We live amazingly well on a tight budget.\u00a0 Years of poverty early in our marriage coupled with our hatred of waste has made us self-proclaimed experts on cheap living.\u00a0 It is our fiscal ability which has made supporting our large family possible.\u00a0 I\u2019m often asked how we do it.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s all that unusual, but here\u2019s how we do it:<\/p>\n
1. I budget monthly down to the penny. I know where the Computer Guy\u2019s paycheck is going before it even hits the bank.<\/p>\n
2. We operate on the envelope system.\u00a0 Everything which is not paid electronically through our checking account is paid in cash.\u00a0 I sort the cash into appropriately labeled envelopes every payday.\u00a0 (Examples of envelopes: eating out, children\u2019s activities, allowances,\u00a0 grocery store splurges, etc.) When the envelope for a particular category is empty, we have no more money for that item.\u00a0 Then we have to either borrow from another envelope (after much debate) or do without.<\/p>\n
3. Pay cash for everything.\u00a0 Our motto is \u201cIf you can\u2019t pay cash, you can\u2019t afford it.\u201d\u00a0 Credit cards?\u00a0 What\u2019s that?\u00a0 Check cards can get you into big<\/i> trouble if you aren\u2019t scrupulous about writing everything down.\u00a0 Use cash.\u00a0 It feels more like spending real money.<\/p>\n
4. Allow yourself one splurge in your budget.\u00a0 We budget for the splurges.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t give yourself that one thing you won\u2019t stick to the plan.<\/p>\n
5. Know the butcher in your grocery store.\u00a0 Be on a first name basis with him.\u00a0 Shop at the same time on the same day of the week.\u00a0 If he knows you\u2019re coming and what you like he\u2019ll hold it back for you.\u00a0 I never pay full price for meat because of this.\u00a0 The stuff that usually gets ground into hamburger gets set aside every other Friday morning until I can pick and choose at 9AM.\u00a0 Meat is the biggest chunk of our food budget.\u00a0 Never pay full price.<\/p>\n
6. Diapers go on sale all the time.\u00a0 (It\u2019s every 3rd week at CVS.) Learn the schedules.\u00a0 Clip coupons or print them off and wait.\u00a0 CVS and Walgreens will let you stack coupons on top of each other.\u00a0 (I just bought packages of Huggies for $2.50 each.) Never pay full price.<\/p>\n
7. School books for homeschooling.\u00a0 half.com or Amazon or one of the other used book sites. ( My daughter\u2019s Spanish book for this year is listed at $111.53 new.\u00a0 I paid $.50) Never pay full price until you have researched it.\u00a0 College books can be rented now.\u00a0 Save the money for cute shoes!<\/p>\n
8. No cable for us!\u00a0 We turned off the cable which was running us $60 a month and turned on NetFlix for $8.99.\u00a0 We stream everything to our TV through the Wii.\u00a0 We don\u2019t miss the cable.\u00a0 We saved $51 a month.<\/p>\n
9. I signed us up with a minute monitor on our cell phones.\u00a0 When we\u2019ve used 75% of the minutes it texts us a warning.\u00a0 We get another if we hit 100%\u00a0 I signed my phone and #1\u2019s up for 250 text messages each per month.\u00a0 We get warnings about that too.\u00a0 We cut back on our minutes and never go over.\u00a0 It cut our bill in half.\u00a0 The monitor is free from our provider.\u00a0 Why wouldn\u2019t you use it?<\/p>\n
10. Everything but meat and toiletries comes from Aldi.\u00a0 2 weeks worth of food for the 8 of us averages $180.\u00a0 We were spending $300 at the regular grocery store for the same stuff.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
11. There are lots of fun activities that the kids could do.\u00a0 They get one at a time. This saves my schedule and my bottom line.<\/p>\n
12. Coupons, coupons, coupons!\u00a0 Sign up for free sites on line and for Frugal Girls on Facebook.\u00a0 Match the coupons to the ads.\u00a0 You have to be organized and it takes some time to get used to buying things in ridiculous quantities, but the first time you get $200 in groceries for less than $20 it will all be worth it.\u00a0 Treat this like a part time job.\u00a0 Never pay full price for anything!\u00a0 (Are you noticing a theme here?)<\/p>\n
13. Hang your clothes to dry.\u00a0 Our rule is \u201cIf the Air Conditioner is running, the dryer isn\u2019t\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s 105* today.\u00a0 The clothes dried in 10 minutes.\u00a0 I throw them in the dryer on Air Fluff to break up the stiffness.\u00a0 It takes 5 minutes.\u00a0 Our electric bill went down<\/i> $100 last month.<\/p>\n
14. Set the thermostats on 80* in this heat.\u00a0\u00a0 We have acclimated and are fine.\u00a0 A\/C is\u00a0 expensive.\u00a0 Use it as little as possible.<\/p>\n
15. Wash out the inside of your A\/C units at the end of the sping.\u00a0 Ours get full of cottonwood fluff.\u00a0 It makes them infinitely more efficient.<\/p>\n
16.\u00a0 Shower timers.<\/p>\n
17. No gym except in the winter.\u00a0 The weather is gorgeous outside, so why would you go workout inside?\u00a0 The outdoors is free.\u00a0 Use it.<\/p>\n
18. Dollar movies.\u00a0 Once a month we load up the kids and go to the movies.\u00a0 Tuesdays at our local dollar movie theater are $.50 admission days.<\/p>\n
19.\u00a0 Make a list of all the free admission days at local museums and attractions.\u00a0 For example, the natural history museum in OKC is free on the 1st Monday of every month.\u00a0 Every other day it is $6 a person.\u00a0 There are 8 of us.\u00a0 Free is better.<\/p>\n
20.\u00a0 I buy the boys\u2019 jeans at Goodwill.\u00a0 They are hard on jeans.\u00a0 Goodwill puts denim on sale on Sundays.\u00a0 When the jeans cost $1 a pair, I don\u2019t care if they get ripped.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I\u2019ve got for now.\u00a0 If I think of more, I\u2019ll do another post.\u00a0 So what do you<\/i> do to save money?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We live amazingly well on a tight budget.\u00a0 Years of poverty early in our marriage coupled with our hatred of waste has made us self-proclaimed experts on cheap living.\u00a0 It is our fiscal ability which has made supporting our large family possible.\u00a0 I\u2019m often asked how we do it.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s all that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n