If you had to cut back in monthly spending where would you start?

Venti29 · February 2014

I think I could re work our grocery budget, but want some other ideas.
We're a cable free home.

Uptowngirl2009 · February 2014

I looked at bills that are "non-essential" i.e. Those that are not utilities, mortgage, or loans/debts. We cut back on our cell phone bill by reducing our data plan. We cut back on our satellite dish plan by reducing our package to a cheaper one. We also found a cheaper company to get our garbage each week. Other than that, everything else was essential so we couldn't really cut back on those things much other than trying to reduce our usage. We are working to try to pay off our lowest balance debt right now which, when paid, will free up some extra money as well.

Uptowngirl2009 · February 2014

BTW, if you figure out a good strategy to cut back on your grocery budget, let me know! I'm trying to do this as well but I haven't figured out the magic solution yet.

bobcee · February 2014

When we were trying to save, we kept a spreadsheet of every purchase, no matter how small. Coffee, gum, etc....it was tedious, but it really helped us see how things added up.

I would cut down on eating out/groceries. Start clipping coupons and stop splurging on the more expensive brands. Maybe try cutting down on our phone bills, stop putting extra towards our mortgage every month. Shop around to see if we could save on things like car/home insurance.

I don't spend much on clothes/make up for myself or for the kids, but if I did I'd definitely cut down on that.

Cable would be a huge one for us, but since you are already without that doesn't help.

MRads · February 2014

We build our budget by listing out all the bills first, then necessities, our monthly donations, then extras. Things we have cut out (besides cable) include significantly cutting back on eating out, significantly reducing our fun money (ie money for lunch at work or to grab coffee), no money for new clothes, doing gifts of service instead of buying gifts for family members and meal planning to reduce the grocery bill.

mrsvedo · February 2014

For us it's dining out. I went through our budget a year or so ago and realized that at one point we were spending 20% of our take home just on restaurants. :-&

We're still not at the ideal place but MUCH MUCH better than where we were.

carcrashheart · February 2014

i'm curious-do you have a solution for sporting events since you cut cable?

LooneyLife · February 2014

carcrashheart said:

i'm curious-do you have a solution for sporting events since you cut cable?

I'd love to find a solution for this is as well. I just don't think there's a realistic solution for huge sports fans.

MRads · February 2014

I bought the MLBtv app so I can watch pirates games. They have the same thing for hockey.

Emeraldeyed315 · February 2014

We use mint.com to help establish our budget. From there we do a cash system for gas, groceries and going out money. Once the cash is out, we don't spend anymore in that category. It really made us conserve driving trips- even for errands.

I grocery shop for 2-3 weeks at a time, purchasing meat in bulk and freezing most of it. I still sometimes make quick trips for fresh produce, etc but overall buying for that long of a period helped me save money. I try and coupon when I can as well.

We also lowered our thermostat which cut back some.

LittleLady77 · February 2014

When we went through our big financial overhaul Mint.com was essential. It would track everything and tell us exactly where our money was going. We were able to make relatively painless adjustments that saved us a ton.

carcrashheart · February 2014

MRads said:

I bought the MLBtv app so I can watch pirates games. They have the same thing for hockey.

what's the cost on the MLB tv app?

AshleyMatt1215 · February 2014

We started with cable and eliminated things from there. We went onto a budget for our gas and electric, our heat is only above 65 because of LO and it has been dangerously cold.

We stay home a lot to save gas, if we do go some where we plan it for multiple stops. We hit all of my in laws and outlets at one time or if we go see friends in Philly we see as many as possible.

I make almost all of our meals from scratch and I meal plan down to the pound. We buy mostly store brands and hardly splurge on anything that isn't necessary.

For clothes, I only buy when stuff is on sale. Most of LO's clothes have been clearance and some has been passed down. I'm not opposed to consignment.

For extra money DH sells stuff we don't need at a flea market and I'm working on making hair bows to sell.

brij2006 · February 2014

When you find a way to cut groceries, please let me know.
We set up our bare bones Dave Ramsey budget in December. We just tracked every single thing we bought and where every penny went. That was a big eye opener for us.
The best way we've found to cut is by giving ourselves an "allowance" each month in all categories. Eating out, groceries, spending cash, car projects for H, entertainment, etc. Once the money in that category is gone, then it's gone. It isn't easy, but we know this is the best way to keep ourselves on track.
However, groceries has been my hardest place to cut. Especially now that we eat at home a lot more.

bobcee · February 2014

carcrashheart said:

MRads said:

I bought the MLBtv app so I can watch pirates games. They have the same thing for hockey.

what's the cost on the MLB tv app?
We have this too. MLBTV premium is $129.99 a season and regular is $109.99. Main differences are you can get the away or home feed with premium vs just the home team's broadcast and the ability to use it on any connected or portable device.

