A New Plan for the Budget: Hoping This One Works!

My husband and I sat down and looked at the budget last weekend. That is a rare event. Usually I am the lone person responsible for the budget.

We both agree that it is important for me to stay home with the kids after my leave of absence is up. The tricky part is finding out where the several hundred dollars we are short each month without my paycheck will come from without us dipping into savings.

We have been very spoiled in that the budget did not have to be as tightly controlled as it did early in our marriage. Now, we are trying to get back to managing finances like we did when we were struggling as newlyweds.

Here are the changes we are implementing:

-Have the budget cycle run from the 16th of the month through the 15th of the next month (follows my husband's pay cycle)

-Use cash only

-Keep all cash in the budget envelope system

-Write down all money spent for the month in a notebook at the front of the budget envelope system.

-Keep a print out of our monthly budget next to my checkbook and bills so I can check off each item as I pay it (so I make sure not to miss any bills as I have done a few times since the 3rd baby has been born)

-Clear all money that is extra beyond our budget out of the checking account and into savings so we don't have the luxury of over spending.

What do you do to keep your budget on track?

I'll report back next month on the 15th.

The Monthly Budget--September

It is the beginning of the month. Time to post the budget.

We weren’t on target last month because I forgot to add over $200 of expenses—Delaney’s insurance and my son’s two after school programs. Hopefully this month we have all of the expenses listed and will be on target for the budget.

September 2010
Laundry 40
Rent 1000
Groceries 400 (this is up because we are back to paper diapers and I couldn’t make it on $55 a week)
ComEd 50
AT & T 28
Comcast 95
Son’s school 187
Son’s after school language program 140
Son’s dance class 40
Misc. 50
Gas/Transportation 120
Restaurant 80
Entertainment 40
Student Loan 192
Life insurance 77
Delaney’s Health Insurance 40
Husband’s spending money 35
My spending money 35
Tithes Private
TOTAL $2649

I'll report back at the beginning of next month and let you know how I did. We are trying to live on one income to gauge if we can truly do without my income.

Cash Based Budget Envelope System Giveaway!

UPDATE--The winner is Amy - amysalotti@ Congratulations!







As I mentioned a few days ago, my husband and I are trying to live off of one income to see if we can financially manage to have me quit my job. To help us maintain this budget, we have put away the credit cards and have reverted back to a cash only system.

We had a cash only system several years ago, but it was only moderately successful because I was a bit embarrassed to carry around a bunch of envelopes. To combat this, I would only bring, say my grocery envelope with me to the store, but at the store I might end up buying a shirt for my son. Because I only had the grocery envelope with me, I would pay for clothing out of that envelope instead of the clothing one which was still at home. You get the idea why it didn’t work so well for us.

Recently I ran across an Etsy store, Timeless Journey, that sells binders specifically designed to allow you to use the envelope system in style. Laura, owner of Timeless Journey, loves Dave Ramsey’s philosophy. Sixteen months ago, she and her husband found themselves on the verge of losing their house due to losing her husband’s income as a carpenter because of the housing market slow down. They also found themselves talking of divorce. Her church offered Dave Ramsey’s course, and after the 13 week course, they found themselves, “empowered and at peace.” The divorce talk ceased. In the final course, Dave Ramsey spoke about using one’s gifts to find a career that one loves. Laura, an art teacher by profession, was introduced to Etsy a week later by a friend and started making her durable cash budget binders. Her small business boomed, and now she and her husband are debt free and planning to buy a house next month.

Her binders contain 5 envelopes and a pocket on each of the inside covers of the binder. In addition to being stylish, these cash envelope binders are motivating. She prints Dave Ramsey quotes throughout the binder. For instance, the cover of mine says, “If you live like no one else, later you can LIVE like no one else.” Reading that each time I reach for the binder to spend money helps motivate me not to spend as much.

I don’t carry a purse, but I feel completely comfortable carrying this as a little clutch. It doesn’t feel so obvious that I am carrying envelopes of cash and “on a budget” (although really, that is nothing to be ashamed of.)

