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[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Rosie_0801]

 

I should have mentioned that I do that already. I've got herbs on my windowsill and a tiny square foot garden in the growing months (no success with winter gardening yet). I make my own yogurt and bake bread and that sort of thing too.

 

 

Can you make a small green house? My aunt made one from some star pickets, pipe and plastic. Most of that she got from the dump.

[Rosie_0801]

 

I'm really thinking over some "fun money" for each of us, too. I didn't think I wanted to put it in the budget, but DH brought up that he felt like it would just feel like more work and more of a hassle if we didn't have some fun somewhere. I agree, but I don't know where to go from there. I'm thinking that maybe I could just pull $5 or so for each of us out of what our grocery fund for the month will be (which really includes toiletries, guinea pig needs, hair trims for me, and coffee refills during the week for DH along with actual groceries). That should be enough for a book a month on the ereaders and enough for DH to do...something. Or is that just asking for a backslide?

 

 

You have to have a plan your DH will go along with, otherwise you'll end up very angry.

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[kubiac]

FWIW, I vote for the debt payoff option! You might want to read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover book. It changed our perspective on debt for good, and it's quite a fun, fast read.

[Reya]

When I married my husband, we lived $30k below our means AFTER putting a downpayment on a house. It allowed us to pay for our first car with cash.

[2squared]

 

 

Can I ask what software you're using? I've used Mint for years and years, and recently started playing around with BudgetSimple. BudgetSimple seems to be more what I'm looking for, but I'd like to know what else is out there.

 

I'm really thinking over some "fun money" for each of us, too. I didn't think I wanted to put it in the budget, but DH brought up that he felt like it would just feel like more work and more of a hassle if we didn't have some fun somewhere. I agree, but I don't know where to go from there. I'm thinking that maybe I could just pull $5 or so for each of us out of what our grocery fund for the month will be (which really includes toiletries, guinea pig needs, hair trims for me, and coffee refills during the week for DH along with actual groceries). That should be enough for a book a month on the ereaders and enough for DH to do...something. Or is that just asking for a backslide?

 

 

I would add some fun money, but I wouldn't include it with your grocery money. In fact, with the items you listed, I would have four different categories - groceries & toiletries, pet, hair cuts, and fun (coffee refills). If you lump all the different spending together, you won't be able to truly see how much different choices are costing your family. Food (at some basic level) is a need, pets and haircuts are more of a want, and coffee and fun food purchases are all want. When you look at your financial picture, it will be easier to separate the wants from the needs if you can see them in your budget.

 

That's actually how I have my budget set up. The first section is our needs. The second section is our savings (retirement, emergency, sinking funds, debt payments, etc), and the last section is our wants. Pets, hair, and coffee are in my want section. Netflix, Hulul, Amazon Prime, and cell phone would be in my want section too.

[Catherine]

Forgive me for not reading all of the responses before responding myself. We did this about 20 years ago. We had a baby, had just gotten married, owed around $120,000 for our educations, and wanted to buy a house. We used the TW Gazette too, it was very helpful, though I had a very frugal childhood and knew plenty already. We paid down almost all of our loans and saved a down payment in about 4 1\2 years. It was far easier to do with only one baby, because he didn't know about presents yet and we kept holidays and birthdays very, very limited. We yard saled, home cooked, even curb shopped plenty (easy to do in the city), gave each other tiny gifts on birthdays, bought almost nothing new at all. We searched for a cheap but safe apartment close to work for both of us.

 

One of the only things we spend generously on was good child care. Not working was not an option for me as I was the breadwinner (dh was still a resident) but we managed to do it without me having to work full time, thank goodness.

 

I think that psychologically, as Audrey points out, eliminating debt is the most important. As the balance dwindled, I felt so powerful! We started looking at houses and our goals seemed much closer. When we finally did buy, we still had a bit of savings, and it was a good thing as it turned out we had to replace the roof immediately and 3 months later a hurricane flooded our basement.

