Things have been getting worse and worse for my husband and I financially. I’m not earning much money these days from my websites (enough to pay some of the bills, but not ALL of them like I used to!) and we just found out that over the next few months my husbands hours at work are probably going to be cut down a bit. As if we can stand any more loss of income!
I’m going to go over all of our expenses and see where we can start making cuts. We can certainly cut down our cable bill as we have a special premium channel and HD package … but I don’t want to stop those if I can help it as it’s my only form of entertainment when I’m lying on the couch in pain from my Crohn’s. Things would be so much better for us if I weren’t sick and could go back to work!
We’ve also thought of switching over from regular Bell phone service to Rogers Home phone service as it sounds like we could save about $30 off our phone bill and have something like 500 hours of free North American long distance calls included in the price.
We’re careful with our electrical usage. We try not to have too many lights on at night, and since Toronto Hydro started their smart billing we try not to run appliances like the dryer during prime time hours (instead using them after 10:30 at night or on the weekends when it’s cheaper) … of course our washer broke in early August so I guess we’re saving electricity and water since we’re not using it. LOL We also use those compact florescent lights in all of the light fixtures in the house that can use them. We’ve been doing that for years now. I don’t know where else we can cut our electrical usage to bring the bill down.
We heat our house with oil and we’re on a payment plan. The only way we can bring that bill down more is to keep the house cooler in the winter than we already do. I don’t think we can cut it much as we already keep the house pretty cool … 68 F or less, and it’s an old house so it cools down fast!
Other than that we don’t have too many other regular bills … hmmm maybe we should check into auto insurance quotes to see if we can bring down our house and auto insurance bills. I think we’re already paying a fairly low price compared to other insurance companies, but maybe we can do better. I mean, Chris and I have both been driving since we were teenagers and neither of us have ever had a speeding ticket or a car accident – that’s gotta count for something with an insurance company right?
Lets see I’ve gone over the cable (internet, and cell phone included), telephone, heating and insurance bills … like I said that pretty much covers our utility and home related bills. The only other major expenses we have are our mortgage (we pay biweekly which helps cut the interest down) and grocery bills.
Speaking of groceries we’ve noticed that the price of food has really gone up over the last year. That sucks! We’ve switched grocery stores to one that has much lower prices than the two main grocery stores that we used to always use. I think we save about $30 off our regular grocery bill just from the grocery store switch.
Other things that we do to cut down our grocery bill is to try to buy things when they are on sale … and not just buying one or two items- we’ll buy several items when somethings on sale. We also buy things in bulk at stores like Costco or at the butchers (remember those bags of chicken breasts we buy – they last about three months and probably cost us half the price of grocery store chicken breasts!). We also try to buy cheaper brands (provided that they have similar ingredients to the brand names we like and don’t have more fat or sodium etc).
A news story this week talked about how Store Brands have become much better and how they can cut your grocery bill in half. They did taste tests comparing store brands with several name brand items ranging from pizza to salsa sauce and the testers usually picked the store brand … so that’s another way we can save some money – if we buy more store brand products.
Most of our food is home made (barring loaves of bread etc). By this I mean I make our dinners and other meals from scratch. We don’t buy many pre-made foods with the exception of the occasional frozen pizza. It takes a little more time to make home made meals, but they are usually quite a bit cheaper than store bought pre-made meals and healthier too! Also at this time of year we have some produce from the garden (tomatoes, beans, lettuce etc) so that cuts our grocery bill a bit too.
Over all I think we’re pretty good with our money and how we spend it. We’ve tried to lessen all of our bills as much as we can and the only places where we can cut more is the Cable bills and maybe by switching to our Cable companies Home Phone service. That might save us $100 a month … and we might be able to tighten up our grocery spending a bit more, maybe by $50 or so a month … but overall that’s only an extra $150 saved and we need to cut a lot more if my husband is going to lose hours at work.
I guess the main thing I need to do is to try to make more money from my sites. How I’ll do that I don’t know, but we’ve cut pretty much as much as we can so I guess we need to earn more.
The only other thing we can try is to maybe take in a border again – remember how we used to take in students from other countries who were coming here to learn English? Now that was an experience! LOL
Hopefully some of the things that we’ve done to cut our bills will help you find some ways to save on your expenses if you’re in a similar situation. If any of you have a suggestion as to how we can cut our expenses even more, by all means, speak up!
i am so sorry that you are going through all of these problems. The economy is hurting more and more families. I to know how being affected with a disease can change your life. I have Chiari I malformation and am looking at 2nd brain surgery. I do have a business online and am thankful that its going well.