Laura offers a variety of different patterns for these books; she even does them in Disney prints. I love mine and find it helps me use the cash envelope system.

The Giveaway:
Laura at Timeless Journey has generously offered to give one Mom’s Plans reader their own budget cash envelope system.

To enter this giveaway, simply go to Timeless Journey on Etsy and state which one of the binders you would like should you win.

Additional methods of entry:
-Become a follower on my blog or state that you already are, if that is the case.

-Blog about this giveaway or write about it on Facebook or Twitter

-Another alternative way to enter is to Like Timeless Journey on Facebook

This giveaway will end on Thursday, August 12th at 9 p.m. CST. The winner will be chosen via random.org. Make sure you include your e-mail address when you enter.

I received a cash budget envelope system from Timeless Journey for review purposes. (Thank you!) All opinions are my own.

Budgeting as If Living on One Income

When I was pregnant with my son, my good friend (I’ll call her Jessica) was pregnant with her second child. Jessica desperately wanted to quit her job and stay home to take care of her soon to be two children. The problem was that she and her husband both had good paying jobs, and they were used to the two income lifestyle—dry cleaning done every week, take out several nights a week, vacations a few times a year, lunch out nearly every day, monthly video game purchases, etc. She and her husband didn’t budget; they just spent until the money was gone. (They did not, however, ring up credit card purchases.)

I suggested to her that she and her husband try to live on just his salary for about 6 months and save her salary to get a good savings built up and to see if they could manage to live on one income. Jessica agreed that was a good idea but said that they were not financially able to get by on just his income.

She did indeed end up quitting her job when the baby was born, and they moved 500 miles away to live closer to relatives. They sold their house and, thanks to selling right before the market crashed, they made a tidy profit. The area they moved to had a much lower cost of living, so they were able to buy a house nearly double the size of their old one for the same price they sold the old one for. They did not put all of the profit from the old house on their new one. They used some of the money for things they had always wanted such as a home gym and Lasik surgery for both of them.

The first year she stayed home was fine, but the second year they began to struggle. By the third year she was hitting the job market even though she had wanted to stay home until her youngest was in first grade. However, their bills were piling up because they continued to live as if they had two incomes coming in.

I do not want to have the same experience that Jessica had, but I can see how easily it can happen. So, starting this month, my husband and I are working on a budget that reflects one income. Unfortunately, his is the lower income, but it has the potential to increase in the next several years if he is able to focus on his career. I am lucky to have a leave of absence from my job that is paid from August through December. We have already made plans to have all that money directly deposited in savings. Out of sight, out of mind. So, here is our budget for August. There are some cuts made since last month’s budget, and I expect to cut it further in the next month or two as we adjust.

Laundry $60 (this is up by $20 to reflect switching to cloth diapers for the month)
Rent 1000
Groceries 220
ComEd 50
AT & T 28
Comcast 95
Son’s school 187
Hubby’s spending money 35
My spending money 35
Misc. 50
Gas/Transportation 130
Restaurant 80
Entertainment 40
Student Loan 192
Life insurance 77
Tithes Private
Total $2279

I’ll report back and let you know how I did at the end of the month

In Defense of Money Saving Mom

The very first blog I read was Money Saving Mom. I read her blog for about 6 months before I decided to start my own.

I was impressed with the beans and rice budget they followed while her husband was getting his law degree (perhaps because my husband is finishing up his Ph.D and I know how long the whole process can feel!). I was impressed with how she managed to find great deals for her family and spend very little money, and I admired their commitment to paying 100% down for their first home.

However, after reading her blog for several months, I noticed that she often got rude, dare I say, jealous, comments about her success. People come to her blog to learn how to live a more frugal life and to find great deals, and most of her readers applaud her success. But, there are more than a few that seem jealous of her success, of the fact that she is practicing what she preaches, so to speak.

When she and her husband just recently bought their house IN CASH!, there was quite a lively discussion about this on Facebook. One woman wrote something like this: “I am sure I could pay cash for my house too if my husband was a lawyer with a big salary and I could quit my job, stop paying for daycare and run a profitable blog.”