 

As far as keeping your eye on the prize: we have friends who are a bit older than us, are about to send their third child to college, and still owe money for their own educations. They live very well, but have no savings. No security. They experienced a job loss recently and had to refinance their house in order to get by. I could NOT live with that kind of insecurity. It would make me nuts.

 

But we are fortunate to make a lot now. I think the TW Gazette does a very nice job pointing out the difference between people who live on the edge all the time, not matter how much they make, and people who plan ahead and save. But below a certain income level, especially if one has a family, no more cutting can happen and making more is what it needed. The message of that book, distilled into one sentence, is to plan ahead, have goals, and stick to them. Not everyone will have the same goals but having a plan is empowering. Another couple of books I looked at then that were helpful were The Wealthy Barber and Your Money or Your Life. Both describe a way of thinking that is certainly not mainstream, but is very helpful.

[nd293]

We did something like this. At one point dh's salary increased substantially. After 6 months I looked at our finances and we had made no progress. None. We looked at the value of the 'stuff' we'd bought or done (holiday, new furniture) and it came nowhere close to accounting for the increased income. After that I simply worked out exactly what the increase had been, and increased our mortgage payment by that amount. It comes out of our account automatically and we don't think about it again.

 

I also wanted to add that we budget specifically for 'unexpected' expenses. I assume some major work on the car, for instance, divide that by 52 weeks (dh gets paid weekly) and set aside that amount each week. It's basically a paper accounting system to earmark savings money for ALL expenses - medical, holiday, house expenditure, car expenditure, annual insurances, bimonthly bills, etc. Some of these paper 'sub accounts' might periodically go into the red, but the overall savings pool covers them, and I can rest assured that things have been budgeted for, and we'll pay off the 'debt' to the savings account systematically. Hope that's clear - the system really helped when we started over (migrating to Australia) and allowed us to save for a deposit on a house. Now that things are financially better, the same system is allowing us to pay off the house much faster than expected.

 

Good luck! It feels so good to have a goal.

 

Nikki

[Shellydon]

Yes. We always live well below our means. We have paid off our house and paid for 8 years of college tuition for our kids (though a special program where you pay current tuition rates that can be used anytime in the future at state schools). We max our DH 401K every year and put the max into my retirement as well. It can be done! Good luck!

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Carol in Cal.]

One step that really helped us was to add up all of the recurring but non-monthly expenses we had. There was a lot more of this than we had truly realized, and it was sobering to see how much it was, but OTOH, it was also really good to know why we kept sliding into having no cash every so often. These were insurances (usually paid annually or semi-annually), property taxes, Christmas presents, wedding gifts, birthdays, and car repairs. Although we did not know an amount for each of these, they were always non-zero so we started with a guess for each one instead of getting bogged down because of inexactitude. So we added them up and divided by 12, and then started a back up savings account that had that amount going into it automatically from each paycheck. Then, when one of the bills came in, we would try to pay some or all of it from our regular bills checking account and move the savings over to an actual savings goal when we could. But that way we did not have to worry about these expenses surprising us.

[2squared]

 

 

A situation like this TERRIFIES me. This has definitely been a part of what has inspired me to figure this all out for my family. DH is the only one working. I haven't worked in years, never finished my degree, and have never made even half what DH makes. If something happened to him or he lost his job, there is no way I could support the family on my own. I don't want the rest of our lives to be financially ruled by that fear.

 

This is probably a good time to mention that you should make sure you have adequate life, short term disability, and long term disability insurance.

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Hypatia.]

 

Can I ask what software you're using? I've used Mint for years and years, and recently started playing around with BudgetSimple. BudgetSimple seems to be more what I'm looking for, but I'd like to know what else is out there.

 

We switched from Quicken to YNAB and that's what has really helped us stay on track. The main application is on my computer and we both have the app on our phones and input our receipts as we get them, the program automatically updates.

[Carol in Cal.]