You seem strong and intelligent, and obviously have a nack for business. You will end up on top.
To you and your family hoping happy times ahead
Sorry about your troubles, Tricia. Hope you find a financial route round your problems.
Well, the good part is your garden. Maybe you could expand that some. If something grows particularly well for you, like potatoes for example, you might be able to trade your extras with someone else and some other veggies, fruit, honey, etc. My family has always tried to plant fruit and nut trees but with very little success, they take so long to mature. I did live on a farm for a bit with apricot and fig trees, we had so many one year that we preserved tons and shared with everyone. Oh, one thing I have been thinking about lately is growing shitake mushrooms. They go for US $15 a pound in some stores, and grow from a log!
Sorry for your financial difficulties Tricia, I definitely know what you’re going through in my humblest regards. I hope and wish you the best of luck.
My wife and I had to cut back in our spending as well, times are tough, and the economy is worse. Recently, my vacation days were taken a way from me, now we have to postpone our long awaited honeymoon to the Caribbeans we wanted to go in December.
We had to cut back on our cable bills as well, at first it seemed like a great loss (we were big tv watchers) but we got used to it, now it makes me wonder why I ever paid for such a thing. Don’t get me wrong, it took us a while to get use to it and our apartment became a lot quieter.
But there are other options when it comes to entertainment, Netflix is a lot cheaper and the streaming capabilities let us replace the tv with a computer monitor. And we found online sites like hulu to keep us in touch with our favorite shows, but not all of them. Still though, hang in there these times makes a stronger.
“the load may be heavy, know that the weight makes you strong.”
Beverly Hills Locksmith I’m sorry to hear about your vacation days being taken away (is that legal?)!
As I just said above I’m very sick and sometimes the only thing for me to do when I’m feeling really bad is to watch TV as I’m too sick to work on the computer (maintaining my many many sites) or to even read a good book. Also, since I do work on the computer for long hours each day (16+) it would be impossible for me to watch TV shows or movies online as I couldn’t work and watch at the same time .. not unless I had two monitors I couldn’t! Plus .. sites like Hulu don’t work in Canada so that cuts off quite a few streaming options for me.
I’m sorry to hear of all the trouble. You could always kill the cable all together (nothing like a good book). As for heating goes, if you make sure your house is insulated, you can save a good bit on that. Those are at least my recommendations.
Electrical contractors in Concord NC If I wasn’t chronically ill and home pretty much 24/7 I’d consider cutting the cable completely … but when you’re sick and feeling really ill the TV is a great distraction. Sometimes I feel so bad that there’s no way I can lie down and look at my computer (to work on my sites) or read … so the TV is all I’ve got when that happens.
Tricia,
One thing you did not mention that you could do is to use an electric blanket at night! This has saved us quite a bit of money each winter, and we stay very warm at night!
Jake we do actually have an electric blanket … although I’m not sure how much electricity it would use (electricity is expensive here in Ontario!). I went looking for it and found it, but the controls are missing. My husband said he saw them in a bag somewhere but he can’t remember where! LOL We haven’t used the electric blanket since we were living in an apartment so I guess it’s been 10 or 15 years since we last used it.
We have a really warm duvet on our bed so we’re warm enough once we get in bed … but it’s the cool room prior to going to bed and while getting changed that’s the trouble! Still we do keep our furnace set to a lower temp at night ie 65 F in order to save some money on our heating bill.
Planting a garden is a great idea! Not only to cut costs, but to gain back a little piece of mind.
I did one a few years back, and haven’t stopped since. Although it’s nothing to brag about, it is very self rewarding.
Tony Lee you’re right. You can save a lot of money by growing some of your own food.
Unfortunately for us, when I started our garden back in 2002 I had a flower garden in mind. We have over 60 rose plants and many many other perennials! So there isn’t a whole lot of room for veggies! But … I do plant veggies in small open spaces in my garden and in containers so we get our fair share of home grown veggies during the summer months.
Have you considered watching TV shows/entertainment on a site like Hulu.com instead of having cable? I’ve been contemplating doing this because cable is a pretty high expense, and the rates seem to keep increasing.