Really?

It is easy to be jealous of their financial success, but think about all of the work and sacrifice that went into achieving this goal. Are we all willing to live in a not so good area of town so we can live on $1000 a month? Can your family survive on an average of $40 a week for groceries? I know mine can’t. How long can most families live with only one car? (We are doing it now, but my husband can take public transportation, so I get to keep the car all day; that was not the case with Money Saving Mom as her husband had to take the car to get to work.)

Almost as if to illustrate the point of choices and sacrifice, one of her posts immediately following the post about their new house was that they are driving a dilapidated van that is on its last legs. Is the critical reader willing to do that?

The simple fact is that we all make financial decisions based on priorities. For Money Saving Mom and her family, paying 100% down for a house was a very important priority, and they lived their life to reflect that. It is true that she and her husband have more income coming in monthly than many of her readers. However, that does not guarantee the success she and her husband have had. There are millions of Americans who bring in great salaries and are deeply in debt. She and her husband made a commitment based on their beliefs, and they achieved an enviable goal. That is an example we can all learn from.

Creating a Budget & Sticking to It

I have a confession to make—I have stopped making, let alone following, a budget.

When my son was little, I had a little notebook where I made the budget and I diligently marked off each bill as I paid it. I sat down to pay bills twice a month, each time I received a paycheck.

Then, my daughter came along, and suddenly I didn’t seem to have time to do everything. I would sometimes write down a budget, but I couldn’t honestly tell you if we followed it completely because money just disappeared. We would take cash out of the bank, and 5 days later, it was gone, but I wasn’t quite sure where it went.

After the birth of our third child two months ago, I didn’t even pretend to make a budget. I just paid bills when I had a chance. As you can imagine, things started to slip through the cracks. I paid our credit card bill online on the day it was due, but I was one hour late and got hit by a late fee. (Yes, I fought it.) I forgot to pay the cable bill and got a bill reflecting two months’ total.

It is not that we don’t have the money to pay the bills, it is just that I am woefully unorganized.

So, this 4th of July weekend, my mom watched our kids while hubby and I went out and worked on making a budget together. We came up with a budget, and yes, I realize it has a lot of fat to be trimmed. I will get to trimming the fat in a few months. Right now, I am just trying to stick to a budget again and tell my money where to go (and pay my bills on time!)

Laundry $40
Rent 1000
Groceries 380
ComEd 50
AT & T 28
Comcast 95
Son’s school 187
Hubby’s spending money 36
My spending money 35
Misc. 50
Gas/Transportation 130
Restaurant 100
Entertainment 50
Student Loan 192
Life insurance 77
Tithes Private
Total $2450

I’ll report back and let you know how I did at the end of the month.

How Does Your Parent's Financial Example Affect You?

Within the last several weeks, two of the bloggers I read regularly have written posts about their parents and how little they learned about finances from them. Each of these bloggers basically said that they were lucky to have turned out financially responsibly because their parents were woefully irresponsible.

Something about these posts bothered me. In each case, their parents earned very little money, and whenever they did manage to make extra money, they spent it on their kids to give them something they had previously not been able to afford. Each blogger routinely condemned their parents for doing this instead of saving the money.

So, I started thinking about my grandparents, who raised a family of nine children all while living off one salary, my grandpa’s factory salary, while my grandma stayed home and kept up the house and took care of the kids. They were VERY financially responsible. They both lived through the depression, and my grandma washed out baggies and foil until she was on her deathbed. My mom tells stories of her parents looking over the grocery ads together and shopping the loss leaders at several stores. They paid for a private education for each of their children even though it was a financial hardship. They invested wisely and spent conservatively. My grandpa lived to 88, my grandma to 90, and they never ran out of money in retirement. In fact, there was enough leftover to give each of their nine children a small inheritance.

