Time to create a NEW budget
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive June 2008:
Time to create a NEW budget
OK who else is finding it difficult to budget?
We USED to be very comfortable but it seems everything is going up-up-up.
I had to redo the budget over a year ago because my home insurance tripled in cost. Now it seems everything we pay for has gone up.
Today, I actually turned our AC off. I know my hubby would die if he was here. I will turn it back on before he comes home. I am going to see how much of a difference it makes but not running it 12 hours a day (while hubby is at work). Honestly, it wasn't bad. we always have a breeze so it was 78 all day in the house.
I have also made adjustments in my driving habits but am frustrated by the things I can't change.
What are you doing in this new economy?
Any advice for cutting back?
I know that feeling all too well.. Right now we are having to change all kinds of things around. My DH and I have always snuck away from work to have a "date lunch" a few times a week (we work at the same place so it is the easiest time to do this where we don't have to leave the girls at home) and we are not having to cut that out because we just can't afford to eat out that much anymore. With gas and food going up so much. I swear every time I go to the grocery store things are getting more and more expensive.
I wish we could turn the a/c off some but it is just not possible since until yesterday we were having 100 degree days, and no breeze and my kids are home all day alone. And our electric bill is just going to go up and up this summer due to the heat we are having.. I can't imagine it not getting worse.
My DH and I have been living together and working together for about 6 years (we actually met at work). I have always come to work earlier because of my kids schedules but this summer we are starting to go to work at the same time to save on gas even though we only work about 7 miles from the house. Gas is just that expensive at this point. And it looks like we are going to be able to continue thru the school year since both girls are going to be in the same school and don't have to be there until almost 9 so we will drop them off and then come to work.
I think we are also having to cut back because of all the medical bills that I have had this year. And they don't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Since I am not having a hard time swallowing so I have to go back to the dr tomorrow for more xrays and possibly another MRI to see what is going on with this.
I buy just a few groceries and it seems to cost so much. With the flooding, it's only going to get worse. Then add gas prices. Oy vey!
Well, no chance on turning off the AC here, it is way too hot. I have gotten better about turning off lights when not needed. I also turned my AC up a little, to try and cut back on our bill.
Dh now takes his lunch everyday. He used to go out to eat a few days a week, but not anymore. I also do not waste food at all. We eat all our leftovers. I also make sure we go through all the food we have before I go to the grocery store.
We are also trying to save on gas. I run all my errands together just once or twice a week. I am also not doing a lot of day trips with the kids. We are doing more play dates, and swimming in our own pool, so I don't have to drive around as much. We also used to do little weekend trips in the summer, and we are not doing those this year.
My dks also take pitching/hitting lessons for baseball. We have cut back on how many times a month they go.
For now, we are doing okay. But, we are also not saving as much each month. We do have college funds that we put in each month, and we max out how much we put in dh's 401k plan. But, we also used to put $200.00-300.00 in our savings account each month. We are not doing that anymore. Hopefully, we can start again soon.
With dh's new job I plan to stay as close to living the way we do now for awhile to build up our savings again. I've barely been keeping the wolf from the door since last fall so it will be a couple months to catch things up to where they should be.
I've always been a big time couponer. Now it seems alot of coupons are making things what a good sale price used to be. It's still better than paying retail. I think for people who usually haven't used coupons though they might see a real difference. I'm much better at meal planning than I used to be. There are things I used to think were too expensive at the market, like that taco meat already cooked up in a tub. However, there are going to be days where I'm short on time or not feeling well and that is MUCH cheaper than getting something out for the 5 of us. I shudder to think of the money I'd have if I could go back and always remember to set something out lol!
My kids wear nice clothes. I'm not big into brand names but I recognize them. It's all from yard sales, hand me downs and end of the season clearance sales. I got dd a pair of really nice pink cowgirl boots that retailed for $75 for $10 back in march. I was just sent 2 $10 off anything coupons at fashion bug. I got dd a free Bobby Jack tote bag and then the next week I got her a Bobby Jack raincoat for free too, just threw in some socks to hit the $10, actually I did pay some pennies for tax. This is something I thrive on and would probably still do if I hit the lottery lol! I recently discovered using coupons that say "any size" on travel size versions. For example I don't usually have the money to go buy 8 bottles of tide to use all my $1 off 2 coupons. However, I go to walmart, pick up 2 sample packs for 97 cents each and pay 94 cents for 2 of those. It helps to stretch. It has also made a HUGE difference in my water bill and detergent bill to have cleared the drawers of things no one wears. Somehow they ended up in with the wash rather than back in the drawers.
