Okay gang, this is a team effort as we experience our loving God’s bailout plan for us. There is no time like the present to learn from each other about frugality, cost cutting strategies and other money saving tips during our current economic downturn. So let’s here it: what are you have done previously, are currently doing, and planning on doing to lower “overhead” in your household?
I’ll start it off: Karen and I haven’t had cable tv since 1992. Nothing necessarily against cable (wow do I miss ESPN some days…), but we have roughly pocketed $7,680 in 16 years. Karen plays the grocery game which has saved us hundreds (yes, hundreds) of dollars on our grocery bill. I do some of our shopping at Costco and The Grocery Outlet which save additional fundage. We look for free entertainment whenever we can, check out dvd’s from the library, use stored up gift cards for date nights, among other things I’ll share later. Dive in to the conversation pa-lease!!
Bailout Blog-Genesis Church 
This would be my favorite topic EVER….
–No TV channels here at all. This forces us to spend quality time together and saves a ton of money! It also has an unexpected benefit — when no one advertises to you, you don’t feel like you need anything and want to go out and buy stuff. Check out http://www.thestoryofstuff.com for more info on that!
–We use VOIP phone (www.voipyourlife.com) and save a ridiculous amount of money on our phone bill.
–We have prepaid cell phones that we use as little as possible.
–We get our produce from http://www.bountifulbaskets.org and use green bags (you can wash those and reuse up to 10 times!) to make them last.
–We have a Foodsaver we got on sale for $25 and we make our own “frozen dinners” to avoid buying prepared foods. (We’ve given ourselves a bit of a break on this for late pregnancy!)
–Cloth diapers and wipes!
–No consumer debt, so we don’t pay interest. This saves a TON of money!
–Going to the park and having a picnic.
–Shopping second-hand for most clothing, furniture, and other items (we’ve only bought about 3 items new for the baby, total!) Half.com is a great source for cheap used books.
–We make our own all-purpose cleaner, window cleaner, laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent. It’s better for the environment, better for us, easy and DIRT cheap! 🙂 Use Google to find recipes.
–We’re buying a drying rack (from Craigslist, of course!) for the porch of our apartment so we can line dry our clothes — it’s better for the environment, fabulous for your electricity bill and better for your clothes!
–Speaking of clothes, most can be washed on cold to save money on heating water.
–We get cash out of the bank, according to our budget, and put it into envelopes for each discretionary category every payday. When that category is gone, it’s gone. Stats show you spend 17% more with plastic, even if it’s a debit card!
–We buy (necessary, replacement) cars only from private parties — never from a dealer. The markup is ridiculous on used cars at a dealer and the temptation to finance is too great. The average millionaire drives a two-year-old USED car!
–We’ve created a culture around us of friends we don’t need to impress. People don’t talk about this, but it saves a lot of money when you’re allowed to be real and you don’t need to “keep up with the Joneses.” It’s also much better for your soul. 🙂
–We’ve declared the last two Christmases at our house all homemade. More fun, less stress, more special and WAY cheaper.
–Some fun, cheap dates you may find the B-D’s on: Hiking at South Mountain (maybe with a picnic), finding all the change in the house and going to McDonald’s for ice cream, taking quarters to the car wash and racing to see who can wash their car faster, taking walks in the park, going to the community center to play air hockey for free, playing tennis at a public (or apartment) court, going to the $3 theater to see a movie and sneaking our own treats, cooking a new recipe together in our own kitchen, going to Prescott for a picnic in the square and camping out for $6/night.
–We try to get into a mentality of avoiding buying disposable anything.
–We trade goods and services with friends — like Jeff’s pizza dough for dry cleaning, a cooking lesson for a haircut, website stuff for housecleaning help (during pregnancy), etc.
–Every time we do buy anything, we do a quick web search for coupon codes!
–Negotiate! People don’t do this enough, but you would be surprised how many prices are negotiable if you can find a competitor’s ad, shop around, talk someone down, or flash cash (that works especially well on Craigslist — don’t bring a check, bring small bills and hold them up when you offer them!)
–Going out to dessert at a romantic restaurant is almost as good as going out to dinner, and far cheaper.
–We’re learning to take better care of our stuff and keep it clean and organized so we don’t shop for emotional reasons.
As you can see, I could definitely go all day. But this is a good start…. 🙂
awesome, simply awesome!
Alyssa you guys are amazing! (I love some of the cheap date ideas!!!) The drive-in is Scottsdale is also a great place to go for a cheap date… take your dinner with you and have dinner & movie under the stars.
I have to admit we don’t do anything extreme. We still have many areas to improve in (more me) but we manage to live debt free with the exception of our beautiful house. The best advice we were given, and we follow (painfully at times) as your income increases you should not increase your overhead. Essentially it goes back to the old saying “live below your means”
Not sure if it will help but here are a few tips….
– On our home we put 20% down, we are on a 30 year fixed, and are on track to pay it off in less than 20 years. (I am sure you have all heard, but if you just add 10% each month to your house payment you will pay it off in about 23 years.) They offer payment programs that do this for you but it normally charges a fee; if you just add the 10% on to each payment (state that you want it to go to the principle) then if you ever get into hard time you can go back to the standard payment plan.
– We do have nice cars but we own them outright & we never buy them brand new.
– One thing we learned a long time ago…. even if you make good money, if you just put it in your savings account (in a normal economy) with inflation it is losing value. Therefore we invest in the stock market & other areas… we save about 30%+ of our gross income.
