Household budget cuts

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pmeek

Active member
:sunny: With dollars going alot faster in our own household budget, we took a look at where we could save some money. We looked at our phone services. We were paying $44 for our landline with Verizon and $59 for our cell phone. Our landline was used strictly for business and local calls. Our cell phone for long distance only. We decided to get rid of the cell phone and switched our landline to Charter. We will get local, unlimited long distance, distinctive ring, voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting, call ID plus a few other things that we won't use for $39 a month. This is a bundled rate as we also have Charter cable and internet. We aren't tied to our cell like alot people so this is going to save us a little over $60 a month.

What are you doing to cut expenses in your household?
 
You know we switched a while back from Comcast to uverse. I only use a cell just to call the girls and it's a pay as you go plan.

One thing I have done to save is not rent movies from Blockbuster. Their prices just keep going up so I signed up with netflix through mypoints. We really don't go out to eat much so we save there.

Oh yeah and the bigest thing we did was to buy a yaris and got rid of a truck. We get great gas mileage.
 
We are crazy for budgets. Since we track it all, it's easier to find where to cut back.

Some of our recent attempts have been:

Reducing the water bill, which involved cutting back watering this summer to one day a week (had to do a bit because it was a hot dry summer here in TX). Finally replacing that drippy faucet. Getting a new showerhead that uses less water and allows for "low flow" during stuff like shaving. This was not very effective overall because most of our "water bill" are fees that don't change with use. Savings of about $10 a month.

Trying to save on electricity. Raising that AC to 81 degrees, and opening windows in the morning this fall to cool the house down before the day heats up. Really working hard at turning lights off, putting my energy saver computer to "sleep" when not in use, replacing any burned out bulb with CFL, etc. It's hard to tell with electricity, since it varies all the time based on temp, but I think we have reduced it perhaps 5 - 10 %.

About a year ago we dropped to the lowest house phone deal ($15 with taxes) and use cell phones the rest of the time. We have 2 cell phones (one is our college aged son) which run $100 total.

I mostly stay home which saves both on gas and the impulse buys one makes out. Any shopping I do now is planned. I think this saves a lot of money!

But, mostly, it's just planning and watching the money, using a budget and waiting until the money is saved up before buying.
 
We dropped all extra services on the landline, mainly only use it for internet anyways so I made sure after fighting with them for a few months that all extra's were dropped and just basic local sevice and internet remained.

We use prepaid cell phones and chose a plan that saves a bundle since most people we know are cingular/att and other calls are 10 cents a minute.

I just lost my train of thought, we have cut out a lot but, at the moment I can't even think of what I was going to share!
 
:cheers: You gals are doing a great job with money saving ideas. A few months ago we decided to drain our hot tub and turn it off. :cry: We weren't using it enough. Savings $75 a month!! We could not believe it was costing us that much. Problem is it is built into our deck. I'm thinking of filling it in with dirt and using it for a herb garden. :3some: I'm also using the crock pot and slow cooker instead of the oven when I can. It's the appliances using 220 that really shoot the electric bill up.
 
pmeek said:
:cheers: You gals are doing a great job with money saving ideas. A few months ago we decided to drain our hot tub and turn it off. :cry: We weren't using it enough. Savings $75 a month!! We could not believe it was costing us that much. Problem is it is built into our deck. I'm thinking of filling it in with dirt and using it for a herb garden. :3some: I'm also using the crock pot and slow cooker instead of the oven when I can. It's the appliances using 220 that really shoot the electric bill up.
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You made me think of another one. We only run the pool pump 4 hours a day in the cooler months. It saves money and the water stays clear because the weather is not as hot. Annielouise I live in Houston and I also do all the same things you do with water. I just don't water the lawn like I used to.
 
Let’s see, we grow a lot of our own fruit and vegetables. We have a solar system to heat the house -during the summer the meter actually runs backwards! We have solar for the pool. We sunk a well (saves us about $200.00 on a watering bill).

We hardly ever eat out – definitely no more fast food restaurants. We go into town every other day instead of everyday. That cuts our gasoline bill in half.
Date nights consists of tickets I win in contests – that saves a bundle. October 15 is the next date night – a Randy Travis concert.

I do as much of my shopping at Costco and buy in bulk when I can. No more kids in the house, so I have the room to store things. Oh the biggie for me, I bought my own tazo tea and a travel mug. No more $1.85 for a Starbucks tea.

All in all, hubby & I are making our retirement $$$$ stretch. Now if I would only win that BIG one.
 
Over the years, I've pared it down so much there isn't really anywhere to go!!! :cry:

Bob drives the compact car instead of the SUV to work. I drive the SUV 2x's a month to shop & 4x's a month to go to Dottys.

Dottys offer 15x points on Sundays, so I go then - they give cash back for points & predicate the weekly points check off that total, so I basically pay myself to play 1 of those 4 weeks & supplement all 4!!! :headbang:

Once every 2 months I go to the Dr, which is close by, thankfully!!! It's through the VA {disabled vet} and used to be muh farther away.

I used to shop at a used book store {I EAT books!!} but now every $5.00 win at Amazon is celebrated by me, because I add them up, do the 4 for 3, and free shipping and get new books, YAY!!!

I don't buy clothes, makeup, jewelry - like you guys never knew I wasn't a girly girl, lol!!! :crazytongue:
 
Some more:

At least 95% of my books are from the library nowadays. With interlibrary loan, I can get almost anything.

I also talked my family into dropping Christmas gifts last year except for those under 21 - way less money and hassle. Wish my husband's family would go for that too.

Taking full advantage of our HSA (or FSA, if you have that) is really great. If you think about it, the IRS is paying for like 25% of our medical costs because the money goes in before taxes and is used tax-free.
 
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