New to Budget Boards - Advice needed

[gemini2727]

Having to cut back my work hours due to a health problem, I'm planning to go over my household budget and make a serious effort to try to lower our bills. Ideally, I'd like to reduce our expenses by 100-150 per week. Planning on comparing new car insurance companies to see if I can lower our costs, reducing take-out and eating out.
I'm assuming you guys on this board have experience doing this! Any advice where to start?

 

[vaDisneyGuy]

I think looking at insurance is a great idea, We have Geico auto and saved a good amount of money by having home owners and auto together. If you have any stock in Gecio's parent company Berkshire Hathaway you get a nice discount on auto insurance also.

 

[njmom47]

Having to cut back my work hours due to a health problem, I'm planning to go over my household budget and make a serious effort to try to lower our bills. Ideally, I'd like to reduce our expenses by 100-150 per week. Planning on comparing new car insurance companies to see if I can lower our costs, reducing take-out and eating out.
I'm assuming you guys on this board have experience doing this! Any advice where to start?

We had Allstate and when we renewed a couple of years ago, they changed us to Esurance. There are 3 different levels of coverage, so you can pretty much find what fits your budget. I don't know if other insurance companies do that, but it can't hurt to ask. We also have our homeowner's through them which is an additional discount.

There are lots of threads on the Budget Board..there's one right now about the top 10 thriftiest things you do to save money. Happy hunting!

ETA We also get a check from them every 6 months for being good drivers (no easy feat as we have 3 young adult drivers!! )

 

[gemini2727]

I think looking at insurance is a great idea, We have Geico auto and saved a good amount of money by having home owners and auto together. If you have any stock in Gecio's parent company Berkshire Hathaway you get a nice discount on auto insurance also.

Thank you for reminding me! I should look into combining the two, since our homeowners is a different company.

 

[gemini2727]

We had Allstate and when we renewed a couple of years ago, they changed us to Esurance. There are 3 different levels of coverage, so you can pretty much find what fits your budget. I don't know if other insurance companies do that, but it can't hurt to ask. We also have our homeowner's through them which is an additional discount.

There are lots of threads on the Budget Board..there's one right now about the top 10 thriftiest things you do to save money. Happy hunting!

Thank you, I'll check Esurance, and going to read that thread now
Actually very excited to make some changes, have been meaning to take a good look at our spending for a while now. Just need to make the effort!

 

[DaretoDis]

We went with Safeco for both car and home. Our homeowner's was getting close to $1000, and they cut that in half. Car insurance saved a bunch also.

Good luck.

 

[usd2bmd]

Did you mean to type 100-150 a week? That seems like an awful lot to try and cut out. How much do you eat/order out now? Combining and switching insurance may save you some, but you are looking to cut out 600-900 in a policy period (6 mos.) and unless you are pretty careless with your money now that may be difficult to do.

What are your normal weekly expenses? First look at those and try to see what can be eliminated or scaled back.

Good luck

 

[Marionnette]

Did you mean to type 100-150 a week? That seems like an awful lot to try and cut out. How much do you eat/order out now? Combining and switching insurance may save you some, but you are looking to cut out 600-900 in a policy period (6 mos.) and unless you are pretty careless with your money now that may be difficult to do.

What are your normal weekly expenses? First look at those and try to see what can be eliminated or scaled back.

Good luck

I was thinking the same thing. We have 4 cars on our policy and I don't think that I could save $100/week even if I dumped the entire policy and drove uninsured!

OP, cutting back on eating out will help. So will reducing your insurance costs. Maybe not to the tune of $100-$150 per week. But it would certainly be a start. You'll probably have to take some other cost-cutting measures in order to get to your goal.

If I had to cut back, I would probably look at:

• Hair & Salon expenses
• Children's activities
• Online shopping (where most of my impulse buys occur)
• Golf
• Heating & cooling costs
• Lawn maintenance and maid service
• Gifting
• Unnecessary tech upgrades (phones, laptops, e-readers, etc.)
• Vacation savings

 

[Deffenm]

If you haven't done so yet I would go back and review your spending habits for the past few months. What I did is I placed all of the necessary expenses in one column (rent/mortage, insurance, cable, internet, phone, car payment, electric, gas, water, groceries, etc) then in the another column I listed spending that wasn't necessary (eating out, shopping, movies). This helped me determine where my money was going so I knew what I could cut.

DH is actually calling cable company to see if they will reduce our rate, they increased it again. If they won't we will cut cable. It is not a necessaity it is a want. We also don't eat out except once a month. We never go see a movie (with 5 people it is expensive).

I wish I could cut our grocery bill but no matter what I do it still costs me a lot. I watch sale prices, coupon, make a list and stick to it, plan out my meals. When you have 2 teenage boys and a husband who coaches a high school sport they eat a lot.

 

[crisi]

Big ones for people....

Expensive cell phone contracts....pay as you go or non contract can be much cheaper.

Cable tv....cable cutters who use Netflix and Amazon can save $50 a month or more.

 

[msmama]

How's your grocery budget? If you're not a super careful grocery shopper that could be a good way to cut your budget (though, personally, for me, I do it for a month or two and then get back out of the habit).

Use coupons, shop sales, do meals cheaper (bulk dried beans are cheaper than canned but take more time for example). Obviously this depends on how you are already shopping.

I know you said your taking time because of health, but could you make a bit more money somehow rather than budget cutting? Selling things on craigslist, part time babysitting, etc?

Just tossing things out there...feel well!!

 

[NinaBella]

We recently refinanced our home mortgage. We got a lower APR and pay $500 less a month. We also got $3K in escrow back.

