I've talked time and again about saving money. As I posted earlier, we decided that I would quit my gig as a milk-slinger and once again stay at home full time with the kiddos. I also stated that I was kinda nervous about this whole transition. Not that I was raking in the dough, but it was additional income and now we don't have that.
We got our tax return and paid off two credit cards. I think the remainder will go towards medical bills for the birth & some things we need to get taken care of around the house.
We're going to cancel our cable as soon as the promotion runs out. I've been making grocery lists, planning out our weekly meals and sticking to them. Although I swear I am not going to tell Glenn what I'm planning -- every week he doesn't have dinner ideas when I ask and then doesn't like the ones I come up with. This week I told him he needs to come up with some ideas!!! Hopefully it will stay warm and we can keep the heat off (although I did have to turn it on for a bit this morning). We've really been working at turning lights off when we leave the room -- Alexa is getting really good at it! We have no credit cards in our wallets so if we want to make a big purchase we have to think about it beforehand.
So, how do you save money & stick to a family budget?
We had to tighten the purse as soon as our Pnut came along, too. One major change came in the way I shopped. If you can't increase money coming in, you have to decrease money going out...simple. Although I understand why it's important to support small, local businesses, we simply don't shop in them anymore because they can't compete with the prices of box stores. I try to buy everything at Costco, except for milk and produce because we buy organic (one of our spending priorities) but sometimes there is good organic produce there too. I have had to switch brands, but we are saving tons of money. TONS. If I go to Safeway, I try to purchase very little there. Bread is also way cheaper at Costco. For entertainment, Netflix is very economical as well as purchasing memberships at a couple places you can go again and again (ex. KidQuest & zoo). Putting cell phones on a family plan and car insurances on the same plan if the family has more than 1 vehicle helps save money. Consuming less is the main thing, and making your priority your priority by not getting distracted with other things -- that is really my main problem because I *will* impulse shop & I love "stuff." I also made a list of all the things we bought and compared prices at different stores (yes that was very time consuming and tedious) for a few months and made a chart for the door, where I listed EVERY purchase, so we could see where our money was going. We did that for nearly 6 months, and it totally changed my shopping habits. I have been slacking lately, and I actually want to do it again so I get back to basics and stop wasting money when we want to save up for a house. Hope this helps!
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