With a new baby in the house, our finances are being stretched in new ways. Scott and I have had to look into what we spend our money on and how we can best use our resources. As I have mentioned before, Scott and I both love our jobs and our pay is not the problem. But with a new baby in the house come childcare, diapers, formula. Plus we have started paying on student loans and such, we are feeling the crunch.
We have figured out some ways to cut costs, and although a few
were hard to give up, we really think it is for the best. The first was an easy choice. Scott's medical takes a large amount out of his paycheck each month, we can save money by switching him to my insurance; which will be nice for us all to be on the same medical, dental and vision.
The second choice was a relatively simple on as well. We switched Brendan's Day care which saves us about $140 a month, plus the cost of gas as our new day care is literally right down the street from where I work.
The next money saving decisions did not come so easy, but once we made the decision, Scott was quick to act on it. The biggest one was Cable. We are officially without cable. It was quite a jump to go from extended cable with DVR an movie channels to now - nothing.
We have also cancelled our Blockbuster online membership, and our home phone (so don't try to call us on it anymore, you have to use our cell phones). Starting in January, we may also cancel the Internet, we may see how it goes for a couple months before deciding for sure.
With all of these changes, we will be saving almost $500 a month! I can't believe how much we spent on frivolous things! We have also started eating at home a lot more than we used to.
Although the changes are hard, it is actually a burden off of my shoulders, I feel much better about where our money goes and know that once things get settled, we may be able to find a house sometime in the near future. As I said in my post yesterday, God has a plan, we have to use the resources he provided us with wisely and he will take care of us.
We have figured out some ways to cut costs, and although a few
were hard to give up, we really think it is for the best. The first was an easy choice. Scott's medical takes a large amount out of his paycheck each month, we can save money by switching him to my insurance; which will be nice for us all to be on the same medical, dental and vision.The second choice was a relatively simple on as well. We switched Brendan's Day care which saves us about $140 a month, plus the cost of gas as our new day care is literally right down the street from where I work.
The next money saving decisions did not come so easy, but once we made the decision, Scott was quick to act on it. The biggest one was Cable. We are officially without cable. It was quite a jump to go from extended cable with DVR an movie channels to now - nothing.
We have also cancelled our Blockbuster online membership, and our home phone (so don't try to call us on it anymore, you have to use our cell phones). Starting in January, we may also cancel the Internet, we may see how it goes for a couple months before deciding for sure.
With all of these changes, we will be saving almost $500 a month! I can't believe how much we spent on frivolous things! We have also started eating at home a lot more than we used to.
Although the changes are hard, it is actually a burden off of my shoulders, I feel much better about where our money goes and know that once things get settled, we may be able to find a house sometime in the near future. As I said in my post yesterday, God has a plan, we have to use the resources he provided us with wisely and he will take care of us.
3 comments:
That's awesome! We have been thinking about getting rid of cable, but I really enjoy the dvr. Ahhh, decisions!
Sounds like you're making some good changes. Some things that we do around here: I changed all our lights to CFLs and try to turn as many appliances off as I can when they're not in use - including turning off the computers while we're away from home (I can definitely see a difference in our monthly bill), almost every day we bring lunch with us (whatever we have for dinner we have the next day for lunch or else I make a roast on the weekend to cover our lunches), we mostly drink water, and we no longer buy fluff at the store (like picking up something we kind of like while we're at Target).
Good luck with finding more ways to cut costs. Just keep in mind that it's ok to be where you are in life - just because some people are making changes doesn't mean you need to be (plus, you did just make a major change by having a kid!).
I don't know what I'd do without the internet. I've had since early highschool, and that was over 15 years ago. It's like water to me, you have to have it :P
Erin and I made a lot of cuts when we first got married, and we'll be officially out of debt in about two weeks (minus car and school loans) It took us a little over two years, but thanks to Erin working her tail off and deciding on a very limited budget we managed to do it. We decided to not go out as much, and we figured it would be a lot cheaper for having the cable/internet than always going out. Usually when you go to a movie you're probably want to eat, so it all adds up. Now we just stay home most of the time cook dinner, and watch a movie on DVD or dvr.
Anyways I'm babbling, congrats on your choice, that's a hard one to make, that sounds so sad :)
Post a Comment