How My Husband & I Saved 5 Thousand Dollars In 4 Months

 

In November of 2014, several things happened. We had come to the end of our satellite contract and knew we didn’t want it anymore.  We were paying $89 per month for something we rarely watched.  On top of that, we were subscribed to Amazon Prime and Netflix.  So we were paying $106.23 {not including taxes} a month for television and we were only utilizing about $7.99 of the money we were paying out on Netflix.  My husband plays a lot of different video games so he spends his time doing that instead of watching TV.  I prefer to stream so I would use Netflix.  The satellite hardly got turned on unless it was TWD night.

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Not only that but my husband had no retirement set up and to top it all off we had just found out we had a baby on the way.  We knew something had to change so we could take better control of our finances.

So what did we do to cut our expenses?  

First, we had a long talk about what we wanted for our financial life.  Now I’m an Accounting major and I work in Finance  so to not have my financial house in order was really taking away from my integrity.

That’s when we sat down with all of our bills and put pencil to paper.  We looked through our bank statements and determined where our money was going.  We made a budget together and committed to sticking to it.  We knew we had to do something and it had to stick.

I knew ahead of time because I planned it meticulously that I would be getting 13 weeks of maternity leave at my full salary.  To be able to save a lot and quickly I planned our budget to fit solely within my husband’s salary minus childcare and my student loan payment.

Now this won’t work for everyone but here is what we did to make it work for us.

Meals:

• We set a strict budget for groceries and stuck to it.  I scoured Pinterest and made sure the meals I was making were delicious, healthy and didn’t break the budget.
• We cut going out to eat and implemented leftover nights.
• I also stretched the meat in our meals to make more meals out of less, but shh don’t tell my husband because I still do this!

Entertainment:

• We cut our services satellite service and Amazon Prime completely which saved roughly $97 per month.
• We cut our cell phone data plan down saving $25 per month.
• We stopped going to the store out of boredom and only bought what was on our shopping list.
• We cut down on our trips home.  Yes, we gave up seeing our family as often as we had previously.  We just simply told them NO when we would get invites every other weekend to go see them.

Bills:

• We paid ourselves first.  My husband started 2 accounts- an IRA and a personal savings account.
• We invested in programmable thermostat we could control from our phones.  We set up a schedule on it.  This alone saved on average $20 per month from the heat and AC not running at 72 all day while we were out of the house.
• We cut down on adding water to our pool and running the pump constantly.  My dear husband figured out just how long we could go without running the pump and adding water before it actually cost more money out of pocket in chemicals, water, and electricity.  This saved a ton!  Our water bill was always $150 per month the prior year during the pool season because we were adding water every week.  Our normal water/sewer bill is $90. That’s a huge difference!  The same goes for the pool pump.  It’s an extra $70 per month on our electric bill to run the pool pump 24/7.
• We turned ceiling fans off when not using them.  I read somewhere that leaving your fan on all the time can cost an average of $5 more per month on your electric bill.  Now in the scheme of things $5 a month isn’t much but it can add up in the long run, especially when we did all of the other things along with this to lower our electric bill.  Now I wanted to see just how close I was to this figure so I went to this website and figured it myself.  I also went to my electric companies website and found my exact kWh price and plugged that in.
• We turned lights off when we weren’t using them and we changed to energy efficient bulbs.  This made a huge difference!

Everything else:

• My dear husband sold his motorcycle so I could buy a new couch before the baby came. I then directed that payment straight to savings.  It’s been 18 months and that $70 is still going straight to savings each month via autopay.
• I signed up for a credit card with cash back. (I should preface this by saying we have ZERO  credit card debt)  I earn points on all of my purchases with the exception of gift cards purchased.  Now I don’t buy gift cards anyways so that wasn’t a deal breaker for me.  I started using my card for groceries and gas and paid it off every two weeks when we got paid. These points quickly added up and with a baby, on the way,  I needed baby things.  I ended up getting lots of free baby things because I cashed my points in to buy those things.  My USAA credit card literally lets me convert my points to cash and deposits it into my checking account.
• We put Amazon Prime on hold for 6 months.  At the time it was due for renewal and we couldn’t afford it.  So I turned it off and guess what? We stopped splurge shopping on Amazon because we didn’t want to pay for shipping.  When I did turn it back on it was only because I needed to start buying baby things and I had gotten a really good bonus from work that paid for the yearly subscription.
• I used coupons for the obvious things we were buying like paper products, soaps and the food items I bought routinely.  However, I was not willing to spend hundreds of dollars on newspapers to get just a few coupons.  I know there are people out there that see the benefit, but I wasn’t willing to spend the time or change our eating habits completely.
• I used my Birchbox subscription to get all of my makeup/skincare products essentially free.  Now I pay $10 a month for my subscription.   I then turn around and review all of my products for points that I use to purchase products from their shop.  Now you may be thinking something like that couldn’t possibly add up.  They give you 10 points per product with 5-6 products in your box per month. 100 points equals $10. Plus after a certain amount of points earned per year you get free shipping on everything all of the time.  Score! If I didn’t have Birchbox I would be spending more than that per year for all of the things I get in my box.  I don’t go cheap on my makeup, face wash, and moisturizer.  That is just something as a woman who cares about healthy skin that I’m not willing to budge on.  I get so much stuff in my Birchbox that lasts forever that I literally only buy “extra” things once or twice a year.  This to me is a savings because I could easily be spending well over $300 for the year on just foundation, face wash, moisturizer, mascara, and makeup remover.
• We had a garage sale and made about $320.  Like I said before we had a baby on the way and we obviously needed to clear out some space for her arrival.  We put this cash aside and used it for the little things that would come up around the house.
• I changed the type and cut back on the amount of laundry soap we were using.  I stopped paying $12 for 64 loads of Gain and started to buy Purex for $$6.97 for 120 loads.  It was half the price and twice as many loads, except I actually stretched it further.  I don’t think many people know that if they have a water softener they don’t really need to use as much soap in their machines. It’s really just a marketing ploy to get you to use more and buy more.  So I tested it out and figured out I could use half the amount I was using and my clothes were still getting clean.
• Lastly, I took my child out of childcare for 4 months.  For three of those months, I was on maternity leave.  The fourth month my husband stayed home with both girls.  That allowed us to put $1600 into savings from the childcare savings.

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That is what I did to get our bills within my husband’s salary.  By doing this I was able to put one entire paycheck for one month. Then for the remaining two months I was able to put around 3/4 of my salary into savings which ended up bumping us over $5k in that time frame.

I understand this may not be possible for everyone.  It’s drastic.  However, if I can do it I think anyone can do it to a certain extent.  If it means that you cut your expenses down enough to save even $100 per month to put towards your debt, retirement accounts or emergency savings then I think it’s a win!  It’s all about figuring out what you’re willing to sacrifice in the short term to get what you want in the long term.

Set a goal and hold yourself accountable.  When you reach your goal you will feel great and you can make a new one!

How do you find room in your budget to save or pay down your debt?  Grab my budget printable and visit the printable vault for more budget worksheets!