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[Joanne]

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.

 

Eggs. This is my back up; scrambled eggs with cheese or "eggs in a hole".

[Annie G]

Eggs. This is my back up; scrambled eggs with cheese or "eggs in a hole".

 

 

Our backup is spaghetti and eggs. Boil spaghetti, drain, and put in a skillet with a little butter. Scramble a couple of eggs and add to the spaghetti. Cook until the eggs are done and add parmesan when serving- half of us like the parm and the other two don't.

 

It's so cheap and we love it. Always our dinner when we get home from a trip because we always have the ingredients on hand and we're so ready for our own cooking.

[UrbanSue]

K. Splitting the grocery money up into different categories is originally what I had written out, but then it looked so complicated. I see the benefit of splitting it up, though. I was able to move groceries into the "need" subtotal and hair trims into the "wants" subtotal. I'd never done that before. Thank you.

 

Just a thought on the hair trims--you could trim the hair yourself. Maybe you already do this with your boys and these trims are just for you but you can maybe teach dh to trim your hair for you. Where I live, I can't get a trim for less than $35. Even at only a few times a year (if you keep your hair long) that adds up. And if you aren't cutting dh's hair or your boys already, that is really easy and saves a lot of money fast.

 

This thread has been really encouraging and I have a few new ideas myself--thanks!

[jessicamcc]

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.

This is a really great idea!!!

[Soror]

We did that last year (2012) in order to pay off our house. I just transferred the money from savings to our checking account to pay it off a few minutes ago. We were already tight and with minimal bills but we really cut it down to the bone this past year. I would update our projections every month to see our progress. I'm a very determined person and knowing we had told everyone what we were planning helped with motivation as well.

 

I heartily agree with watching every single purchase. I questioned everything to see if we could do without, substitute, borrow or make it ourselves. It really helped to make us even more aware of spending. After I graduated college we did similarly in order to save a buffer for me staying home and pay off my student loans.

 

This year we are working on filling our replacement van fund and upping our retirement savings. We will be loosening up some though around here although there are some things I still wouldn't/won't do- ie buying a new vehicle or a big screen tv.

[Deb in NZ]

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

 

We do this & have for years. I used some of my points to replace my broken breakmaker last week. I like having a record to trace where the $ has gone. Dh insists on using cash for a lot of his spending & I have no idea where it's gone. To track that illusive $ I've printed up a chart for us to write down every purchase. It has 3 columns (cash, Visa, & EFTPOS). Having to write down every purchase is making both of us reluctant to buy anything :laugh: so it's really helping us succeed with our "No Spend" goal for January.

[Joanne]

We did that last year (2012) in order to pay off our house. I just transferred the money from savings to our checking account to pay it off a few minutes ago.

 

 

AWESOME! CONGRATULATIONS!!

 

:hurray: :thumbup:

[Soror]

AWESOME! CONGRATULATIONS!!

 

:hurray: :thumbup:

 

Thank you! We are so very excited to have this done! I'm just anxious to have it actually done, I don't quite feel like it is real yet! It is awesome making out the January budget with no house payment or other debt but instead we will be putting a big chunk towards saving for a "new" van!

[Guest inoubliable]

 

[lmrich]

Don't forget that any odd job with pay can really help. A penny saved is a penny earned, but a penny earned can also be a penny saved. I don't hesitate to babysit, tutor, dog sit, etc... for a few extra dollars even now when our income is adequate.

[Soror]

I wanted to say as far as what we did, it was more about what we didn't do. I'd prefer not to give a lot of specifics but we lived on less than $2k a month (take home pay less what we saved each month). We did without unless we could also make our savings goals. We took it one month at a time as I knew if we got behind one month it would be even harder than the next.

 

I patched things that shouldn't be patched. We didn't really do b-days this year, well not in the big gift sense. For entertainment I listened to the radio to win free tickets to local events, nothing far away though due to gas money. We cut a lot of driving period due to the money, especially last winter when it was really tight. I only purchased curriculum that I could afford by selling off the old I had.

 

I exclusively shopped at Aldis(except meat) and we ate whatever veggies were the cheapest and very basic meals, no snacks (except fruits and veggies and no drinks except water). We both helped butcher a cow to save and have grassfed beef- I did it all day at 3 months pregnant and the toddler on my back- it sucked tbh. I helped butcher chickens as well. I didn't have much luck growing things this year and our rabbits died due to the heat, although that would have been a big help.

 

We kept cutting the temp in the house in the winter and upping it in the summer, I got our bill down by $40 a month and it was already lower than any other family I know and we also had a 10% price hike. We did the old trick that grandma did as far as baths, we used the small tub and not a lot of water and they would all cycle through or bath at one time. I think we only ended up using the a/c about 6 wks maybe, when the temps and humidity was 90+ and it wasn't cooling off at night.

 

 

All of those things are not permanent but you can make do for awhile, or at least most of us can. This fall it really got much better as dh's work increased so we've been able to let up some, it is nice to have some splurges back. However, it was well worth it and really not that bad as it wasn't all that long. I'd rather be hardcore for a shorter period and be done with it then drag it out.

 

We are still looking at ways to decrease our bills, which at this point are mainly food, gas and electric (we of course have taxes and insurance- I cannot decrease taxes but I did up our deductible on our insurance). Dh had bought a Civic for commuting the year before and that saves a ton on gas. For electricity we've been replacing our door seals and dh is planning on building diy solar water heating(+solar heating) this year. I'd like to eventually go all solar or wind or such but we are doing one thing at a time, as he has time and we can cash flow. We are hoping to do bigger and better on the garden this year and add animals as well to decrease our need for food but we will have start-up costs as we have no place to put them right now- we built on virgin lands. Anyway, it is a process. It is nice to know though that if dh loses his job we should be ok. Even if he cannot hardly find anything but McDonald's we don't require much to live on now. It wouldn't be great but we could make it.