 

[pjlla]

There is probably LOTS you could do to reduce your budget.... the question is how willing are you to make the changes? Sure, the insurance is an easy one.... a few phone calls and you save some money and overall life doesn't feel any different. But other changes take some adjustment..... rice and beans rather than meat and potatoes, eating at home versus eating out, over-the-air TV instead of cable or satellite, older paid-for car versus newer car lease/loan, family game night at home with a frozen pizza versus a movie night with dinner out, drinking water at every meal instead of soda and/or milk and/or juice, dropping things like Pandora subscriptions, Netflix subscriptions, XM radio, high speed internet, magazine subscriptions, gaming subscriptions, etc etc.

To save $100-150 a WEEK will take a bit more work.... I think I would start with the grocery budget/eating out budget. Eliminating 2-3 meals out during a week could probably save you that amount! Especially if most of your meals out include cocktails.

Next up I would look HARD at the credit card statements and bank statements for the last few months.... where is money going that might not even OCCUR to you. Did you sign up for a subscription to something and you aren't even using it any more? I've been guilty of this.... sign up for something like GameFly, Audible. com and Ancestry.com and then lose track, lose time, or lose interest.... but the monthly fees just keep being charged! Again... easy money to save if you aren't even USING the subscriptions!

Anyhow.... that is just what comes to mind. Best of luck to you............P

 

[crisi]

We recently refinanced our home mortgage. We got a lower APR and pay $500 less a month. We also got $3K in escrow back.

I did that as well - my husband and I are starting a business and semi-retired as part of that effort - which means uneven cash flow. We took our very small mortgage that we had seven years left on that we were overpaying and stretched it out over 30. That was $800 a month in money I don't need to spend - and I'm free to pay more on it or just pay it off whenever I can/want.

We won't have the mortgage 30 years from now - we are about ten to twenty years from true retirement when we will probably pay off the mortgage.

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

I know this will be a horrible idea, but do you go to Disney every year? If so, maybe skip one year. Depending on what you spend on your trip, that could either result in the savings you are looking for or put a big dent into it for the year.

Do you live in a cold weather climate? If so, lower your furnace and dress a little warmer at home. I hate being cold so I keep our home at 72 during the winter. When I go on vacation for a week during winter and turn the thermostat down to 65 my electric/gas bill will be about $40 cheaper just for one week of heating that cool. I realize 65 is pretty cool, but maybe heat to only 68 or so?

If you are going down to part time, are you going to work less days a week? Because if so, then you are saving the gas to commute on those days.

Not sure of the family size, but maybe have breakfast for dinner one night? I had some eggs to use up before they went bad so I did a breakfast dinner. I was shocked by how cheap I was able to feed DH & I. Eggs were $1.50 for a dozen (and we didn't eat that many!), breakfast sausages were $3.50, cut up potatoes were about $1. Dinner was $6. Plus it was a treat as we never have traditional breakfast. I just had eggs in the house from baking.

 

[ceecee]

Big ones for people....

Expensive cell phone contracts....pay as you go or non contract can be much cheaper.

Cable tv....cable cutters who use Netflix and Amazon can save $50 a month or more.

Those were my first thoughts as well. Eating out can add up too depending on how often you do it. I would write down all $ spent and at the end of the month see if you can see some other ways to cut expenses.

 

[tinkerone]

write down everything.....EVERYTHING....you spend for at least a month. night out at the movies, write it down. bought a coffee, write it down. put coin in the parking meter, write it down. I mean EVERYTHING! you should have a page for each category.
after the first full month look your list over. you will see where the fat is and you can then start to work on cutting it out. you will be amazed at what you see once it is on paper.
I have a binder that I write everything in at the end of each day. totals go into an excel sheet last day of every month. I can see what has been spent in any department for any amount of time and by doing this have seen that I could cut spending in our cable, cell phone, insurances, restaurants, food, just about every category there was. it was easy because I can see it as a number and not just a thought (I think I spend 100 a week on groceries when the total is actually 125).
the only thing I have yet to be able to cut back on is in my vacation budget. sadly, or not, I can't get myself to cut anything there.

 

[crisi]

I did that as well - my husband and I are starting a business and semi-retired as part of that effort - which means uneven cash flow. We took our very small mortgage that we had seven years left on that we were overpaying and stretched it out over 30. That was $800 a month in money I don't need to spend - and I'm free to pay more on it or just pay it off whenever I can/want.

We won't have the mortgage 30 years from now - we are about ten to twenty years from true retirement when we will probably pay off the mortgage.

I should say something about this - you have to be careful with it. Its kicking the can down the road and you need to know where that road ends.

For us - in ten years the kids will be more or less through college and we are likely to sell this place and end up in a townhouse or condo with no yard to worry about. At that point, the mortgage will be paid off, and we are fairly likely to pay cash for a smaller place and less money.

We also don't have long term financial issues - we have short term cash flow issues and a desire to maximize investment income. Paying $300 a month in mortgage when I can make $500 a month in dividends on that money is a good deal for me.

We should have a pretty good (80% replacement +) retirement income - so if we do end up with a small mortgage in retirement, its affordable if not desirable.

On the other hand, if you are 45 years old (like me) and you finance out to a 30 year mortgage - you won't pay it off by the time you retire. If you aren't planning on paying it off and downsizing, and your retirement income isn't sufficient to support the mortgage - you can end up in a bad situation in your retirement years. You may end up working a lot longer to pay your mortgage.

Know what the end of the road looks like - kicking the can down it might work out fine - or it might not.