Another thing I would recommend is to read "Your Money or Your Life". I have read a lot of financial books, but I can honestly say that although many have been useful, that one is the only one I can honestly say changed my life. It did this by reshifting my focus from what I was depriving myself of to what I was gaining thereby, and that was both crucial and effective.

[Halcyon]

I use EEBA on my phone and really like it. It s an envelope based system but is "virtual' so no need to carry cash.

[AmyontheFarm]

We spent the first 9 years of our marriage staying home and hardly ever eating out. One year we made it a priority to have another family come for supper every Sunday for a year. We were mortgage free before the end of year 9. We had a great time! The kids were little and they never noticed that they didn't get the same things as their friends. What they did notice was that their parents were fighting about money all the time and we were also not talking about divorce frequently - like my kids friends parents were.

 

My parents are still paying off their 20 year mortgage that I got when I was born. I am 40. Do the math people.

 

If I make a purchase using my credit card, the whole card is paid off at the end of the month. The bank calls us dead beats! They can't make any money off of us. LOL. None of our accounts have service fees, etc. We started by looking at the nickles and dimes and found that they added up at the end of the month. We make one annual payment on all insurances. That saves some money. But I would not pay ahead on cell phones, internet, cable (I wish I could get this), etc. Those are luxuries in our house. Which means I review at least quarterly to see if I'm still getting the best price in town.

 

Also, take one item each week and see if you can source it cheaper someplace else. Ex: My husband only eats Ragu sauce. I discovered that I could drive across town and get it on sale for 88-97 cents once every 3 months. So, I started taking the 20 minute drive and stocking up on a 4 month supply. Regular price in my grocery store is 2.97 a jar. I use at least 2 jars a week. By stocking up I was paying myself $4 a week. Over time that money on just one item builds up. I rolled that saving into toilette paper, and stopped buying paper towels at the same time. That money was rolled into buying my flour in bulk and putting it into the freezer. The list of saving just kept growing. You can do this, you can bring your family a financial blessing!

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Impish]

I'm reading this thread, hoping to pick up some ideas!

 

Generally speaking, we don't have a lot of extras, but I know that b/c we were doing really well financially for over a yr, we got careless, so I need to make some hard cuts.

 

I want what I want, and that's a house. Going to have to kick ack, and drag Wolf, kicking and screaming into a tight budget.

 

He uses the term 'deprivation mode' one more time, and I may really kick him. :glare:

[nukeswife]

We're not doing a major living below our actual income thing, but after having $2000 in car bills and almost $3000 in vet bills come up in the last few months dh and I decided we needed to start more of an emergency fund situation, but not just one lump fund. A friend on here recommended YNAB ( www.youneedabudget.com ) and I downloaded the free trial and started it in mid Dec. It's been awesome so far. I love that it's geared to eventually get you to living on last months income. We have a long way to go in paying down debt and things, but I like that I can start budgeting for those car bills and vet bills by setting a certain amount away. It's kind of like envelopes, but it all works out on my software instead of having actual envelopes of cash all around.

 

 

I didn't see someone mentioned this already. I also used to use Quicken and I still use it just to keep track of my separate accounts for the kids and my school checking, but I may switch over soon. My biggest issue is that my bank doesn't download each account separately, it's all one big quicken file when I download for YNAB, so I have to figure out if I want that or to just reconcile things on my own instead of the download.

[Guest inoubliable]

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[nukeswife]

If I were you I might look at the YNAB classes, and at least download their free ebook about how the system works. You can do YNAB on paper if you don't want to buy the software. The creator started the program with a spreadsheet he made in excel I think it was. I actually just budgeted in the cost of the software over my dh's checks he would get between when I started the trial and when it expired. I timed it just right and because you get 34 days for the trial I was able to budget it out to $20 out of each of his 3 paychecks between starting the trial and it running out. You could always try out the trial and then when it gets close to expiring you can just copy it onto paper. I love that there is no cc required for the trial.

