When Jude was born and we made the decision I would stay home pretty quickly. It was a very thought out plan and since then nothing has gone as planned lol. With both of us working we were bringing in plenty to pay the bills and lot's of fun money left over. Once I started staying home all the fun money went and we had to make some quick lifestlye changes. Here are some of the easy ways we made cut's in our budget.
1. The first thing to go was our cell phones. Now this one was hard. I thought I NEEDED my smartphone to live!! Well as soon as our contract ended we changed over to straight talk. I have a basic "dumb" phone but for unlimited talk,text,and data I pay $45.00. Alan uses his phone less so he went with the 1000min,1000text,and 2gb data for $35. Total it cut our bill down from $165.00 with our contracted plan to $85.00 after taxes!! That's a savings of $80.00 a month!
2. The next thing we did was cut out the cable. Let's be honest we pay TO much for cable in America. Our monthly bill for cab;e and internet was $135.00 a month! We bought a Roku for $75.00 and cancelled our cable. We subscribe to Netflix, and Hulu both $7.99 a month. There are SO many free channels on roku to take advantage of. We also may be doing amazon prime in the future which is $79.00 a year. We did the month free trial and loved it. So we know pay $19.99 for internet, and $16.00 for netflix, and hulu for a total of $35.99. A total savings of $99 a month!!
3. This one may not apply to everyone but quitting my job cut our gas bill DRAMATICALLY!. When I was working I alone was spending close to $300.00 a month in gas. By cutting out that trip daily we saved $300.00 alone. I've also learned to not be out gallivanting. We try to do all our shopping, errands ect 1 day. Then we go to church and any social activities on Sunday while we are out and about. We budget $100.00 a paycheck so $50.00 a week. There are times we have to allow a little more but on average we get by. When I was working we were spending roughly my $300.00 and then alan spent about $150.00 so $450.00. So was have saved about $200.00 a month there.
4. Entertainment has been our struggle. I love to shop, and go out and about. We have had to learn to limit this. We have started having movie nights in more often. We also limit eating out. Before I quit we were eating out about 3times a week! Averging about $20.00 a meal that's approx $60 a week so $240 a month! Now with two incomes that was no problem but that was not going to fly one 1 income. At first we cut back to only eating out Sunday after church. We realized quick that $80 a month is alot! So now we eat out once a month after church. We also allow $20.00 each in running money in case we have to grab a quick lunch when out and about.
5. Groceries has to be the hardest of all to cut. With the price of foo din America on the rise it's hard to feed a family of 3 cheap! We like to eat Organic as much as possible and that makes it even harder. I've learned that less is more. We are learning that we can cook with whole foods from scratch a alot cheaper then convenience foods. I won't lie it can be an upfront investment. I would not suggest diving head first into whole foods. We had to slowly use up what we had and start adding the better versions. We went from eating all convenience foods before I quit working with a grocery bill of approx $325.00 a month and I can know feed us on approx $200.00 a month. So a cut of $125.00
So with these 5 cuts in our household we were able to save approx $675.00 a month! Almost equivalent to me working a part time job. Now everyone's life style is different and some or all of these may not work for your family. The main goal is to evaluate what you need vs what you want. We still have fun. We still save up and take trips, and splurge on things we don't really need. You have to or you will go crazy. But once you can prioritize some things are so easy to cut you won't even notice they are gone.
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