I'm looking forward to building up our savings again. There was a while there we weren't paycheck to paycheck checking the mailbox and it was a great feeling.
Yjja123 - Are you turnign your air conditioner completeley off for the 12 hours dh isnt' home? If so don't (this goes for your heat also durign the winter)just turn your thermostat up to 80 or so so that it will fogo off, every time you turn it on (switch) and off registers at the meter , it actually raises your bill. I turned my ac on a week before Memorial day and it has been os since, we turn the thermostat up when wehre cold and down when where hot so that it will come back on ( must have it set on auto). My light bill this month was 53.61.
Tarable- Those lunch dates sound wonderful. And they dont' have to stop your right. No you can't afford to eat out ( at a restaurany) but what did we once used to like about summer? eating outdoors (now I brought ym lunch to work for a week period) and at the end of the week was amazed that I hade over 50 dollars extra money than I usually have). I don't know where you work. but i/m sure if you think about it you will find a nice location that you and dh can go to and enjoy a nice outdoor lunch at a park, office cafateria. undera tree on a blanket. And this waytoyuo can pack lunch for you and dh at home and not only save money but also get t spend time alone outdoors enjoyign the weather and each other's company and conversation.
Rayelle,
Did you know for the same price 97 cents at Target there Sample size of Tide actually come in little bottles? I think ti says 2,3,or 4 loads (one load per cap)
Well an outdoor lunch might be nice in the early spring or fall but we are registering close to 100 almost daily (sometimes higher) and there is no way we would have good time being outside.. We have decided that maybe we can go eat at Wendy's or somewhere once a week and if we eat off the $1 menu then we will be okay...
Oh my , I'm sorry
I didn't know it was that hot there. last week we had a three day heat wave. And it was unbearable. yes that will also be nice, again don't know what is near by you but other fast food places have followed, Taco bell, KFC, Checker's. Hope it cools down sooner rather then later. I'm loving the mid to high 70's and high 50;s we are having this week.
I would love to have it that cool right now but on the other hand i would miss the hot weather.. nothing feels better than walking out for a little (from the car to somewhere) and then going inside a nice cool a/c building.. I love that feeling, especially at some stores where they have extra cold entry way where they almost give you goose bumps as soon as you walk in...
And I don't expect cooler weather until almost October if we are lucky..
lol.... Tarable, had to look where you were from and of course TEXAS. I can totally relate, we have AC units in my house and I can't stay cool here lately. What area are you from?
The other day the thermometer on the car said 106!!!!!
Darn! We don't have a target. 
I am near Dallas. We have been having problems staying cool this summer too.. I think the highest I have see this year is 103 but it is still hot. We have gotten a couple of days break from the hot.. meaning it has only been in the upper 80s to low 90s since it is raining and cloudy (or raining occassionally). It is definately going to be a hot one.
I am right there with you all. DH and I seem to work harder than ever these days and have less. Our rate of savings (putting money in the bank) is not at all what it used to be.
I work 25 miles from home. DH works five miles. I told him that, since I can't do anyhting about MY commute to work, that he HAS to conserve. He is the king of the multi-errands. We live ten miles from town. He will go to Home Depot, come home, go back to town to Walmart, come home, etc. I told him that that has to stop. I told him to make a list and, once a week, go to Home Depot, the auto parts store, whatever. I consolidate my own trips. I grocery shop on my way home from work. Other than work and church, I don't go anywhere that isn't on my way home from somewhere else.
We are in New England, so we have not used our window AC's yet. In fact, I am going to try to not even put them in the windows this year. They run the electric bill up considerably. We have a small house (920 sq. ft ranch), so an AC at each end of the house cools it down nicely. I am going to try to make due with the ceiling fans only. We only get about eight weeks of really hot weather a year. We had two freaky hot days two weeks ago. They broke a record. 98 and 97 degrees. Really unusual for here this early in the summer. I know that there is more to come, but I am going to try to tough it out. I work in AC all day and so do DH and the boys.
I shop at Sam's Club for a lot of things because my boys (ages 19 and 20) eat like wolves. I go about once a month because it is 30 miles away.
I stopped buying Dunkin Donuts coffee every morning. I make my own coffee and muffins at home. I make my muffins on Sunday and freeze them. I used to buy a large iced coffee and a muffin every morning. It would come to $4. and change and I would give the girl at the drive thru the rest, as a tip. Well, that was $5.00 a day; $20.00 per week; $40.00 a pay period. It now costs me about $58.00 a week for gas (that USED to cost me $40), so I use my "coffee money" for gas.