[Izzy]

I am so motivated after reading through this thread! My goal for this year is to save but I haven't actually formed a budget to do so.

 

I have 2 questions. First, our cell phone contracts are up in June. I'm very tempted to not renew the contract as we are paying $200 a month for 2 cell phones. I cannot imagine life without my iPhone though. Sad but true! I do absolutely everything on it. So how hard is it to forgo the cell phones? Next question I have is regarding curriculum. I just pulled my 7th grader from PS and he needs curriculum. We are planning a move to Australia this year (hence the saving) and I wanted to buy Sonlight F Eastern Hemispheres but everything together is $700 to $800. Do you compromise on curriculum or consider it a good investment? I'm really torn on this one.

 

I love this thread. :D

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Deb in NZ]

I am so motivated after reading through this thread! My goal for this year is to save but I haven't actually formed a budget to do so.

 

I have 2 questions. First, our cell phone contracts are up in June. I'm very tempted to not renew the contract as we are paying $200 a month for 2 cell phones. I cannot imagine life without my iPhone though. Sad but true! I do absolutely everything on it. So how hard is it to forgo the cell phones? Next question I have is regarding curriculum. I just pulled my 7th grader from PS and he needs curriculum. We are planning a move to Australia this year (hence the saving) and I wanted to buy Sonlight F Eastern Hemispheres but everything together is $700 to $800. Do you compromise on curriculum or consider it a good investment? I'm really torn on this one.

 

I love this thread. :D

 

 

If you are moving to Australia this year, you may want to ask the Australians on this board what the cellphone options & costs are there. I know cell phone costs here in NZ are quite different from the States. For example, it cost heaps less to txt than it does to phone someone & all cellphones have txting, it isn't an extra cost. So looking at your $200/month for 2 cell phones :eek: our landline, long distance calls, broadband internet, and prepay for 5 cell phones doesn't cost that much. When fibre gets to our neighbourhood next October, our costs will be even less. When are you looking at moving Down Under? It may make more sense to not renew as your current phones might not work Down Under.

 

 

As far as the SL core...I feel that curriculum is an investment, but if you just pulled your ds from PS, it will be a bit of time before you find a good fit & $800 is a lot of $. We used five of the SL cores & I must admit that although I like a lot of the books in that core, it definitely wasn't my favourite & it did not live up to its what people on the SL boards made it out to be, but YMMV. Does your ds like to read a lot? Will you have time for a lot of reading aloud? If the answer to either of those questions is "no" then I would suggest you hold off on getting the SL core.

 

JMHO,

[Audrey]

If you are looking for budgeting help, try http://www.betterbudgeting.com/

 

The site, its resources and an excellent newsletter are free. She also offers a 5-week budgeting class for $25. The next one starts Monday, January 7.

 

I have never taken the class, but have used the site for nearly 15 years.

[Joanne]

 

Fast food kills us. Especially since I've been ill. DH would rather spend $30 - $35 per MEAL than come home and cook and do dishes. Drives me nuts. But we're committed to not doing that anymore. Making a few meals on the weekends might help with that, now that you mention it. Hmmm....

 

 

 

What I am about to post may not be "gazelle intense" or llnoe-worthy.

 

But it *might* be better to not think of going from all that eating out to complete from scratch. Semi-homemade will still save over $35 restaurant meals. There are some decent quality but still reasonable frozen meals. Add a bag of salad, and there you go!

 

It would be a transition that might start the momentum.

[Joanne]

What a good thread. Thank you!

[Rosie_0801]

I think you'll be miserably lonely if you move half a world away and don't have internet. How will you contact friends and family? It's cheaper through the net than to ring them. Then there's the time difference.

[kubiac]

 

 

What I am about to post may not be "gazelle intense" or llnoe-worthy.