Using coupons for groceries/household supplies has saved us a bundle of money. It can be time consuming and sometimes tedious (I try to make it into a game though, and it’s something you can do while you’re watching TV or in your spare time.), but it’s worth the savings. I got all the information I needed to start on slickdeals.net.
Alison I live in Canada so I can’t access Hulu.com or other sites like it that are based in the US. Plus I work 16 to 18 hours a day on my computer so there’s no way I’d have time to stop working on my sites and stop to watch a program on the internet … well … unless I had another monitor or something and of course sites that I could access properly! Otherwise … if I wasn’t always working on my computer and if Hulu were available to me it would be a great idea.
I do use coupons. It’s a bit of a pain collecting them, but they do add up in savings! I also buy store brand food items when I can (and when I know the quality of the product is as good or better than the name brand!).
really sorry about your troubles, Tricia
Tricia- A couple more thoughts on cutting expenses. If you have a crockpot it may be more efficient on energy depending on what kind of stove/oven you have. I have also heard leaving appliances plugged in uses energy even of they are turned off. I have started unplugging toaster, coffee maker, etc.
I have started reusing the sealable bags store products come in instead of throwing them out. I just wash thoroughly and hang in sun to dry. I also reuse foil using same method. (My mom did this when I was a child- I thought she was nuts but now “get it”).
I encourage you to check out http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com. Site is free and alerts you to sale bargains. Also under state category it lists what item is on sale where, and what coupon to put with it. They also give you links to internet printables for each sale item. You have Walmart and maybe other stores we have in the US. Good luck.
Sheila thanks for the link to pinchingyourpennies.com I’m in the process of checking it out. Hopefully all of the coupons aren’t US only.
We always try to reuse items and bags if it’s at all possible. I buy freezer bags because we tend to buy meat in bulk when it’s on sale or at this great wholesale butcher that we go to (mmm cheap and tasty chicken breasts) so I package them up for easy meals for two and store them in the freezer. I always reuse those bags until they won’t seal properly anymore. We also reuse tinfoil if it’s still fairly clean or cleanable.
My mom always saved bags and tin foil too. She even saved bread bags and she’d reuse them for her own homemade bread. I always thought that was a great idea!
We don’t get plastic bags from the grocery store unless we’ve forgotten our own cotton bags, but I always do keep plastic shopping bags and then use them as liners for waste containers etc.
We do try to reuse things when possible for several reasons – 1 to save money and 2. because it’s also better for the environment.
I do have a crockpot. I’ve only used it a few times though. I should pull it out and use it more. We have a gas stove (the only gas appliance in our home as our furnace runs on oil) and it doesn’t seem to use much gas as our bill is fairly low. The one thing I really like about the gas stove is that it heats up so fast so you don’t waste time and energy (electricity/gas etc) waiting for it to heat up before you can start cooking.
I also unplug items in the house. I don’t know if it’s saved us much on the electricity bill but anything helps! We also use CF bulbs in most of our light fixtures so that saves money and in addition to that we generally only have lights on in the room that we are using … so our house is fairly dark in the evening!
Thanks for your great tips!
I’m sorry that you and your husband have to go through this. The economy is hitting a lot of people hard and so many people are losing their jobs that they thought were secure. Is there any chance that your husband’s hours will pick up after the New Year or is this a permanent cut in his hours? Can he look for another job since he will be working less or get a second seasonal job for now?
It sounds like you are doing great with saving money on items and you have a good plan in action, but you can’t make money appear when it isn’t there to begin with. I wish you and your husband all the luck and hopefully your sites will start picking up this winter.
After 10 years with my homecare billing software company, I was laid off. All of a sudden, I was a non-person in the eyes of the banks and credit companies. Years of being responsible, had swirled down the drain because of a lay off that I had no control over. Makes one think about this society. Maybe it’s time for a change.
I am sorry to hear that fellow people are struggling in one way or another in their lives. I would like to ask if it is possible to compare the costs of utility providers as it is in the UK? The same with cable and broadband as many companies here offer packages!
Sorry to read about your financial woes. It seems to be hitting everyone these days – myself included. It certainly helps that you are an avid gardener. This takes on a whole new meaning when times are tough. I wish you the best.
JUst hold on and keep the faith. Your troubles will pass and you can congratulate yourself afterwards.