Here are the rules:
1. Pay your reoccurring monthly bills as usual
2. Try to save on your regular monthly bills by cutting out tv and watching HULU or NetFlix, get on even pay with the electric/gas company, cut out home phone and just have a cell phone, etc.
3. Cut back on your variable expenses
Variable expenses include groceries, eating out, gas, date night, etc.
4. Save all the money that you are not spending in a separate account so you don't accidentally spend this money.
Here is my personal journey:
I am cutting back on my variable expenses the most. I have cut my grocery bill for this month in half, only spending $25/week for groceries. One of those weeks I will be picking up my Bountiful Basket from my food coop, which costs $15 for a laundry basket pull of fruits and veggies that lasts our family 2 weeks. The rest of that week I will spend my remaining $10 as wisely as I can, most likely picking up milk and bread. I have been trying to stock pile every shopping trip so I have lots of extras that we can eat so we can spend less on food this month and be more creative with our meals! This should give me a savings of $100 this month.
The next thing that I am cutting back on is my entertainment budget. I budget $80/ month for my personal entertainment. This includes eating out and crafting the awesome ideas I see on pinterest, though I usually end up spending a lot more ($200 more) if I am not careful about my money. For July, I am cutting back to $5/week for personal entertainment.
This should save me $60 this month.
The third major item is date night. I LOVE going out with my husband and doing new and fun things. Unfortunately those things always cost a lot of money. I try to budget only spending $20 for each of my dates, but it always ends up being double or triple that. My husband and I have agreed to stop going out to trivia at the bar ever Wednesday night. While the trivia game is free to play, we always end up ordering about $30 worth of food, making that $120 on bar food every month! This is not including our Saturday night dates which could run us another $80 every month with a total of $200 spent per month on just dates. I have decided that there must be a cheaper but still fun way to go out and spend quality time together while still having money to save for our home and other goals. One solution that I found is groupons and coupons, but for July I am aiming for not spending any money on dates so these wont due. Here is a list of what i have come up with so far:
1. Go for a hike
2. Go Canoeing/sailing
there is a lake right by our house and they offer free boating for the community residents!
3. Have a picnic and take a walk together
4. Go look at open houses
Since we are wanting to buy a house next month, this would be a good activity to see what each of us likes in a house and what areas we would like to live in
5. Have a bbq with friends
6. Watch fireworks and have a picnic
7. Go geocaching!
I have been wanting to do this for a long time now
8. Have a WII game night
9. Do a movie night
Our apartment complex has a great movie theater that you can rent out for free so it will cost you nothing to borrow a movie from a friend to watch or $1 to rent from redbox
10. Make chocolate covered strawberries or smores at home and have a camp out.
11. Make a blanket fort and have a movie night
12. Plant a garden together
13. Play sports
There are Frisbee golf courses at most parks to play for free, nets to play volleyball or bad mitten, room to play boccie ball which you can pick up at a DI for cheap, or even have a croquet match. To make things extra fun, buy some glow sticks, break them and covers your croquet balls and hoops in the glow stick juice. Then you just have to wait until it gets dark and you can play glow in the dark croquet!
14. Go swimming
Our apartment complex has a free pool for us to use
15. Lay outside on a blanket and read to each other!
My hubby and I love to read to each other
16. Go paddleboarding
We can do this at the lake by our house for free, we just need to borrow the paddle boards
17. Go on a bike ride together
18. Go visit the Hot Springs
19. Go ride ATVs or go boating at the lake
20. Bake
21. Attend a free community movie night or concert
22. Attend a free community event such as learning to assemble a bike or a bike ride with the mayor
23. Go on a scavenger hunt, loser makes dinner
24. Find wood scraps and make wood signs
25. Find your favorite show on NetFlix or Hulu and have a movie marathon.
Be sure to cuddle under a cozy blanket with some yummy treats.
By cutting out the costly dates nights and bar outings and finding free things to do instead,
we can save $300/month.
My last big expense area is Gas. I have to drive 45 minutes to work every day (about 22 miles) and 45 minutes back in heavy traffic. It sucks. Until we can find a house closer to my job I just have to live with it but there are things that I can do to help with my gas usage.I drive a stick, so the number one thing I can do is put my car in neutral when I am stopping so I am not wasting gas. Other ways I have found that save gas on a manual is to start slowly from a stopped position, dont go over 2000 RPMs, and shift smoothly (this one I am STILL having trouble with after 4 months!). I also check my tire pressure weekly and fill them up when I need to. This is free is you go to a Flying J station.
As far as the cost of gas, I have found several ways to save on this. I have an app on my phone called Gas Buddy that tells me where to find the cheapest gas in my area. There is also a lot of new construction going on right now in my area and there have been several new gas stations put in in the last several months. I find that these stations usually have the cheapest gas for a short time.
Here is a fun story: last week I went to fill up my tank and decided to try the new Chevron down the street. Chevron usually has the most expensive gas so I wasn't sure this would help me save money. Well since it is a new station, it was .02 cents cheaper than the next cheapest gas station so I was happy. I pull in to fill up my tank and as I am getting out of my car, a man walks up to me and says that they are doing a promotion deal today. Gas has dropped from the posted price of $3.48 to $3.29 today and they gave me a FREE $10.00 gift card. Well I used my gift card right then and there and ended up saving $20.00 on gas that day between the gift card and extremely low prices!
Other ways to save on gas, Big Box stores like Cost Co and Sam's Club usually have cheaper gas or Maverick offers a FREE Maverick card that saves you .02 cents on gas every fill up. There are also places such as Sinclair that offer $.10 off gas every fill up if you have their credit card. This makes sense if you have your own business and need to track gas and also to help your credit score by having a variety of credit sources (be careful here though!)
Two last way to save on gas: 1. Plan your trips. If you have to go the gym, grocery store, and tanning after work, then plan your route so you are not back tracking or going home in between trips. 2. Take public transportation. Often you can get passes that make this option the cheapest one available. The plus side: you can take time to read a book or read my blog :) while you wait for your chauffeur to drop you off. There is less stress for you and more "ME" time when you don't have to drive all over.
Since it is a necessity to use so much gas for the time being, I cannot really save a lot in this area, but I have challenged myself to cut back on gas from $40/week to $35/week.
This will save me $20 this month.
Overall, I should be able to save $480 on variable expenses this month. Add that to the $800 I have left over every month from my paycheck and we should be able to save close to
$1300
Now my sister is getting married so my husband and I are making a trip to her reception this month, which means I will miss work ( losing $80) and it will cost about $100 in gas. Plus the 4th is a holiday so I will miss another $95 for the day off since I don't get paid holidays yet. All in all, I will be losing $275 in pay this month so I should be able to save close to $1000 this month for our house.
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