 

But it *might* be better to not think of going from all that eating out to complete from scratch. Semi-homemade will still save over $35 restaurant meals. There are some decent quality but still reasonable frozen meals. Add a bag of salad, and there you go!

 

It would be a transition that might start the momentum.

 

 

No, no, this is totally true! Frugality is a habit and a process, just like eating healthy and exercising. It's very very hard to go from sedentary/junk food to 5K/vegan overnight. You need to learn new practices, behaviors and mindsets, and all of that learning takes time.

 

Similarly, living a frugal lifestyle takes a lot of little changes. If you're going to give up an iPhone, maybe you need to get a map book for your car so you can find your way around your city. If you want to grow some of your own food, it may take multiple years to increase the fertility of your soil and learning how to prevent plant and cultivate vegetables. If you want to save money on car maintenance, you have to learn how to replace the air filter and the oil in your model of car.

 

Do as much as you can as hard as you can, of course, but also think about the "debt snowflake" approach to the debt snowball. You just start becoming more aware and alert and doing many small things and over time, hopefully, you discover you've instituted big changes!

[SunnyDays]

What a great thread. We've been talking about this at home over the past couple days. We're in a better spot than we were at this time last year, however, we could be doing much better still, KWIM?? We have debts we want to pay off and things for which we want/need to save.

 

The Dave Ramsey TMMO and the Mary Hunt book are both very good. I read or re-read both the past couple years at the beginning of January, and I plan to do that again over the next couple weeks. It's good to remind and re-motivate yourself.

 

Joanne has such a good point... if you try to go from almost all restaurant meals to cooking totally from scratch, things will fall apart! If you cut back and allow yourself say, one or two restaurant meals per week, and meal plan easy things for the rest, it will still move you quite a bit in the right direction.

 

The biggest thing that works for us is the debt snowball. Dave Ramsey and Mary Hunt both have a version of this. Start with the smallest debt, pay it off, put the monthly payment into the next smallest, and so on. Some people suggest paying off the highest interest rate debt first. That's logical, of course, but I think the psychological boost from actually *completing* a debt is well worth it.

 

Thanks to everyone else for your great tips and ideas... I'm really trying to implement some small changes that will make a big difference in the end!!

[Tap]

We did this years ago and it was one of the best things we ever did.

 

We had some debt, mainly medical, had a mortgage and car loans. We decided to pay off everything in one year, except the mortgage.

 

We wrote out a spread sheet of bills, and gave each of us $10 a week for spending money/lunch money. At the beginning of the month, we wrote each check that we would need for the month, and either mailed them or set them aside until the due date. For things that varied, like groceries/holiday spending, there was an amount allocated and that was earmarked in the account as well. ALL of the extra money left over, went to our debt on that day. We were essentially broke the same day we were paid LOL. We bought only the cheapest version of whatever we needed, to get by. If we needed ibuprofen, we bought the 25 count bottle, instead of the 500 count. Yes, it was more per pill but for us, it was about hitting that 1 year goal, not saving pennies for our futures. We sold dh's nice car and bought a cheap used car to replace it. We cut off all extra expenses like satalite and didn't renew subscriptions/memberships.

 

The only thing that kept me sane during that year was knowing it was only one year! I figured I could do anything for one year. As our clothes aged and needed replacing, it was easy to realize that they were sufficient to get us through the season, and that the following year I could replace them all. :0)

 

We not only paid off all the debt in 9months, we went on vacation to Hawaii (paid in cash) before the year was up. This one year catapulted us so far ahead. By paying off our debt, we were free from all the nagging bills each month and had more pleasure planning our purchases instead of using credit to obtain them.

[BugsMama]

On the topic of smart phones- you think you can't live without them, but you can! I was an iphone addict... It was sickening how much time I spent on my phone and how much I texted people. And then, we got rid of them. We now have cheap 10 euro go phones, and about once every 2 months (or more), I spend 20 euro to get "time" put on them. They are used just a few times a day, maybe 10 minutes or less.

 

We don't have cable.