I give my dogs and cats (three each) dry and canned food. I used to split two cans of wet food between the three dogs or cats, mixed in with their dry food. Now I divide one can for the dogs and one for the cats.
Since I have a hairdressers license, I give all the haircuts to DH and DS's. I wear my hair long (and up in the summer heat). I cut my own bangs and my DD trims my ends twice a year. I don't colour my hair. I bathe the dogs myself so I don't have to take them to the groomer. Only our Brittany Spaniel gets a haircut at the beginning of the summer. The other two are Beagles, so they are low maintenence.  .
In the summer, we do a lot of outdoor grilling so that saves the electricity from using my stove. We don't burn heating oil all summer because we have an electric water heater but that doesn't run cheaply either since it is on a 220 amp circuit.
I try to do my best to economize, but there is only so much you can do. I work in a medical office, so I wear scrubs to work. That saves my good clothes. DH wears a postal uniform, and my boys work in a grocery store, so they have shirts given to them by the store. They only wear their own jeans.
My DS Shawn is into Abercrombie, American Eagle, and Hollister. I have showed him how to buy those on ebay for a fraction of the cost at the mall. Yes, they are used, but they wash well. My DS Mike is happy with any kind of clothes.
I don't know where it is all going. I have a feeling that we won't see gas under $4.00 a gallon anymore. One good thing that is coming out of all of this is that people are learning to conserve and be more resourceful, and that is a good thing.
I agree there is only so much you can do, and that is the frustrating part. We don't eat out often, maybe 1x/week, and that's maybe 2x/mth. at a fast food and 2x/mth at a sit-down, so it's not very expensive. Maybe $60/mth total.
We live way out, so I try to conserve gas by combining errands. That's really nothing new, but I think a little more about it than before. We take day trips often still, and I refuse to cancel those, but I'm going to try to do an errand afterward (like get groceries in another town on the way home, etc.) instead of making another trip in town again later.
I am finding especially that the grocery bill in addition to gas is just sky high! I can't believe that 3 people need to spend so much on groceries/household products to keep things going around here. I try to buy generic frequently, shop mostly at Walmart, and clothes shopping for us is cheap - Kohls, Target, Walmart, Old Navy. The name brand days are long over, LOL, even more so now.
I don't know what the answer is. Everything is going up at once. We are fine, but spending more and more and saving less. It's very frustrating for everyone. We review our budget frequently, and there are only a couple more cuts we feel like we could make, and even those wouldn't be significant. I feel the "fun $" we spend is on family stuff, and that's still relatively cheap. DH and I rarely buy much for ourselves, although at holidays we take advantage of the $ we've saved up.
It's frustrating for everyone. If anyone has the magic answer, please share it! I'm beginning to see more and more that it's tough times for people from all incomes....everyone is cutting back in one way or another, and the people who aren't are starting to bite their nails feeling the crunch.
Also, we already have cheap cell phones (pay as you go because we don't talk much), but internet service is outrageous here (IMO), and landline phone service as well. We don't get good enough reception out where we live, so going to a cell only isn't an option for us. Our landline bill is about $60/month, and that's for maybe 15min. long distance! I have always been picky about turning off lights when not in use.
I think we're going to re-institute our salad/baked potato meal one night a week. I want to cut out another meat night as well, but DH is so picky as it is that I can't imagine what he would eat without meat. He packs a lunch daily for work, and has for a long time, so he doesn't eat out at all during the work day. When we take our day trips to the zoo, museum, etc. we ALWAYS pack our lunch and never buy the expensive food at those places. I read budgeting articles/tips and I'm always thinking, yea, we're doing that...yes, that, too....what's new? We DO that!
I'm with ya Reds- we do it all too! Has anyone noticed that advice on losing weight, saving money and being organized always contradict each other? Don't throw things out- it's wasteful, don't clean your plate -you'll get fat, but I thought it was wasteful?, don't keep it -it's clutter- keep it or you'll buy it again- ARGH!
I've been trying to cut back on my trips into town now that gas is over $4/gal.
Our favorite restaurant is 40 miles away. We used to go at least once a week, now we go about every 2 weeks.
Grocery prices have gone up, so I'm careful to make a list before I go to the store. If I don't, my bill ends up way too high.
We just got a notice in the mail that our natural gas bill will be going up 50% starting in July. We use natural gas for our heat, hot water, cooking.
50%!!!!! Wow!
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