Money Saving Tuesday

It's been nutso at our house lately and I'm expecting it to stay that way for the next couple weeks. I'm looking forward to announcing why it's so busy (if it all goes through), but in the meantime, I have to come up with a saving tip for my typical Tuesday.

This week I didn't do any homemade soaps, detergents, or anything really frugal.

I'll just share the biggest tip I have when it comes to money. It's not a fun one, but it is one that can change habits FAST.

It's simply this:

go on a CASH system.


I'm a fiend with my debit card. I don't use my credit cards much (mostly because they were maxed, and since they were in that position for a while, I broke that habit), but my debit card...well, I treated it LIKE a credit card.

I tried leaving my cards at home, or saying "I'll only spend this much on such and such", but I tell you, there was ALWAYS something that came up.

In my wallet I currently have all my credit cards, and all my debit cards. But, I now have envelopes at home that contain my cash. Every time my husband gets paid, I get to put a set amount into different envelopes.

The envelopes I have at my disposal are labelled as follows:

Groceries
Gas
Dog Food
Kid Allowances
Kid Hot Lunches (once a week they can buy pizza or a sub at school)

When the money runs out, the money runs out. That's it. There is no more. This has cut out some fun (unfortunately), but it's also helped us rediscover how to use the things we have in our own home.

Instead of taking the kids out for ice cream, movies, or an outing to get family quality time in, we have been pulling out the old board games.

Our kids LOVE that time. I may even venture to say that they might like it more than the gobs of money we dropped on them to have family time. We currently have a Sorry battle going on. Last night there was tons of screaming, hollering and tabletalk (all good) going on during the wild and crazy game of Sorry.

Yes. Wild and crazy game of Sorry.

I actually didn't think Sorry could get so wound up, but apparently our family brings it to new heights.

Because we are working hard on cutting costs so we can enjoy bigger things in our future, there is currently no Entertainment envelope. If you're in a different space than us, I would strongly suggest having one. However, because there is no envelope, we don't spend money on it. In a few months, we will create one, but right now it is one thing that has to be cut out.

So far the most difficult one has been Groceries. I've discovered that the things we took for granted actually cost us the most. Having friends over for delicious meals, the luxury of buying nice face moisturizer, filling our water jugs for drinking...all things that should come out of the grocery budget but never really have. They were always "extras".

My husband has a spreadsheet made out for the budget and has been recording "extras" that happen during the month. So far we've spent $200 on extras. $200!! Of course, $120 of that was for our Rottie's ear infection. But it's still something we wouldn't have accounted for.

Groceries have been helped by having meat in the freezer (we recently purchased half a cow of meat and that should tie us over for a few months), budgeting meals and carefully planning grocery lists. It's also helped that we are identifying what are needs and what are wants. What we can live without and what we can downsize.

Gas money has been good to budget. I've been lumping my errands into days of the week, and instead of driving to the city 2 times a week, I organize my errands around my appointments. Tomorrow I'm driving to the city for a dentist appointment. While I'm there, I'll do my errands and the rest of the week I'll stay home.

Dog food. You might laugh that we have such an envelope, but we spend a lot on dog food. We have 2 dogs with medium and large genes and we buy good food. I don't believe in corn fillers and by products. Food colouring and other chemicals don't only make our dogs shed, and have more gas, but they have bigger poops. Trust me, you do not want to be in our bedroom when both the dogs are gassing us out. It's like poison. It's rancid. We've had to open windows and doors. We were buying top of the line "blue buffalo" for almost 2 years, but just can't stand paying the price anymore. I found that PetSmart has their own store brand, and it is $15 cheaper than our regular brand. Considering we buy 2 bags (puppy and adult) a month, that's $30 savings. I still feel good about the food I'm giving them, but I also feel better about not digging our way into the poor house.


So, my tips for this week.

1) Be honest about what you're spending. Yes, that coffee at Starbuck's does count. Yes, you should still have a coffee at Starbuck's once and a while but put it into your budget.

2) Withdraw cash on payday and allot it to your expenses. Resist the urge to use your debit. Cash hurts more because you can see it leave your hands.

3) Debit is not imaginary money. There is a cost to it. And that cost could be embarrassing when you're somewhere and you don't have real money.

4) Take a look at what you buy. Brand names are great, but can you get them cheaper? If you sacrifice brand names, sacrifice it in areas that don't matter. I always buy no name baking soda, cream soups I use in meals, and such. I buy brand names when I'm serving a soup straight from a can as a stand alone. That difference I can taste. I can't taste the difference when it's mixed in with my casserole.


Get real. That's the first step to making differences in cutting your spending. See what you can improve on.

My biggest number one tip though? It's to work on this gradually. Yes, you might be able to cut down on EVERYTHING for a month, but you'll feel so deprived that you might spend twice as much in entertainment and food the next month.

Find an area, improve it, make it a habit, and then move on to another area.


Good luck on your money saving!!