If You've Ever Had to Drastically Alter Your Monthly Expenses On Short Notice

[WIS0320]

What did you cut first? I know food is a biggie around here and we could cut that back, as well as heating/cooling. I know reducing cell phone plans, TV Fios and other extras is also necessary.

 

Any tips? Any great ideas? Anything that kept you motivated? I'm trying to find 1k per month in the budget and it is going to be tough.

 

Thanks!

[jallison25]

cell phones or home phones, internet, food like you mentioned, any gym/ymca memberships. combine errands and don't leave unless you really need to (saves on gas), see if there is anything you can sell around the house...ummm tutor other kids?

[Blueridge]

Magazine subscriptions, local newspapers, private lessons, watching electricity usage...I'm thinking of more things like garage sales, selling larger pieces of furniture on Ebay...

 

ETA: Another thread contributor posted this link to a great blog. I flipped through the articles, and this one on saving at the grocery store was full of helpful suggestions: http://www.momadvice.com/food/surviving_grocery_hike.aspx

Edited October 13, 2011 by Blueridge

[twoforjoy]

I have a friend who recently had her income cut in half. She was able to renegotiate a lot of her bills. She spent a few hours on the phone and lowered her monthly expenses by $400/month. Assuming you've been on-time and reliable with payments in the past, if you call, you might be able to negotiate lower payments, especially if it's a short-term thing. She was also able to defer her student loans for the year.

 

I'd definitely suggest making calls to anybody you regularly pay bills to, to see if they're willing/able to work with you. Many probably will be.

[StephanieZ]

When the economy went south in 2008, and our small business was vulnerable, we:

 

+ cancelled vacations

+ started mega-couponing and so cut grocery budget from 1000+/mo to under 400/mo

+ moderated long distance (gas expensive) trips to family and planned car travel to minimize outings (do several errands at once instead of multiple trips)

+ stopped eating out or taking food out by 95% (and when we did go out, it was with coupons, and we never bought sodas, dessert, etc).

+ nearly completely stopped all discretionary shopping (impulse household doodads, linens, etc) at Target, Walmart, Amazon, etc. I just never went in those stores

+ cut clothing purchases 90% +. I have enough clothes to last a lifetime. The kids had extras. We replaced needed shoes, etc on the cheap, but didn't do the impulse buying I was famous for.

+ cut impulse book buying nearly 100%. Reread classics and stuff on the shelf. (I did not significantly cut school related purchases, just impulse extras which added up a LOT)

+ cut all going out (movies, plays, etc) by 90% or more. Only vital kid-related stuff on occasion. Everything else was OUT.

+ moderated gift giving. Our kids don't count costs, so the $300 in presents was just as exciting as when we've spent $1000. Noone except kids and my mom got presents. The extra $$ went to the kids' presents. Needed items were a big part of the presents, too. This habit has served us well, too, as I used to be RIDICULOUS in what I spent on gifts.

 

Those are some I can think of off the top of my head. It was a rough year or two, but we didn't really miss a thing. It also helped make better habits for us, so we are more frugal now even since the business came through the recession fine and we are less tight $$ wise. The experience served us well, I believe.

[SKL]

If your taxable income is going to decrease and/or you are expecting more deductions/credits for 2011, look into reducing how much tax is withheld from your paychecks. If cash is tight, there's no point giving Uncle Sam an interest-free loan. If you've already paid at least 90% of the year's expected tax liability, you can reduce your withholdings to zero for the rest of the year. (Don't forget to re-calculate early in 2012.)

 

Second-hand clothes (or just re-using last year's) can also save lots.

 

Check eBay before you pay full price for holiday/birthday gifts. You can find brand new stuff for very cheap sometimes.

 

If you spend a lot for gasoline, stop driving faster than 55-60mph (the most efficient speed for gas mileage), and consolidate trips. I cut my grocery trip to biweekly because I realized that the gas alone was costing me $8 each time.

[fairfarmhand]

bundle trips...ie. dh drops by the grocery on the way home from work. I live 20 min. from everything, so this would save my family prob. 100 a month on fuel.

 

I could probably shave about 100 out of groceries by sticking to 3 meals/day, no snacks, no desserts.

 

Moving the thermostat helped our electric bill, as did using a clothesline. I've taught my kids to hang up towels (they used to toss them in the dirty right after using them once) and rewear clothing that is not dirty (ie. just sat around the house in them all day)

 

Perhaps cut back auto insurance to liability if possible?

