Treading water financially - need to find ways to save

[Anonymous]

Just a suggestion, but without knowing anything else about your situation, perhaps you could relieve anxiety by using your liquid savings to pay off the credit card debt? Once that's gone, you can focus on replenishing your savings and not worrying about lining the pockets of the credit companies. This worked for me - depleting my emergency fund was initially worrisome, but it was so worth it to wipe out the credit card. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Just want to send words of encouragement. DC can be a tough place to live (financially) and it sounds like you are doing your best to make wise financial decisions. Things will get better. Once DC is in school you will be able to put all the daycare $$ in to savings. It can be easy to feel like a failure when people around you are saving 3000+ a month and taking lavish vacations. Just try to stay positive and remember every little bit helps.

[Anonymous]

OP. I feel for you. I wonder where my money goes (I guess I need to suck it up and create a spreadsheet and track it). I read those articles on saving money that suggest stop getting manicures. You mean the one I got 5 years ago? We go out to eat like 5 times a year. I pack my lunch every day. I have a cheap cell phone plan.

I feel the same way about cable. I think of cutting it and then realize it is basically the only entertainment we have.

But clearly my money is going somewhere. I think my main source of "leaking money" is my child. He always needs clothes, shoes, jackets, swimsuits. I try to get second hand or on sale when possible, but I don't want to skimp on quality when it comes to shoes. And sometimes time is an issue.

[Anonymous]

Everybody has lots of great suggestions, so I don't have much to offer. Some thoughs I have are these.

You might want to look at whether you can bundle your internet, cable and cell phone bills and save some money. Also, it's amazing how much money you can save by packing lunch.

If you don't do this already, another thing that I find saves me money is to plan meals so that I am not wasting anything. If I make a chicken, I'll use the bones later in the week for soup. If I need celery for something, I'll make tuna salad for lunch so that I use it up. That sort of thing. I always count the number of pieces of fresh fruit that I buy so that I don't throw anything away.

My friends and I have pot lucks instead of going out. And, a couple of times a year, we do clothing exchanges, which saves me tons of money. To date, I have yet to buy a single item for my 3 year old and I'm set for a few more years.

We never go to the movies - with our family of five, it's stupidly expensive. I can buy a video and make popcorn five times over for what we pay for one afternoon out.

We have a short list of cheap restaurants where we go over and over and we share meals. Also, sometimes I find discount giftcards (you pay $20 for a $25 giftcard) for certain of these restaurants. It's not much, but it's something.

As far as daycare bills, it will help some when your child hits school age. But the savings isn't that big because you still have to pay for before and aftercare and you still have to pay for summer camp. But, when it comes to summer camp, if you pre-register and pay in advance, you can get great discounts. I saved $50 per week per kid this past summer on camps by paying before the end of January and I have already paid my deposits on next summers camps so that I can get the early early bird registration discounts, which are even better than what I saved this past summer.

I hope things get easier for you.

[Anonymous]

For all of those wondering where their money goes? wait until your taxes go up!

[Anonymous]

" But, when it comes to summer camp, if you pre-register and pay in advance, you can get great discounts. I saved $50 per week per kid this past summer on camps by paying before the end of January and I have already paid my deposits on next summers camps so that I can get the early early bird registration discounts, which are even better than what I saved this past summer."

NP here, needing to do camp next summer and curious about what types of camps do these discounts - are you talking about YMCA/Park district camps, sleep aways, camps at private schools . . . . ?

[Anonymous]

We're sort of in the same boat, although we've managed to tuck away a bunch of money in our savings account. Essentially, we strive to be minimalists (and some months are better than others).We stopped getting the Washington Post and magazines. We have a cheap cell phone plan for both DH and I and we pretty much only use the phones for emergencies (not to chat or text). We eat breakfast for dinner once or twice a week. We only buy clothes that are on sale and try to anticipate future sizes and buy in advance when items are deeply discounted (ie: buy a high quality winter coat at the end of the season for the next year or two). We watch our utility use. We've donated cars once we've driven them to death.

[Anonymous]

Date Night would be the last thing I would cut. I would make it as cheap as possible.

[Anonymous]

Michelle Singletary has a lot of free resources to help people who feel like they're just "treading water" - http://live.washingtonpost.com/singletary-090210.html

I can repeat so much of her advice since I read her so much. She just came out with a book (Power to Prosper: 21 days to Financial Freedom) which has a lot of religious stuff in it, but also recommends things such as a 30 day financial fast - not spending ANY money for 30 days (you still buy groceries, pay bills, and commuting money, but everything else goes) which can help you track where your money goes and see how much you spend in a month. Also, cash is easier than debit cards for sticking to eliminating extra purchases.

What really worked for me was deciding what amount i was putting into savings - first i doubled up my car payment to get rid of that, and when i did that, i started putting money into savings. I took some savings out, once I had enough to cover an emergency, to pay off the rest of my debts. I'm down to a student loan and a mortgage, and have slowed down the debt repayment, but it made a huge difference - we now put 43% (!) of our take home money into savings. This is giving us a ton of security as we go into having kids, and it started off for me at $200/month (before I was married).

A lot of her logic makes sense, and she really helped me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Date Night would be the last thing I would cut. I would make it as cheap as possible.