Unlikely the bloggers’ whose posts I read, my grandparents set a beautiful financial example for all of their children. And you know what, I have come to think that means very little. Of their nine children, two have filed bankruptcy during their lifetime. A few are routinely late on bills and have collectors calling. Several others pay their bills on time, but don’t save a lot. Whatever extra they have, they spend. Then there are a few who are very financially responsible, just like my grandparents.

It seems to me that parents’ financial habits do affect their children’s financial habits, but ultimately, the individual has the choice of how responsible they want to be (or not be) with their money.

Just Ask - Part II

I bought some tortillas cheap a few weeks ago for .99/package. I wanted to buy some imitation crab meat for Seafood Enchiladas, and I found a package for $4.83. I noticed that the expiration date was 2/19 (and I was shopping on 2/19); there was another package with an expiration date of 3/2. It would have been easy to just pick the package with a later expiration date, but I decided to ask the woman behind the fish counter if I could get a discount since the expiration date was the same day. She smiled, slapped a sticker on the package and handed it back to me. She gave me 50% off, so I got the crab for $2.41.

Just ask. (To see my previous post on just asking and saving money, go here.)

The Dining Out Challenge Blog

My husband and I love to eat out. It is our one true vice that keeps us from living as frugally as we would like. It is not unusual for us to spend $50 on dinner out.

I conducted a poll on my blog a few weeks ago and asked how much my readers averaged on dinner out for a family of four including tax and tip. The results showed that my husband and I are not alone. Forty-one people responded, and only 16% of them spent less than $30 when eating out. Forty percent spent between $31 and $50, and 41% spent $50 or more going out to eat. If eating out is a special treat, this is not that big of an expenditure, but for many Americans, eating out is something done at least weekly, if not more than that. This can take a huge chunk out of a family’s budget.

Clearly, with our decision for me to quit my job and become a stay-at-home mom, we cannot afford to continue eating out the way that we do. We considered not going out to eat at all, but neither of us really wanted to do that. Instead, we decided to set some ground rules—we can only go out to eat once a week, and we cannot spend more than $1300 on eating out for an entire year. (That averages out to $25/week for us and our two—soon to be three—children.) We want to still enjoy the experience of going out to eat but to be smarter about the way we use our money when eating out.

To document our eating out experiences and to share the ways we try to spend less than $25/week, I have created another blog, The Dining Out Challenge. Come join us there to learn tricks to save money eating out, to share your own experiences and to read our reviews of the restaurants we dine at.

We will try hard to avoid the typical fast food choices; we want to eat out like we used to at restaurants we enjoy without paying the high sticker price, so to speak. Hope to see you there!

On Overspending

I have a poll on my blog now (at the sidebar, please take it if you haven't!) asking what people typically overspend money on.

I have been struggling a bit with overspending lately. My overspending is not putting us in debt, but it is not helping us save the 5 to 6 months' worth of income I would like to. Sure, I could make excuses like going back to work full-time, being pregnant, taking care of a 12 month old and a 5 year old, but the bottom line is that I have been trying to "treat myself" with extras.

So, I enjoyed reading through the newest edition of All You magazine and reading what winners of their grocery challenge discovered when they cut their grocery expenses and tried to live more frugally. One 24 year old mother of a 9 month old baby, Megan Ross, stated regarding what she learned, "It's not a treat to spend money you don't have. Eating at restaurants used to feel like a reward that we deserved. But what we really deserve is to be careful and smart with our money, eat nutritious foods and spend quality time together."

Reading that quote really helped me gain perspective and get myself on track. Isn't it funny how one can find inspiration through quotes like that when they are most needed?

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Early in our marriage, soon after our one year anniversary, my husband and I traveled to my mom’s for Christmas.

At the time, we were on a very tight budget; I was making very little my first year working full-time, my husband was a graduate student, and I had student loan payments and credit card bills from just finishing grad school. We had carefully planned our Christmas and planned to give my mom and brother a combination of store bought items we had found on sale and items we had made by hand, such as a homemade flannel nightgown for my mom.