– Ok a fun tip… I am not sure how much you eat out but we eat out quit often. If my husband and I get water rather than soda when we are out to eat (we still drink sodas at home) we can save over $1500 a year. (We go in spurts on following this… but run the numbers for your own home)
– Online I normally go to currentcodes.com to see if there are any promotional codes… and I love http://www.shopzilla.com & http://www.mysimmon.com to compare prices
– As for groceries, 2 years ago when we lived in North Scottsdale. The only grocery store by us wanted $6.00 for 2 tomatoes!!! Angry about the crazy markups I humbled myself & tried the Walmart in the Airpark. Oh my goodness, it is ridiculous how much money you save on all the standard grocery items!! I am now a huge fan of Walmart! The best part is they will match anyone’s advertised price; normally I just ask the checker to let me know if there is anything at a lower price & they will ring it up for that price; as you can tell I am not good about taking the time to research this stuff myself. ) Some Walmarts even have a list that you can pick up that shares the lower advertised rates.
My husband & I have been reading these blogs each night together. Honey thanks for all your guidance in this area! You are truly the numbers person in our family & I am so thankful for all the things you have taught me & how you keep us on track each month.
Anonymous, thanks so much for the tips, these are priceless (no pun intended). I’m with you on the Walmart, it is amazing how much you can save shopping there. Way to go on owning your cars outright. The moment you buy a new car from a dealer and drive it off the lot, it can lose up to 20% of it’s value….yikes!! Living below your means is so simple to say, yet so difficult to do. I don’t know if you are a part of Genesis or not, but we are addressing debt and a certain snowball tomorrow. I’d better get to bed!
Isn’t sneaking your own treats into the theater just a bit dishonest? 3 dollars for a movie buy a concession or rent a dvd from the library!
We don’t have loans for cars. No student loans. Emergency credit card only.
I love some of the ideas I see here! I will admit that I would be the first in my family to implode for lack of cable, so Pat I applaud you and your family for that step. We took the Dave Ramsey course about two years ago, so we try to stick to the budget withdrawals and envelope system, but in the current economy that has been tough, mostly because my wife’s job moved to Atlanta in September, and we were not willing to make the move from the Seattle area.
Almost all of our clothes are washed in cold water.
We have our milk delivered, we pay a fraction more per half gallon, but we save a ton by NOT taking that extra trip to the grocery store when we run out of milk, and with three kids, that would happen more often than not (better planning, you think?).
All of our home cleaning products are purchased through a company called Melealuca, it’s an MLM, but we are only consumers, not distributors. It is all from tea-tree oil, and comes in concentrate, so we make what we need.
Credit is not an option in the Valley household, even in emergencies, despite my infrequent attempts.
We have, in the past, and are working on restarting, a small group for Dave Ramsey accountability. Right now we’re tying that to our church’s study of John Baker’s book, Life’s Healing Choices. We’ve only done one week, but it looks to be very powerful.
Pat – Thanks for sharing the blog. I hope to continue to follow up!
Sean
We try so hard to live “cheaply”. We also don’t have cable…going on 9 years…boo hoo. We don’t do date night…but game night, which is just as fun. We remake first dinners into exciting second dinners…leftovers become something new. We actually only shop Trader Joes, but save quite a bit because we don’t give in to those yummy foods you don’t need. We vacation a lot, but camp as our vacation. We don’t have cell phones…to the annoyance of our friends 🙂 We pick and choose what is important and try and make that work within our budget. We also have a clothes line…which who doesn’t love the smell of sun dried clothes? The library is my best friend. We eat a lot of beans and really only chicken as our meat….to eat anything else is a special occasion. We cook a lot at home, and premake things for those busy nights. I know that to certain people we live frugally, but I am most certain that I could find even more costs to cut…which is our goal this year. Thank you for making this part of the coming sermons…it makes it easier to follow!
Jackie, you are an inspiration! Seriously, you guys have this thing wired, and I DO absolutely think you live frugally. I love the greeness and simple way you have decorate your home. Keep it going. I wish I could live without cell phone. Alas, I’m wired and I need to admit I probably always will be! Thanks!
To lower my overhead:
I called the cable /internet company and cut back on lots of the un-needed programs, got a 25% discount for 6 months. I sat down and cut every single thing out of my spending that wasn’t important for survival. I use the car for multiple trips now, not just one. I also use green bags when I shop.
We eat very inexpensively and “sale shop” for almost all of our food. I do not buy any clothes right now…just wear the things I have had for years and feel right about that. Sure, I miss the way a new outfit feels but I feel even better being wise with my finances.
I make a second pot of coffee with the first grounds and add two scoops to that. HONEST it is delicious!! I use the best priced coffee and add cinnamon to the grounds (dollar store!) I save the left over coffee in the fridge for iced coffee.
I make my gifts and don’t go to the mall or specialty stores right now so I don’t know what I am missing. I have sold things I no longer need on Craigs list too. (need a stationary bike for $25?)
I trade garden plants with other gardeners instead of buying them. My garden is my play time and we all need a way to still have fun.
I have many Christian fiction books that my sister sent to me and I am happy to share them as I finish them as long as you pass them back to me so I can continue sharing them. They are by Karen’ Kingsbury and even Gary Smalley loves them. They are inspirational and real! No fluffy faith but the real thing. Reading is important to me but I do not need to buy them with a sister like mine! The library works too.
What goes down, will come up eventually and I think as we all learn how to survive the recession, we can carry many of these tricks into the next financial season of our lives and gain wisdom in our journey. Knowing we are all part of this together is helpful too even though some have not been affected as much as others. I have a wonderful friend, Chris, who is always reminding me that “her money is God’s money” and that occasionally God wants her to take me to breakfast or to a movie with HIS money! I thank God for friends like her ….and can’t wait to be on the giving end again!
Alyssa,
I have my first Bountiful Baskets pick up this saturday! Thank YOU!