If you plan to save $15k in about 15-18 months where would you look in your budget?

JuneMrs · January 2014

What kinds of cuts would you make? Savings techniques? Splurges you would cut out? Etc.

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2014

We just did this to pay for my new car. We cut entertainment, restaurants, grocery budget. I haven't bought any new clothes in a couple months for either of us, we have been cooking a lot at home and doing more basic meals (no steaks, etc). No spas, salons -I haven't had a haircut in 6 months, although I'm hoping to finally get one here soon, now it's just a matter of having time.

I said this on your previous thread, but post your budget- EVERYTHING included and we can help a lot. (I'm assuming you want to save, plus pay off your other debts you had listed).

vlagrl29 · January 2014

That's a lot for us to save in that amount of time that we would have to cut lots of stuff - no eating out at all, no entertainment or fun money, no luxuries, no vacation, no yoga studio time.

Xstatic3333 · January 2014

I would need to do what I could to create windfalls, like bank my tax return and sell some things. I'd also bank big chunks of my two "bonus" biweekly paychecks a year. I would not cut back on my retirement, and I'd only cut back a tiny bit on my debt payments. This is in addition to the lifestyle sacrifices PP mentioned.

maple2 · January 2014

We honestly could not save that amount in that timeframe unless we stopped contributing to retirement, which I would only do in some sort of emergency. We could reduce our food budget and quit any eating out, but that wouldn't even get us half way. We could restructure our childcare arrangements to save some more, but we still wouldn't save enough. DH and I would have to look at ways to increase income either by getting additional work or selling stuff we have.

Dspkid · January 2014

I know for me, increasing my savings by $1,000 or more per month would really require multiple changes in spending habits. There are really multiple areas that you could tackle first in order to put some additional money towards your savings. First and foremost I would start with limiting the debit cards and paying cash. I have found when I have to use my cash to pay for something I am much more selective in what I buy. I have built my budget around weekly spending for items such as groceries, dining out and household goods. Each week I pull out my weekly allotment in cash and that is what I use. Obviously your budget is going to have to be set up in such a way that your savings is included, but using cash should help you stick to the budget you have set.

mbecker03 · January 2014

I would approach the question this way: if you were suddenly in the incredibly unfortunate position of losing your jobs and therefore your income, what would you do for survival? What would you cut out to get to the absolute bare bones in expenses so that your family could last financially as long as possible? This is a good planning exercise anyway, since we should all at least have some idea of how we would handle those worst-case scenarios, but it can be eye-opening in terms of what things you spend money on that really don't matter.

I would also try to focus your efforts on one-time efforts that produce consistent results, such as dropping cable, switching to a lower-cost cell phone plan, or even something dramatic like moving to a cheaper place or getting rid of a car. Maybe you don't want to go that big and that's fine, but generally you want to minimize the amount of ongoing effort.

Finally, automate your savings and figure the rest out based on what you have left. Simply make your savings the priority and force yourself to make the rest of it work.

hoffse · January 2014

This is entirely relative. If you really have enough wiggle room to save about $1,000/month extra then the places that comes from should be pretty obvious (I would guess shopping, eating out, etc.). I could not increase my savings by an extra $1,000/month without basically starving myself or decreasing retirement contributions. Neither of those are options for me.

vlagrl29 · January 2014

hoffse said:

This is entirely relative. If you really have enough wiggle room to save about $1,000/month extra then the places that comes from should be pretty obvious (I would guess shopping, eating out, etc.). I could not increase my savings by an extra $1,000/month without basically starving myself or decreasing retirement contributions. Neither of those are options for me.

that's us too. I honestly don't think we could save that much in that amount of time without going hungry.

ta78 · January 2014

Besides cutting our food budget and any sort of entertainment.. we would have to sell some things because. This is going to be different for everyone.

We already don't have cable, have basic cell phones, limit eating out and vacations and shopping.

SmrBrd2012 · January 2014

I know its not part of the question but getting a part time job wouldn't be off the table for us, if we were really motivated and had nowhere else to cut.

If you plan to save $15k in about 15-18 months where would you look in your budget?

Re: If you plan to save $15k in about 15-18 months where would you look in your budget?

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