Ever since I was little, my mom liked to have all the presents even. If her budget was $125 for my brother and $125 for me, it didn’t matter to her that she spent the same amount, she also wanted the number of presents to be the same. So if I got one big, expensive gift, she gave me several smaller gifts so they would equal the same amount of gifts my brother got.

When we came home, the tree was laden with gifts, and she delighted in showing us just how many presents she had for my husband and me. While she was excited, we were dismayed. She had clearly bought MANY more presents for us than we had for her. December 23rd found us out in a cold, snowy night shopping for more presents for her, even though we did not have the money in the budget. We bought her multiple sets of brand new towels and bed linens.

On Christmas morning, my husband and I each got a large, expensive gift. As we opened the other packages, we discovered that SHE had stuck to her budget financially. But because she had wanted the number of presents for everyone to be even, she had bought up tee shirts from work that were left over from academic conferences past. We each got about 5 presents that were these tee shirts; they cost her $1 each.

When I realized what she had done, I was heart sick about the money we had spent unnecessarily when we bought additional presents, not to keep up with the Jones’, but to keep up with my mother!! She had a great Christmas and truly needed and enjoyed the towels, but a large portion of the day was ruined for me as I thought about the debt we had incurred.

In January when we got our credit card bill, my heart dropped. We did not have money to pay it off. We worked like crazy to raise extra money to pay off those unnecessary gifts; it took us until April to finally pay them off.

It was an important lesson to learn early in our marriage. Now we have a budget and stick to it, confident in our gift choices, even if the number of packages under the tree is not exactly the same for each person.

Saving Money Painlessly--Sharing Expenses

My mom had a sudden loss of income two years ago, so she had to find some creative ways to make her dollars stretch further. One of the ways she made a painless cut in her budget was to share resources.

She likes to read the paper daily, but the price was affecting her budget. So, she began sharing a subscription with my aunt. Now, once or twice a week my aunt comes to her house and picks up all of the papers and reads them. She also shares a garbage plan with her. My aunt just comes by to drop her garbage in my mom’s container. Instantly my mom cut her paper and garbage costs in half.

Are there any expenses you could be sharing?

I shared this post at Life as Mom.

No Spending Challenge Update--The 2nd 6 Days

Toward the end of the second six days, this challenge started getting very difficult. Our cats just so happened to run out of their cat litter, soft cat food and hard cat food at the same time, hence the $30+ dollars spent at Target. I am out of some pantry staples like cooking spray, apple cider vinegar, cocoa, black pepper, and others. I don’t know if I will have the money to replace them this month.

My son’s birthday is coming up, and it is common at his preschool for the birthday child to serve a special lunch to all the kids (30+). We picked the cheapest choice, hot dogs, but the hot dogs have to be all beef and we need to supply 60, plus buns and a fruit. Yikes! In addition, I wanted to make him cupcakes to take.

I am starting to think that doing this challenge in June, when there is my son’s birthday, Father’s Day, and two out of town trips planned was not one of my brightest moves. But really, when is it ever a good month?

In April, we had $965 set aside for all of the categories we are covering this month with $500. It is going to be painful and challenging. But, if I want to be a stay-at-home mom and live off my husband’s salary, we will take a significant pay cut (about 1/3 less in income). Most of the time we will probably struggle as we are this month. It is good to find out if we can do it now, while I still have my job.

6/7—1.73 snacks, 39.63 Tony’s Finer Foods (groceries), 12.26 CVS (diapers and others)
6/8—3.04 CVS (diapers), 10.22 Jewel
6/9—34.35 Target (groceries—all for cats!), $6.27 Dominick’s (groceries)
6/10—10.22 Whole Foods (groceries for baby)
6/11—0
6/12—0
2nd 6 days = 117.72

Total for 12 days = 303.18
40% of challenge completed, 60% of money spent

Just Ask

As I mentioned earlier, we are living off of savings right now, and one of my guilty pleasures is our very limited cable (consisting of E!, Food Network, Animal Planet, and the Weather Channel, yeah, we live large here!). However, I feel guilty for the extra expense.

