DH will need to be applying for jobs. Not to mention the entertainment that it can provide and if you keep Netflix, you will stream tv/movies for you and your LO's.
Oh, I think someone may have mentioned this already, but we cook a lot and do our best to not buy a lot of canned/frozen/processed foods. Beans are super cheap in bulk at Fiesta. We'll make a giant pot and freeze it in a few different batches. Same with sauce. Making pasta sauce is so, so easy and very inexpensive. I can't even eat the jarred stuff anymore, tastes like crap compared to homemade.
Buying in bulk isn't always cheaper so be sure to do some price comparing. When I wasn't working I would buy groceries from HEB, Fiesta, and Whole Foods. It would take about 2 hours to get it all done, but I got the best deals because I knew where to buy what for the cheapest price. We were veggie for years and actually shopped at WF for cheaper than HEB since WF has their own brand of a lot of vegetarian products.
I'm so sorry to hear about your husbands job. That's so sucky. My MIL and SIL are still waiting to hear, so our family is kind of on pins and needles right now, too.
One thing DH and I started at the new year was budgeting. I have a seperate checking acct that he deposits a certain amt in twice a month, and that's what I have to work with for everything- groceries, clothes, activities, etc. Some months it's easy, other months it's hard, but it's kept our cc bills much much lower and I see everything online so I know exactly what I am spending. I used to just use the cc's but DH would do all the bills so I never saw what they were. It's helps a lot to see an accounting of everything.
We also don't have a home phone, no alarm hooked up, we don't go out to eat and only since I've had a sensitive pg tummy have we been getting take out at all. I'm back to cooking more now that I'm feeling better. We don't go out on dates, no movies (but we do have Netflix), I don't go to lunch during the week with friends very often, DS and I go to parks, walk the mall, anything free, our cable is the basic with DVR (no movie channels), we canceled our gym memberships a few months back, switched to a lower electric company, I don't buy near as many books anymore (I just reread all my favs and ask for books for Christmas/birthday), ditto the meal planning, I shop at walmart for most things except produce and clothes for DS, our dog eats Purina One and the cat eats Iams (vet is perfectly fine with both of these), I've been cleaning out closets and sold quite a few things on CL recently that we don't need/use anymore, try to watch the driving around since gas is on the rise, we do all of our own lawn and cleaning, do our own bug/pest control with stuff we can get at home depot. This is all I can think of right now, but if I think of something else I'll post more.
When we were first married we were trying to save every penny for a house down payment, but had a hard time finding a system that we both liked to track. We finally decided try a cash system for a few months - we budgeted our necessities and our fun money, put the cash into envelopes, and that was what we spent. It worked really well since its tangible.
ditto Ali- have a look at your auto and homeowners policy. sit down w/ your agent and trim it down to bare bones and/or shop around for a new agency.
Oh yeah, ditto this too. when we first shopped around for insurance Farmers turned out to have the best coverage for the best price. The other day DH was messing around on the Century21 website, got a quote for less than half of what we were paying for better coverage. We were paying $140/month, now we're paying $65 for better coverage. And Century21 is owned by Farmers now, so it's definitely a reputable company for insurance.