 

We DO have internet, and an internet phone to call the states with- those two things cost us 50 euro a month, and with them, we watch TV on hulu (free), books come from the digital library or free for kindle (free), DVDs we get from the library.

 

For the first few weeks, it was hard to not grab a phone for reviews, or directions, or price comparisons, but over time, our life is so much better. We spend more time talking, more time paying attention to the world around us, and yes, more time getting lost, which leads to fantastic adventures.

 

You can do it!

[Melissa in Australia]

I am so motivated after reading through this thread! My goal for this year is to save but I haven't actually formed a budget to do so.

 

I have 2 questions. First, our cell phone contracts are up in June. I'm very tempted to not renew the contract as we are paying $200 a month for 2 cell phones. I cannot imagine life without my iPhone though. Sad but true! I do absolutely everything on it. So how hard is it to forgo the cell phones? Next question I have is regarding curriculum. I just pulled my 7th grader from PS and he needs curriculum. We are planning a move to Australia this year (hence the saving) and I wanted to buy Sonlight F Eastern Hemispheres but everything together is $700 to $800. Do you compromise on curriculum or consider it a good investment? I'm really torn on this one.

 

I love this thread. :D

 

I am agreeing with the others that you should not get a new phone contract before moving to Australia. Get one when you are here.

How would you even know that your phones would even work here?

 

 

Also remember that things like food in Australia is probably about double what you are paying in USA.

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Laura Corin]

 

 

I use a plain notebook, the pocket size so I can carry it with me if need me. I collect all receipts at the end of the day and write them in along with a notation for what they were for (ex: mort-mortgage, ins-insurance, groc-groceries, cl-clothing). At the end of the month I add up how much we spent in each category. I just keep a running tally of how much we add to savings each week.

 

 

Just as another option: we put almost everything we spend on one credit card, then pay it off at the end of the month. Then we just have to look through the bill to work out what we have spent on which categories. I also get points on the card that I can exchange for groceries and other things.

 

Laura

[Joanne]

Another endorsement for YNAB. I had purchased and started using it when my life tanked. I need to contact them again about whether I need to pay a pull price or can arranged a reduced rate upgrade. I have found their customer service to be awesome. I was a member of DR's paid for service for a month or two, and dropped it.

 

Another idea for a book, especially if *spending* or *debting* has been an issue for you is:

 

http://www.amazon.com/How-Debt-Stay-Live-Prosperously/dp/0553382020/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357133898&sr=1-1&keywords=jerry+mundis

 

I am re-reading it for work (we cover process/other addictions as part of our treatment curriculum). I read it years ago and it changed my life.

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[DawnM]

I so wish she would write a newer/updated book! You can still get a lot out of it, but some things have changed.

 

Dawn

 

No one has mentioned The Tightwad Gazette yet. This was the book that really helped me change the way I thought about money when I was getting ready to leave work to become a SAHM. The author can be a little over the top sometimes, but she has really good (albeit sometimes extreme) ideas for saving money. We lived on dh's income and saved all of mine while I was pregnant with our first and over the course of that time I changed how I thought about money immensely. You can absolutely do this, and it is not only not insane, it it likely the smartest thing you will ever do financially! Go for it!

 

 

PS. Get the book from the library if they've got it rather than buying it new...LOL

 

[Lisbeth]

We are doing this. We are cutting out extra spending, and by extra I mean frivolous. I am going to make more from scratch for food, and we are going to stop clothes/shoes spending (we buy two years ahead in an inflation cutting bid, so we are good there for two years) and no more books. We have enough curriculum and books to get us through 2-3 more years, easily. My book spending is pretty scandalous, so when I say no more book spending, that means a lot of saved money. I will continue and increase my extreme couponing.

 

Kind of we already spent for this coming year. I'm not sure that is the same kind of sacrifice. But we are still going to save about 1/2 of what dh makes.

[Spryte]

I love, love, love this thread!