So, I called our local cable provider a few weeks ago and asked if they could give me a discount. The agent first tried to talk me into getting my local phone service through them (this is what they say every time I call). However, after further probing on my part, the service agent agreed to lower my bill by $20 every month for the next 6 months. This more than covers the extra cost of cable and saves us $120.

Have you tried to make a call like this? If not, try it. You will be pleasantly surprised. I tried this once a few years ago when my husband was not going to have any income for a semester. I wasn’t trying to get a discount; I just asked to disconnect my service. The customer service agent wanted to keep me as a customer, so she offered me a significant discount for 6 months. She then told me that once the discount expires, the cable company asks that I pay full price for 3 to 6 more months before I ask for a discount again. Don’t feel guilty about asking for a discount. They are used to doing this. That is why they have a clearly stated policy.

You might want to expand further if you carry credit card balances and see if they would be willing to lower your interest rate. Nicely stating that you may switch to another card with a lower interest rate helps the negotiations. Try it. You’ll like the results!

I shared this post at Money Saving Mom.

No Spending Challenge Update--The First 6 Days

As I wrote about here, my family is taking a no spending challenge for June. It is a challenge!!! Here is what we have spent in the first six days (I know, right now it looks like the spending challenge):

6/1
10.29 Tony’s Finer Foods (groceries)

6/2
3.21 Starbuck’s hot cocoa
15.00 son’s bike for birthday
10.30 CVS (milk & diapers)

6/3—0

6/4
$9.61 Jewel (groceries)

6/5
$29.33 gas
$5.69 ice cream
$35.33 Target (27.33 groceries & 8.00 training wheels)

6/6
$18.00 strawberries
$44.51 gas
4.19 snacks

Total—185.46
Amount Left for the Month--314.54

Although we have spent nearly 40% of our money for the month, I would consider these first 6 days a success.

My husband really wanted to get my son a bike for his upcoming birthday. He looked at Target and priced them at $60--something we couldn't afford this month. So I looked on Craig's list and found a Power Rangers bike for $15.00. The people selling it only lived 5 minutes from our house. That was a $45.00 savings. We bought training wheels for him for $8 at Target, but I am planning on returning them if I can borrow some from my cousin.

Also, we drove 3 hours to visit my mom this weekend. Usually I buy a magazine to read on the drive (I tend to be a backseat driver in the city. The ride is smoother if I am distracted.) I really couldn't justify buying a magazine, so instead of reading, I bought my stack of coupons and clipped all of them during the ride. (Yes, I did feel a bit like a coupon geek.)

When we are at my mom's, we tend to eat out alot, but instead we brought leftovers from home to have for Friday's dinner and cooked Saturday afternoon and night. We are definitely becoming more conscious of our spending.

A Fun New Way to Save Money

I was watching the news the other night, and I heard about a service called BillShrink. You go to the site, put in your generic information, and they tell you ways to cut your bills without sacrificing quality.

For instance, under the gas section, I just typed in the make, model and year of my car, my home address and my work address, and how much I typically put in the tank when I stop at a gas station. Then billshrink calculated the closest gas station to go to and save the most money.

If you have credit cards, you can enter in generic information such as if you pay the balance every month or not, how much you charge, etc. If you pay off the balance every month it calculates the best card with rewards; if you don’t it calculates the one with the best interest rate for you.

There is also a section for cell phones.

BillShrink offers a way for consumers to save money without sacrificing quality. I had fun playing with it, and I did find a cheaper gas station.

June Budget

Rent: 1000
Cable & Internet: 75
Public Transportation: 72 (my husband no longer has his card for free public transportation)
Life Insurance: 77.44
DS Preschool 290 (this month they use the $500 deposit we paid last year, so tuition is much cheaper)
Student Loan 192.61
Electricity 80
Phone 27
Laundry 50
Food, Gas, Miscellaneous, Blow, Restaurant: 500 (This is our budget for the No Spend Month we started 6/1/09)
TOTAL: 2364.05

The No Spend Month Challenge for June

As I mentioned earlier, we are officially without a paycheck for 12 weeks. (My paycheck will start again when I return to work after my leave of absence in August.)