 

wow, a thousand bucks is alot to cut back.

[twoforjoy]

Oh, and I'd look into Amazon's "Subscribe and Save" service for household items you buy on a regular/semi-regular basis: diapers, beauty products, toiletries, paper towels, batteries. You can save a LOT that way, and you are free to cancel or modify your subscriptions at any time.

[Momma2Many66]

You can get some great advice on this topic over on the Dave Ramsey www.livinglikenooneelse.com forums. I go there often whenever I need any kind of financial living advice or information on fixing my budget.

 

Besides that, we cut out cable/satelite and got netflix streaming only for $ 7.99 a month. We lowered our weekly grocery budget to 100 a week for our family of 6 by shopping the outside perimeter of the grocery store, growing some of our own foods in our garden and making most everything from scratch. If you don't have acrerage, you can learn container gardening ( I did this for years when we lived in the city) and grow many of your veggies in small pots on a deck, porch or windown sill. Do a search on the internet for a how to on container gardening, it saves a fortune and you can do it all year round.

 

We drink water instead of pricey sodas or juice.

 

We have no cell phones and just have a land line phone without long distance and verizon internet service. These two services (the landline and verizon dsl costs us $ 49.00 per month for the two combined).

 

We lowered our electric bill by keeping lights off when not needed, using computers/tv sparingly and using fans instead of air conditioning as much as possible in summer months.

 

We save on oil heat by keeping out thermostat to 63 in the winter and wearing warm sweaters and sweatshirts in the house, heavy sweatpants and even winter beanie hats if necessary. We learned to adjust to the tempertue and actually prefer our home cooler now then when it was so stuffy hot. It helped our allergies and eczema/dry skin to keep the heat lower, because we don't feel so "dried out".

 

We shop GoodWill and yard sales/thift stores for all our clothing, domestic and household needs.

 

I only go out once a week and do all my errands on that one day to keep gas costs low for our family. My husband sold his truck and bought a cheap beater car for less then 2,000 cash to get better gas milage when he travels back and forth to work. He now gets 26 miles per gallon on the beater compared to only 12 on the truck. We now only spend 25 dollars a week on gas for him to travel the 30 minutes to work and the 30 minutes back home again. We used to spend more than 60 dollars a fill up weekly on the truck.

 

We share our trash pickup bill with a neighbor now and each pay half to save costs. We recycle a lot of our trash or we found ways to make much less trash.

 

We cancelled all credit cards and paid off any we had (this was years ago, we now have lived credit card and debt free for the past 4 years).

 

We pay for everything in cash and cash only.

 

We stopped all extra curricular activities and spent more time playing at the large park across from our house instead of paying for sports, gymnastics or art classes or exspensive entertainment activities.

 

I sell whatever I can on ebay or through craigslist to help with household exspenses.

 

I sell my old curriculum to pay for the next year's curriculum or I swap with friends who homeschool.

 

We live on less than 2,000 per month without any goverment help or assistance. I could probably cut that even more If I had too, but we live just fine on that and even can put a way a small bit each month into savings or sinking funds ( money for larger bills that come up yearly like car insurance, heating oil, car repairs ectera).

 

There are many ways to change your budget to make living less costly. It is hard in the beginning, but after awhile it becomes a way of life and you get really excited about finding new ways to cut costs and live simpler.

 

I should say that we originally started living more frugally to save money to purchase our 11 acre farm almost 12 years ago. After purchasing our farm (with half the money down) we moved here and continued to live somewhat frugally for years, but not yet debt free ( we still had credit cards and still spent money we didn't always have on hand). We made lots of stupid mistakes with our finances . Four years ago when my oldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer at 18 years old it really kicked us into gear to get our lives on track to live much simpler and more natural. It was then that we cut costs like food that wasn't healthy, got rid of all credit cards and paid them off, started Dave Ramsey and paid everything only in cash and began to be careful with where all our money went each month. We had enough stress from the cancer, I didn't want anymore stress from finances, so we eliminated the stresess that we could.

 

I enjoy our life now, we are stress free because we don't live with debt any longer and we pay everything in cash. If we don't have the money in our hand to pay for something, we go with the thought process that we really don't need it or we save for that item. Many times we end up finding out that we cope just fine without that item that we thought we needed so badly.

 

Life is actually much easier for us now that it is simpler. We have less wants and more enjoyment of what we do have. It has been a growing experience for our family to learn to live on less and to learn to enjoy what we have much more.