 

All the recommendations for Mary Hunt and the Tightwad Gazette really take me back. Great advice there.

 

We used to use the Quicken App (no longer available), and I adored it. Like a PP mentioned, it had categories and we could allocate funds each month to each category, then see how much we had left in each category. Loved it. Since that app is no longer available... We have floundered. I'm going to check out some of the apps mentioned here to see if there's something that might work now. Yay!

 

We also did the system of using one card per month that we paid off at the end of each month. We tried different techniques, including transferring funds to savings every time we used it. It's dangerous though, and a slippery slope to overspending if you are good at justifying purchases. Staying focused and keeping on track with it took discipline. But we did earn enough points to take care of Christmas shopping!

 

One fun thing DH and I did when we started out trying to live below our means was to challenge each other to come up with 100 ways to save money. Our lists had a lot of overlap, but they were inspiring, helpful and some parts were hysterical!

[Jane in NC]

One fun thing DH and I did when we started out trying to live below our means was to challenge each other to come up with 100 ways to save money. Our lists had a lot of overlap, but they were inspiring, helpful and some parts were hysterical!

This idea could be expanded to include the entire family.

 

This reminds me of the time I had my son analyze the water and electric bills as a small math project. He had to plot the data for a couple of years, analyze trends for increased usage, then compute a variety of averages. An unplanned consequence of this was that he became hyper aware of wasted electricity. He is still vigilant about turning off lights and power strips many years later.

 

Some library systems have Kill-a-watt meters that they'll loan out to help families track power usage. This would be a great project for young teens.

[justamouse]

We are doing this. We are cutting out extra spending, and by extra I mean frivolous. I am going to make more from scratch for food, and we are going to stop clothes/shoes spending (we buy two years ahead in an inflation cutting bid, so we are good there for two years) and no more books. We have enough curriculum and books to get us through 2-3 more years, easily. My book spending is pretty scandalous, so when I say no more book spending, that means a lot of saved money. I will continue and increase my extreme couponing.

 

Kind of we already spent for this coming year. I'm not sure that is the same kind of sacrifice. But we are still going to save about 1/2 of what dh makes.

 

 

 

Books were a *serious* drain for me. I've not bought curric for a year, just using what I have. And found that I actually liked what I had.

 

And a warning, cooking everything from scratch takes time, but it gets easier. If you just jump into the deep end of the pool, just realize that it will suck. You really have to preplan with a menu. And another hint it to know what is for dinner by 10 am. That way, there's no pulling meat out of the freezer at 5 pm and shoving snacks in the kids faces to tide them over.

[Carol in Cal.]

Another key to cooking at home consistently is to have back up meals that you can pull out of the larder in 15 minutes but hardly ever use. These might include frozen homemade spachetti sauce in canning jars, frozen bean soup, something popular that you can make quickly from canned tuna, and maybe mac and cheese purchased on sale. OK, mac and cheese is not really from scratch, but it's WAY cheaper than eating out or fast food, and if you shop sales it is pretty reasonable.

[Momof3littles]

Another key to cooking at home consistently is to have back up meals that you can pull out of the larder in 15 minutes but hardly ever use. These might include frozen homemade spachetti sauce in canning jars, frozen bean soup, something popular that you can make quickly from canned tuna, and maybe mac and cheese purchased on sale. OK, mac and cheese is not really from scratch, but it's WAY cheaper than eating out or fast food, and if you shop sales it is pretty reasonable.

 

Agree. We aren't on a super tight budget and do go out once a week or every other week. But I absolutely despise going out because I simply didn't plan well, etc. I'd prefer to plan and go somewhere we enjoy vs. going out for unplanned mediocre food.

 

We rarely use convenience foods, etc. but I keep a few things in my freezer for this purpose. If that won't work on a given night, our backup is a $5 costco chicken and frozen veggies or a salad. At $7 or so, still far, far less expensive than dinner out for a family of 5 in our case.