We do have savings, but as I want to quit my job by next May, we don’t want to dip too far into that.

I was perusing frugal blogs, when I discovered the No Spend Month. The idea is that beyond basic, fixed bills, you allot yourself a certain amount to spend for the month for food, eating out, gas, tolls, entertainment, etc.

I talked this over with my husband who is also eager to save money but not to set ourselves up for failure. We have decided to allow ourselves $500 for the month. This will actually be quite a challenge for us as I routinely struggle to keep our groceries under $300 a month. Also, my son’s birthday is this month, so we will need to be creative. In addition, we are planning two trips to visit my mom (who lives three hours away), so we will have gas and tolls to contend with.

I will start this challenge on June 1st and end it on June 30th. I will let you know, week by week, how we are faring. Wish us luck!!!

If you would like to join us, tell us about your experience in the comments section.

UPDATE:
June 1st - 6th spending
June 7th -12th spending
June 13th -18th spending
June 19th - June 24th spending
June 25th - 28th spending & lessons learned

This post was shared at Life as Mom.

Evaluating the Budget with the Frugal Zealot in Mind

Last week I wrote about Amy Daczczyn (a.k.a. The Frugal Zealot) and the numerous recent interviews that I found with her on the web. What I found most inspiring was the following recent quote from her:

"Most people think they're thrifty, but they're probably not...They do some things, ... and because they clip coupons, in their mind they're thrifty. But it's not in a holistic way through their whole budget" (qtd. in Gardner).

Ouch! That is me to a tee. So, I decided to look at my budget as I thought Amy Daczczyn might. Here are the problem areas I see:

Eating out
We spend about $100-200 monthly for this unnecessary expenditure.

Blockbuster
We are on a $17.99 a month plan that gives us three movies at a time, unlimited store exchanges, and two free store movie rentals a month. It is a great plan, but we have not used it to its full capacity since last summer when I was pregnant. Now we watch about 2 movies a month. Renting two a month from Blockbuster would save us roughly $10.

DS’s preschool
We spend $790 a month on this. My son attends a bilingual school as my husband speaks Japanese as his first language. It is important to both of us that our kids learn Japanese, which is why we are suffering through this expense. (It takes quite a toll on our budget.) But I want to believe in the long run it is worth it. Every time DS speaks to his Japanese grandmother (who speaks no English) on the phone, he is able to say a little more to her.

Groceries
Until recently we have been spending $350 to $400 a month. I am trying to whittle us down to $280. Honestly, though, we still buy many items that aren’t essentials such as soda, ice cream, Nutella, chocolate chips, potato chips, etc.

Cable TV
We used to have the most basic cable that you could get only for the reception (we wouldn’t see a picture otherwise), but after I had my daughter and had to sit down to breastfeed her more times a day than I could count, we upgraded to the next basic package (which only includes about 6 cable channels). We could do without this now that my daughter is older, but I love the Food Network and get so many recipe ideas from there.

If we were willing to do without all of these extras, we could save $990 to 1090 a month. Wow.

However, I am not willing to give up my son’s preschool or our basic cable (yet). If I gave up eating out, our Blockbuster subscription and I could successfully reduce our grocery budget we could still save $170 to $270 a month.

Try it. Look at your budget and see what else you can shave. Even when you feel like you have whittled it down, there is still another place you can cut. (Obviously we have several more places to cut!)

May Budget

Rent: 1000
Cable & Internet: 75
Food: 280
Gas: 120
Public Transportation: 20
Life Insurance: 77.44
DS Preschool 790
Misc. 250
Blow 40
Restaurant 0 (No restaurant money because we are taking Suze Orman's Challenge)
Student Loan 192.61
Electricity 60
Phone 27
Laundry 45

TOTAL: 2977.05

(I have been trying to reduce our budget. I have reduced expenses in this month’s budget by 7% from last month.)