Getting Your Expenses Down

As promised in my last post, here are a lot of ways that my wife and I use to cut down on living expenses so that we can pay extra on our debt. Of course, some months all it really does is allow us to make it through the month without relying on credit.

First thing we did was to cut back on eating out at night. Now we eat out once or twice a month. Some people totally cut this out, but we felt like we needed a little room in the budget for this, and we chose to cut out other things to keep this in the budget.

Lunch is always eaten at home or brought with me to work.

Cable is gone, completely. There are myriad websites that show current television programming, usually a day or week behind, but some are in real time. We have DSL and a phone line with none of the extras, no caller ID, voice mail or even call waiting. If I didn't use a fax for work on a regular basis we wouldn't even have the phone line. You can get what is called Naked DSL without even having a phone line. There usually a small monthly fee for it, but that still beats paying for the phone line.

We put our cell phones on the same plan and cut out the data plan I had before. Since we get rollover minutes, every couple of months we adjust our plan down to the minimum and use up our rollover minutes and then we adjust the plan back up. That saves us around $80 every few months.

Coupons, coupons, coupons. My wife saves $50 a week on average using coupons for our grocery and household items. Many places double or triple manufacturer coupons up to .50 or $1. Those add up quickly and can be used on top of any specials being run by the store.

Kroger has some great manager's specials and they double coupons. Publix is pricey like Kroger, but they run buy-one get-one free deals all the time. Their store brand is pretty cheap and they run it on sale a good bit. There is also Wal Mart for the staples that aren't on sale. Check out the circulars before you go and make a list. Stick to that list. Eat before you go, you'll avoid a lot of impulse buys. Stick to that list. Pay cash - you'll spend up to one third less than if you buy with a card. Stick to that list.

Turn your hot water heater down. You don't need all that hot water sitting there ready at a moment's notice anyway, and it costs money to keep reheating it. A general rule is that if you need to mix the hot water with cold water to use it anyway, you need to turn the heat down.

Use ceiling fans and turn the air up in summer. Wear a sweater and turn the heat down a few degrees in the winter.

Drink water and water only. It is good for you, helps you lose weight and costs far less than sodas or other drinks. Ask for it in a glass when eating out. Don't buy it in a bottle. That is super expensive. If you don't like the taste of your tap water, buy a filter that fits on the tap or put a filtered pitcher in the refrigerator. It'll be colder that way anyway.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'll do another post later with some more things we do. The list sounds a little screwy to some, but we use it to shave thousands off our living expenses each year.