How We Trimmed our Expenses
Making money is great. Budgeting is fantastic. However, cutting down your finances will always be more effective than making more money. Now, this isn't going to be some list of stupid Pinterest ideas that recycle garbage or some easier-said-than-done-post about buying the cheapest things you can. I don't know you or your circumstances, needs, limits, etc. So, instead of trying to tell you what you NEED to do, I'm going to discuss what has worked or is working for my wife and I. If you'd like to follow along and do the same things, I'm happy to help: That's why I write. Let's dive in.
As I've written before, food is my household's biggest problem when it comes to spending. My wife and I love eating out and it's a problem. Combined with groceries, during a relatively normal month, my wife and I used to spend WAY more money than 2 people should spend on food. We were able to cut it down to less than HALF by eating out less and planning out our food better. Most of times we ate out, it wasn't for special occasions. It was those I'm-tired-and-don't-feel-like cooking or those we-didn't-get-any-meat-out-of-the-freezer nights during the week that seemed like a good excuse to go to out to eat. Once we started planning our dinners out better, and stayed strong when driving past Moe's or Chipotle on the way home from work, we saved a lot of money.
It was not one big sweeping change. This took months and we started with a high budget and gradually brought it down to where it is now. We budget for going out to eat once every couple weeks and budget enough to cover a month of groceries. We've been using an app called Paprika for recipe management, shopping list creation, and menu planning with great success. I'm working on a post about it at the time of this writing.
With dinners covered by planning, we make as much of our food on the weekends as we can and simply pack it for the week. I used to eat those Jimmy Dean microwavable breakfast sandwiches but I recently started practicing Intermittent Fasting. Essentially, I skip breakfast and eat a more filling lunch and dinner. For lunch, I usually bake chicken or just eat leftovers from a large meal on the weekend. Each week, I can do something different and the options are all relatively healthy. I'm not a health nut by any means but I do try to eat things that don't leave me feeling terrible after. We still go out to lunch sometimes but it's not a regular thing.
All in all, after some practice we cut our food spending (groceries + dining out) by over $700/month.
I say "Less Expensive" as opposed to "Cheaper" for a reason. I completely agree with (and advocate that) you get what you pay for. AT&T and Verizon may be the best carrier in your area and that's great. I'm not suggesting to go to a carrier with poorer coverage in your area just to save a buck, but my wife and I were able to cut our monthly cell bill IN HALF by switching from Verizon to Total Wireless. Our actual expense for 2 lines,8Gb 15Gb of LTE Data and unlimited talk/text is $62.08/month. TW is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator, or MVNO. They're similar to what TracFone is to AT&T & Tmobile networks. You're still using the same network so your call and data reliability aren't affected. TW "piggy backs" off of Verizon's network, so we get Verizon coverage and reliability at a much lower rate. There are some trade-offs, but nothing that'll likely be a deal-breaker for most people. I wrote a detailed account of our switch to TW in the past so I encourage you to check it out if you're interested. This switch saved us about $55/month.
Of course, if you don't use it, cancel it. However, I'd also suggest thinking about subscriptions you really need. For example, I had subscriptions to Dollar Shave Club (which I like) that I used, but I was also subscribed to Pluralsight, an IT training course website that I didn't use as much as I wanted to. Pluralsight was $30/month and DSC was only $6/month. I cancelled both. Other subscriptions we had were Hulu, Netflix, HBONow and Amazon Prime. We kept Prime & Netflix. When we upgraded our internet, we got a great deal on an Internet/TV bundle, so that gave us Cable TV w/DVR including HBO. We dropped HBONow and Hulu once the spring TV season ended. Hulu was $8/month along with HBONow being $15/month. All in all, trimming subscriptions saved $54/month. That might not sound like a lot, but it adds up.
Some of these actions don't save insane amounts of money but they can add up to be very noticeable at the end of a month. If you add up these changes, We've cut over $800 in monthly spending. That's $800 more to go towards saving and/or paying down debt (which saves even more money).
I'm not telling you that you need to do these things to save money. You may say "but I really like Hulu." or "I don't want to change my diet." and that's OK. You can find what money saving tactics WORK FOR YOU. I'm simply listing the things that worked well for my wife and I. I hope this helped you in some way.
Eat Out Less & Plan Regular Dinner Menus
As I've written before, food is my household's biggest problem when it comes to spending. My wife and I love eating out and it's a problem. Combined with groceries, during a relatively normal month, my wife and I used to spend WAY more money than 2 people should spend on food. We were able to cut it down to less than HALF by eating out less and planning out our food better. Most of times we ate out, it wasn't for special occasions. It was those I'm-tired-and-don't-feel-like cooking or those we-didn't-get-any-meat-out-of-the-freezer nights during the week that seemed like a good excuse to go to out to eat. Once we started planning our dinners out better, and stayed strong when driving past Moe's or Chipotle on the way home from work, we saved a lot of money.
It was not one big sweeping change. This took months and we started with a high budget and gradually brought it down to where it is now. We budget for going out to eat once every couple weeks and budget enough to cover a month of groceries. We've been using an app called Paprika for recipe management, shopping list creation, and menu planning with great success. I'm working on a post about it at the time of this writing.
Prep Breakfast & Lunch on Weekends
With dinners covered by planning, we make as much of our food on the weekends as we can and simply pack it for the week. I used to eat those Jimmy Dean microwavable breakfast sandwiches but I recently started practicing Intermittent Fasting. Essentially, I skip breakfast and eat a more filling lunch and dinner. For lunch, I usually bake chicken or just eat leftovers from a large meal on the weekend. Each week, I can do something different and the options are all relatively healthy. I'm not a health nut by any means but I do try to eat things that don't leave me feeling terrible after. We still go out to lunch sometimes but it's not a regular thing.
All in all, after some practice we cut our food spending (groceries + dining out) by over $700/month.
Switch to a Less Expensive Cell Carrier
I say "Less Expensive" as opposed to "Cheaper" for a reason. I completely agree with (and advocate that) you get what you pay for. AT&T and Verizon may be the best carrier in your area and that's great. I'm not suggesting to go to a carrier with poorer coverage in your area just to save a buck, but my wife and I were able to cut our monthly cell bill IN HALF by switching from Verizon to Total Wireless. Our actual expense for 2 lines,
Cancel Subscriptions You Don't Use
Of course, if you don't use it, cancel it. However, I'd also suggest thinking about subscriptions you really need. For example, I had subscriptions to Dollar Shave Club (which I like) that I used, but I was also subscribed to Pluralsight, an IT training course website that I didn't use as much as I wanted to. Pluralsight was $30/month and DSC was only $6/month. I cancelled both. Other subscriptions we had were Hulu, Netflix, HBONow and Amazon Prime. We kept Prime & Netflix. When we upgraded our internet, we got a great deal on an Internet/TV bundle, so that gave us Cable TV w/DVR including HBO. We dropped HBONow and Hulu once the spring TV season ended. Hulu was $8/month along with HBONow being $15/month. All in all, trimming subscriptions saved $54/month. That might not sound like a lot, but it adds up.
Some of these actions don't save insane amounts of money but they can add up to be very noticeable at the end of a month. If you add up these changes, We've cut over $800 in monthly spending. That's $800 more to go towards saving and/or paying down debt (which saves even more money).
I'm not telling you that you need to do these things to save money. You may say "but I really like Hulu." or "I don't want to change my diet." and that's OK. You can find what money saving tactics WORK FOR YOU. I'm simply listing the things that worked well for my wife and I. I hope this helped you in some way.
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