Edited October 13, 2011 by Momma2Many66

[Carrieann]

We are in that boat right now because we are moving sooner than expected and have to come up with more money for our downpayment on the new house. A lot of what I would suggest I've seen on here but another tip would be try to reduce the amount of laundry you do. I know it's not for everyone but I am waiting longer periods of time between changing sheets, wearing my my jeans, sweatshirts, and pajamas more than once before washing, etc. The kids are on board with it too and making a concerted effort! It makes a small difference but those little changes add up quickly. Also, we have a farmer's market so we are going there weekly and planning menus around what's in season in addition to eating more vegetarian meals a week (we are a meat and potatoes family).

[jamajo]

MOMtomany wow.... I'm glad my husband isn't on these board because he would be looking at me like "you need to take notes from her!"

 

Just last night we had a discussion about our grocery bill. I think $600 a month for a family of 5 with preteen/teen girls is pretty good! I just posted earlier about my savings from ALDI and I cut coupons to shop at double coupon stores. I still go over budget by approx $25 per month.

 

I just don't know .... and the doctor suggests putting my daughter on a yeast free diet so I'm not sure how this will affect the budget.

 

DH suggests I keep an inventory of what I buy so we can figure out and what percentage of the budget goes where and look for trends so that I can make decisions about how to shop.:001_huh:

Really?

 

He really has no idea how much I have to do and this is just adding to the heap. However, I believe it will be a great case study to see what we spend the most on and how we can change behavior. I just mentioned to the kids that one cup of OJ at breakfast and one cup of flavored drink a day will be it going forward and water drinking will increase. I case we will have to drink tap water as I do buy bottled water:tongue_smilie:

 

Does anyone just get what they need w/o thought to a budget? I hate budgets...but I know it is necessary. I know millionaires stick to budgets as well. The best run Fortune 500 companies do too so why should my little family be any different?

[Momma2Many66]

MOMtomany wow.... I'm glad my husband isn't on these board because he would be looking at me like "you need to take notes from her!"

 

LOL ! :lol:

 

Remember, it took me over 12 years to get where we are now :001_smile:

 

It was not easy, but now it is much easier to live like this since we moved into it slowly and cut things a little at a time.

 

Some things we got rid of right from the beginning, like our cable and satelite and we never had cell phones. I was also working full time 14 years ago (before getting pregnant with my now 13 year old son), so we put my whole paycheck away at that time towards our "future farm". I wasn't making a fortune, it was hot, sweaty and tiring factory work, but I put away $20,000 a year back then. Also, back then my oldest two children (now 28 and 23) were in public school fulltime while I worked. Once we moved to our farm and decided to homeschool my oldest daughter (then 11) and all future children to come (my now youngest 4 children) we gave up two paychecks and moved into living on just one. It wasn't as hard as it might have been had we not already gotten used to living on just one paycheck to save for our farm. But it was still hard to give up those last little "wants and extra spoils" we felt we needed.

 

We lived back then on the same amount that we live on now, just socking my whole paycheck away each month and we were able to put down 50% on our farm when we purchased it. We now, some 12 years later; only have a very small mortgage left on the property that should be paid off in the next 5 years if we continue to live carefully and stay on budget.

 

I know a budget sounds hard when you start out, but it actually becomes very free-ing when you realize every month that you no longer have to worry about where the money will come from to pay the bills, you already have it in place and have that money accounted for ahead of time.

 

We follow the process of paying next month's bill this month, so we always stay a month ahead. We don't "actually" pay that bill until it is due, but we put the money in the bank a month ahead of time so if any crisis arises, we already have the money in place to get us through the folllowing month without dipping into our emergency fund or savings. On top of that we keep a 12 month emergency fund to tie us over in case of any job loss or health crisis where my husband could not bring in an income for awhile.

 

We built our emergency fund up slowly over the years, first starting at 1 month, moving to 3 months, then 6 months when my daughter had her cancer crisis and my husband had to take off work a lot to take her for treatments or watch our young children while I stayed in the hospital with her for her surgeries. Now we progressed to always keeping a 12 month emergency fund for any problems that may arise. We learned to be prepared and it is actually very free-ing and allows us to feel much more secure and look towards our future with much more certainity and much less stress.

[ShutterBug]

Check with your insurance company (home and auto) to see if you can raise your deductibles and lower your monthly payments. We did this and saved quite a bit each month. You'll have to keep in mind how much you can still afford on a deductible if something happens and you need to use the insurance of course :).