I've been reading a few blogs about their money savings on daily spending. Buying food, going out to eat and misc personal items. I never really think about how much we spend per month and have never set aside a budget. To be honest, I have no idea of how much we spend on food per month. It might be easier to figure out now that I buy most on line and pick up at the store.
My goal is to figure out what we actually spend on buying food. Since we don't eat out much, it will be easy to figure out our restaurant/fast food pick up amounts. Or at least what I pay for those items. We have separate checking accounts, so I have no idea of what Steve spends. It's worked for us over the years, we just manage our own money, share savings accounts and make big money making decisions together. I'm positive there are place where we could save, but I'm not sure its on our spending. It's more like not paying for cable TV, not buying more expensive cell phones and not buying a lot of extra's we really don't need. With Covid, it's really reduced my impulse buying for the house or myself with clothes etc. I just don't buy anything unless absolutely necessary.
What does save money? Making my own bread, crackers and treats. Not eating out on the weekends. Only buying what is necessary. Not having credit card debt/interest payments.
What we are doing to get out of debt?
Paying off the house mortgage in 5 years! Paying off Steve's truck loan and not buying another vehicle until mine is finally un-driveable. It's 12 years old, 260K miles and still going.
Once the kids are out of college, they will take over cell phone costs, and car insurance. We have at least 4 more years to pay on those expenses. Plus, food money for both.
We are spending on fixing up our 21 year old house. Saving by Steve doing the install, fix it work. Glad his job is a home builder, so we can do all ourselves including the landscaping. Just the material cost we pay. We also wait for items to be on sale or use leftover materials from someone else's project, like the tile we will be using in our bathroom remodel.
We also don't have expensive gym memberships. We just have a basic gym, $12 per month per person. That will change after we are done with Covid. Right now the gym is in our house and outdoors. We did make a big purchase of a cross ramp $800 and Celina purchased a cheap treadmill that she paid for on her own. I won't go back to a gym, but I know Steve wants to. Even if it doubles, its still cheap because he uses it 5 days a week.
We do save a bit on car insurance, for good grade discounts. It all helps a little until the kids take over their own payment. Their cars are paid off, only need gas. We have parked my daughters car since she no longer drives much. Just uses our car if needed to go somewhere. We will take it off parked, once she needs her car again.
I did splurge on making our deck more enjoyable by purchasing a table firepit. Since it was just a table top, it was only $150. Not $500 for a full fire pit table. I've made due with our existing furniture and not purchased an out door couch and chairs like I've wanted to buy.
We do splurge on camping equipment. We didn't stay in hotels during the summer when we camp, so it pays for itself over and over.
We will be buying a new Large 80"TV for our main room we all use. Our old TV is at least 12 years old or more. We do need a TV for the lower level, so will be using the old TV down there. We will be researching and waiting till a sale. I keep looking at TV prices!
Since I purchase most our food on line to drive up pick up from Target and Sam's. I look for on line coupons on the Target app, and now we are actually using our Sam's membership weekly. We only would go there pre-pandemic maybe 3 times a year.
While I'm earning a lot less due to Covid, I have been selling things we no longer need around the house. It brings in a little cash that I save. My splurge was to buy a new-used couch from my daughter that she no longer needed. We could have never purchased a big couch for the amount I paid. Something we really didn't have to have, but a good deal! I would have eventually purchased a couch at full price, so this savings made it a must have purchase.
No comments:
Post a Comment