One annoyance though is that some weekend games are blacked out dependent on the broadcast time since Fox owns the rights to those games. Also if the game is being broadcast on your local cable,I believe we've run into it being blacked out and you can't watch it. So since I live in Seattle, the mariners games are blacked out for me. I'm a White Sox fan so it doesn't matter most of the time, but if I didn't have cable and wanted to watch the mariners live, I couldn't.

AshleyMatt1215 · February 2014

bobcee said:

carcrashheart said:

MRads said:

I bought the MLBtv app so I can watch pirates games. They have the same thing for hockey.

what's the cost on the MLB tv app?

We have this too. MLBTV premium is $129.99 a season and regular is $109.99. Main differences are you can get the away or home feed with premium vs just the home team's broadcast and the ability to use it on any connected or portable device.

One annoyance though is that some weekend games are blacked out dependent on the broadcast time since Fox owns the rights to those games. Also if the game is being broadcast on your local cable,I believe we've run into it being blacked out and you can't watch it. So since I live in Seattle, the mariners games are blacked out for me. I'm a White Sox fan so it doesn't matter most of the time, but if I didn't have cable and wanted to watch the mariners live, I couldn't.

The MLB blackout stuff drives DH crazy. He's a huge Mets fan, we live in NEPA - 3 hours or so from NYC, we can't get mets games here. They're blacked out. He has an app to listen to them on his phone, when they aren't blacked out.

Venti29 · February 2014

I guess I'll get back on mint! That is a scary

. Thanks guys

wiggyslilsis · February 2014

We have done a bare bones budget before. Something that helped was having a certain amount to be able to spend on a luxury each paycheck even if it is $5 for a coffee. I found that by allowing myself one splurge I could stick to the no spending much better.

We also learned to budget gas and groceries by putting the money for them in a separate bank account and using that debit card. Adding stuff up as we went through the grocery store helped us prioritize the shopping trip.

When we are on a spending freeze we don't go out to eat at all. Going out to eat is a lot of money to have nothing to show for it when you think about it.

Meal planning and buying meat in bulk are my two biggest money savers when it comes to groceries. Again, we allow one splurge item like cookies or ice cream or any sort of extra snack food for each of us which makesit easier to stick to the list and the pplan.

smbenevides1989 · February 2014

I agree with what other pps have said. Grocery shopping wise - for 3 people, I spend about $60/week. I meal plan and only buy what's necessary. I do buy snacks, veggies, and fruits, create my own meals from scratch, and only go out to eat Friday nights. The biggest thing for me to save money was giving myself an allowance. I give myself $10/week while DH uses $30 (but yet he still goes over, grr).

I also track every expense by using an excel spreadsheet. I created it myself and I saved it to my Google Drive for easy access. I budget exactly what I need - gas, clothing, food, fun, bills, and car - and the rest stays in there until the very first paycheck of the next month. Whatever I have leftover gets placed into a savings account. We are actually paying off debt at the moment, so we are living on DH's paychecks while we use mine to pay the debts off. It's been working well for us.

Check out the Money Matters board if you need some more ideas. There are very wise and frugal women there who really know how to save a buck. They can give you some more ideas.

amccul20 · February 2014

When I was saving up for IVF I cut back most of our bills to the bare necessity. I also created several envelopes with cash in them so that I wouldn't go over my allowance for things like groceries ($200 month), fun money ($20 a month), and so forth...and it really helped!

KatieKim0815 · February 2014

I would say groceries are a great way to cut if you shop flyers etc and avoid impulse. Restaurants are usually the first to go and with that extravagant coffees (or I just loaded mine from five dollar coffees to dollar fifty).

Also shopping with cash is the best way to avoid overspending! By far!

Whippet8 · February 2014

we only allow for $200 of misc total. These are things that are not major bills (mortgage, electric, water...), groceries, gas and student loans. We are currently doing no spend February, so our misc is $0. Our grocery budget is $300 a month. No cable, cheapest internet.

If you had to cut back in monthly spending where would you start?

Re: If you had to cut back in monthly spending where would you start?

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