Family on a budget =
saving some cash!
The key to saving money each month is to look at what you spend. Before you know where you can trim, you have to know where it goes.(click here for a budget worksheet to see how much is costs to live for a month) The next step is to look at the places you can trim from. We can't cut back on our mortgage or rent, our car payments are fixed, and the credit cards need to be paid too. However, we can make cuts to other areas to save money.
Here is a list ideas to get you thinking---know the difference between NEEDS and WANTS... 1. Grocery spending I feed our family of 5 (and a dog) for $80.00 a week.(used to spend $200.00 a week..that is a monthly savings of $480.00!!!!) Click here to read how I do it!2.Make homemade food items Many recipes are cheaper to make than to buy!
Bread, granola- bars, cakes, cookies, muffins and many other items are cheaper when made at home, not to mention much healthier because you know what the ingredients are!
Click here for some delicious recipes: (Make some
homemade products!
Recently I started making the following items for our familly:
**shampoo
**toothpaste
**laundry and dish soap
**household cleaners
This desire
to
reduce the amount of plastic and other packaging we consume drove me to
switch to making these homemade
products....and I have a lot of fun doing it! )
** Also brewing my coffee at home instead of grabbing one on the go saves me at least $1.85 a day! **
** We have all banned the juice boxes and bottled water for an earth friendly, reusable and BPA free water bottle. When we go out, it takes a little longer than just grabbing juice boxes, but it is saving money and keeping plastic out of the landfill!**3. Services that you don't use Are you paying for services that you aren't using?
It occurred to me one day that my husband and I didn't both need a cell phone, especially when we weren't even coming close to using our minutes. I ditched the family plan that was costing us $85.00 a month and switched to a single plan that is only $45.00 a month. He car- pools with another person to work, so I know that if there is an emergency, his friend has a phone. If one of us needs the phone, that person takes it. We lived before cell phones, and we are living now with just one!
**Car-pooling saves us $60.00 a month on gas!!** Since my husband is off every weekend, (he is a teacher), he now has the job of taking our household garbage and recyclables to the county landfill. By stopping home pickup of our garbage, we saved $40.00 a month. To bring the trash ourselves once a week, it costs us $2.00. That is a total savings of $32.00 a month! It is free to recycle!
I
want to cancel the cable because there are so many other free places on the internet to watch t.v. I figure it would save us an additional $50.00 a month if we got rid of cable. The kids don't watch tons of television, but they are against the idea of not having it. We all have our favorite shows and channels, but I know we could all survive without it. This is still in the planning stage, I will add a link once I get it all figured out...but I will post all the free and super cheap places to get t.v and movies on the internet!*
(here is the link to FREE TV) Not to sound like a car insurance commercial, but we switched to another company last summer and saved over $500.00 dollars on our yearly insurance premiums. That is really one place you might be able to save some cash!
Total saved for us each month with this budget!
over $600.00
(That is over $7300.00 a year!!!)
Follow me on my blog to see how I stick to my budget!
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