I hate to give all of my secrets away, but here are my additions to the list of saving advice:
1. Restaurant.com
Date night can be really cheap with a discounted restaurants.com gift certificate or a groupon gift certificate. I just bought 6 gift certificates good for the listed amounts for $7.60 TOTAL:
$25.00 Cadillac Ranch National Harbor, MD
$10.00 The Front Page Arlington, VA
$25.00 The Village Wharf Restaurant Alexandria, VA
$25.00 Trattoria Da Franco Alexandria, VA
$10.00 zpizza Alexandria, VA

The $25 gift certificates cost me $2/each and we have to spend a min of $35 (which is close to what we spend as a family of 4 at a cheaper rest or as a couple at a more expensive rest) so our total cost for dinner will be about $19 (includes the tip) instead $42.

The $10 certificates cost me 80 cents and I have to spend $20. Front Page I will split with a coworker and spend about $7 each for lunch at a nice rest instead of $12. It saves a lot in the course of a year.

2. Groupon.com - group buying power! We scored tickets for Cox Farms this weekend for the Fall Festival for $7/person instead of $15. We have to pay for 3 out of our 4 family members which would cost us $45 and instead I scored 3 tickets for $21. I can either buy lunch there with the $24 savings or bank it and pack a lunch. I recently bought NASCAR experience tickets for hubby at 1/4 of the price, a GAP gift certificate for $25 worth $50, movie tickets for half price, and more.

3. Coupon/Sale matching websites - I've posted recently about only spending about $60/week on a family of 4 (I know one is under 2, but he eats like a teenager This week with Harris Teeter's Super Doubles event I scored $124 worth of groceries (was $75 after sales) and $23 after coupons AND got 2 catalinas worth $3 and $1 towards my next HT trip. I also spent $15 earlier in the week on about $60 worth of groceries. It's mostly staples and some fresh fruit/veggies and milk.

My score today was at CVS - 4 Revlon Lipsticks (normally 7.99/each) and a small bag of peanut m&ms for $1.36. The lipsticks were on sale for 5.99, I had 4 - $2 coupons, and $10 ECBs from last week so I only paid the tax on 2. I received $10 back in ECBs so I repeated the deal with the next 2. I will take my $10 ECB and a $4 off total order and buy 2 Right Guard Total 5 deodorants (on sale and with coupons) and the new Tinkerbell movie (19.99) and pay 7.99 plus tax TOTAL and get back $9 ECBs for next week!

It sounds like a lot of work, but once you get a system down it's really just maintenance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For all of those wondering where their money goes? wait until your taxes go up!

Ahhh...but then I will know where it is going

OP - I'd like to thank you. Your post made me finally get the energy to get on the FIOS website and order a bundled TV, interenet and phone. We'll save about $100 a month and get more services. Well - if it works.

[Anonymous]

OP-- you need to build up your emergency fund. Don't liquidate it just yet. Figure out a reasonable amount of money you can pay down on the credit card balance each month.

DC will fine you big $$ if you have an uninsured car. It's like $40 a day, so don't even think about dropping it. If the car is never going to be running again, consider donating it.

Also, do you have a gym membership you can cut? Can you bike or walk or bus instead of metro? Metro is expensive now.

[Anonymous]

Instead of a spreadsheet - use Mint.com. It automatically tracks your purchases if you typically use a debit card. Makes life much easier.

[Anonymous]

I had a similar financial panic attack and we decided to attack our food bill. Here's what we're doing:

1. Lunch - Limit eating out to once a week. packing lunch full time sounds like a good idea but then you realize that you skip on the social scene. Once a week is a good compromise for me. Also, there are some other people at work who bring lunches; sometimes I take my lunch out someplace and eat with someone who picked up a sandwich (I work downtown, and the weather is nice, so it's easy to find outdoor spots!). If I need a social run at some point, I meet people for coffee, not lunch. Yeah, starbucks is a waste, but $2 for a decaf is better than $15 for a mediocre lunch. (10 dollars/day, 4 times a week, two people = save $320)

2. Plan your meals - do all your planning/shopping at once. My husband and I sit down on Sundays and decide what we are going to eat for each meal - breakfast, lunch and dinner. We incorporate leftovers from one recipe (two cups of chicken broth left over, for example) into another recipe so we don't waste it.

3. Eat unprocessed, vegetarian food. It's just not our habit to eat a lot of meat, and the vegetarian meals I make end up super cheap. One of my favorite things to eat (a rice, lentils caramelized onions dish) consists of two onions, olive oil a little over a cup of rice and two cups of lentils. Total cost about $3, and it makes three really healthy meals for two people. (I throw in some baby spinach or have it with some frozen veggies to round it out.) I also think that cooking vegetarian is more convenient....less worry about cross contamination, cutting boards, etc. We do eat meat, but just once or twice a week. My parents made very little money, but I realize that because we ate a lot of ethnic food, based on lentils, vegetables, homemade whole wheat flatbread and yogurt/milk, we ate very well on a shoestring budget.

4. Cook in bulk - when making a tray of lasagna, make a second one (you're putting everything together anyway) and then stick one tray in the freezer.

5. Always keep something in the freezer for dinner. We keep a trader joe's meal and some frozen veggies in the freezer at all times. If we get to the point where we're tired or sick, it's nice to have something we want to eat in the freezer. And it's faster than getting delivery. The convenience meal might be expensive compared to cooking from scratch (say, $8) but is much cheaper (and healthier) than getting takeout.

[Anonymous]

Sell your house and buy a new one with a much smaller mortgage.