Because Joe's owns a small business that only creates work seasonally we really have to pinch our pennies in the winter months. This year we decided to look at our bills and our spending and see what we can do to cut costs.
1) We sold a car. One less vehicle for Squeegee Squad to insure and also some cash in our pockets
2) We cut our cable bill down. Initially we considered getting rid of cable all together. But we decided that Tivo is way too amazing to let go :) Joe called DirecTV and he talked them into giving us a new user rate and also cutting out some channels to save us some money.
3) We added me onto Joe's business cell phone plan. With that I got to upgrade to a Blackberry for $50 and now we have zero cell phone bills for our personal expenses, and only an extra $20 a month for the business.
4) Switched health clubs to something closer and cheaper.
5) Got a membership to Sam's Club. Getting non perishables in bulk saves money. Diapers, wipes, cereal, granola bars, laundry detergent, etc... Granted we paid $30 to join, we figure we will save that in no time.
6) Buying generic brands, although, this isn't something new for us. We are also trying to decide if getting the Sunday paper for the coupons is worth it.
7) I can probably count on one hand how many times I've bought Silas new clothes. The majority of his clothes come from garage sales, consignment sales or are gifts from his dotting grandparents. We mostly get secondhand books and toys for him as well. Goodwill sells all children's books for 99 cents--even hardcover!
Do any of you have any great money saving tips??
2 comments:
Ditto! Saving money is a good thing - especially when you can find ways to do things that you already do for cheaper! What's worked really well for us is to have a WRITTEN BUDGET. We write it down every month and then manage our expenses to it. We've each picked categories that we are natually good at managing or that we prefer to manage (e.g. I have groceries and household fund, Terry has entertainment fund, etc). And we've picked certain categories taht we use cash for (e.g. entertainment, slush fund/blow fund that we each get for the month, groceries, etc)... when the cash is gone we are done spending in that category - unless we revise the budget mid-month and move money from one cateogory to another - which has happened a few times. The first couple of months the budget took some time to get put together. Now each month it takes us less than 10 mins to write the budget for the month. It's a great way to spend less.
p.s. I started couponing about 2-3 months ago and I think I've saved from it. I'm also pondering the Sunday paper subscription. Last Sun I bought the paper and recovered the cost with one coupon alone. my only tip with coupons is to get a divider container to make it easier to organize and then sort them in the order of the grocery store when you actually go there.
p.p.s. maybe we'll call our internet company to get the internet bill down. :-)
Good luck stock-piling those pennies.
xoxo
Thanks for the tips, Aim!! With the economy the way it is these days, companies DO NOT want to loose your business. Joe was able to cut his Sprint (business) bill down quite a bit just by calling :)
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