What are people doing to save money in this insane economy?

[Anonymous]

We looked into solar, but two companies told us it wouldn't be worth installing due the minimal amount of sunlight our roof gets. Our house faces north and we have a hill with woods behind us to the south. The house stays cool in the summer, but unfortunately that's also the case in the winter.

Gas heat and through the colder months our thermostat adjusts to 62 degrees between ~9pm and 7am. On weekdays it bumps up to 65 between 7am and 8:30 at which point it drops again to 62 between 8:30 am and 4pm. We've done it that way for as long as I can remember.

[Anonymous]

We don’t go out to eat much like many of the other posters. It makes me curious about how restaurants and servers are faring; I used to waitress on and off in my teens through thirties as a second job and would make great money.

[Anonymous]

I'm so freakin' depressed about my budget right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t go out to eat much like many of the other posters. It makes me curious about how restaurants and servers are faring; I used to waitress on and off in my teens through thirties as a second job and would make great money.

Restaurants are busy. We go out maybe three times a month. They’re full of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t go out to eat much like many of the other posters. It makes me curious about how restaurants and servers are faring; I used to waitress on and off in my teens through thirties as a second job and would make great money.

Restaurants are busy. We go out maybe three times a month. They’re full of people.

I’m sure the 11 remaining restaurants in the DMV are busy, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't tip anymore. It was hard at first but once I realized servers make the minimum wage, I felt better about it. I don't tip hair dressers either. Mine owns her own chair and can charge what she wants....and she does.

I don’t tip either. Saves me a lot of money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would love to get ideas for what else we could be doing as everything just gets more and more unaffordable. I really didn’t used to think about it this much for the last two years have been brutal. I’ll start:

- Used to eat out twice a week, now we eat out twice a month (take out only). Cook 7 nights a week but meals have gotten less complicated because who can realistically cook that much?

- started buying frozen afterschool snacks (tater tots, chicken tenders) and don’t let the kids stop at Starbucks or Boba place or whatever more than 2-3x per month

- Decided to drive our car until the wheels fall off. New cars are insane. When did that happen?

- started buying all basics (socks, underwear, basic tees) on Amazon.

- only shop for clothes off season and on sale. Have bought some basics from Target and Uniqlo. Saw a fairly basic sweater at J.Crew for $350 and almost laughed out loud.

- only reading books from the library

- no more sporting events for entertainment (we used to enjoy basketball games)


I would not have considered us to be in a difficult financial situation even two years ago. Our jobs are thankfully stable. But neither of us got pay increases this year because of cost cutting. It just doesn’t feel sustainable.

It happened under Biden, I had to pay $12,000 over the manufacturer price to get the vehicle and had to wait for it for 4.5 months.

Blame it on COVID 19 not a former president.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t go out to eat much like many of the other posters. It makes me curious about how restaurants and servers are faring; I used to waitress on and off in my teens through thirties as a second job and would make great money.

The K shaped economy means that lots of people have plenty of money. It's a very weird situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm renting space in my garage to a company that does aquamation of pets. They have freezers with animal remains in my garage. Veterinarians drop the remains off and then the aquamation company comes and picks up the remains and brings them to their facility. The freezers are locked so my kids can't open them.

Say what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A recent study showed that Aldi and Lidl are the cheapest grocery stores. Costco and BJ’s are cheap too as long as you’re ok buying in bulk. But Aldi and Lidl came in even less expensive overall than Walmart.

Shop around for auto insurance especially if your cars are already paid off. I change insurance companies about every 2 years. They get you with a good rate and then jack it up, figuring you won’t want to go through the hassle of switching. But with everything being online these days, you can switch in a few hours.

Fast food is very expensive these days but weirdly enough, chain sit down restaurants are pretty much the same price they’ve always been. If you get food out for lunch when they do lunch specials, you can get better food for the same price by ordering from, say, Chili’s or Applebees to go and picking it up vs. hitting the McDonalds or Wendy’s drive through.

Use receipt scanning apps to get a little bit of cash back. Upside works for both gas and some groceries and food stores. Ibotta has some deals too.

Yes to fast food being insane. I go to McDonald’s maybe one a year at most for a cone or sundae and small fry. Did this last week and it cost more than $7! Chick fi la kale salad, 12 plain chicken nuggets (2 meal) and a small fry is about $15.

[Anonymous]

And yes for auto insurance. Geico was recently insane. Switched and it’s less than half.

[Anonymous]

I am so ready to do solar. We have the right roof for it but I'm so worried about choosing the right installer and how maintenance will work that I've never been able to pull the plug. (haha punny)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t go out to eat much like many of the other posters. It makes me curious about how restaurants and servers are faring; I used to waitress on and off in my teens through thirties as a second job and would make great money.

Good restaurants are still packed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent study showed that Aldi and Lidl are the cheapest grocery stores. Costco and BJ’s are cheap too as long as you’re ok buying in bulk. But Aldi and Lidl came in even less expensive overall than Walmart.

Shop around for auto insurance especially if your cars are already paid off. I change insurance companies about every 2 years. They get you with a good rate and then jack it up, figuring you won’t want to go through the hassle of switching. But with everything being online these days, you can switch in a few hours.

Fast food is very expensive these days but weirdly enough, chain sit down restaurants are pretty much the same price they’ve always been. If you get food out for lunch when they do lunch specials, you can get better food for the same price by ordering from, say, Chili’s or Applebees to go and picking it up vs. hitting the McDonalds or Wendy’s drive through.

Use receipt scanning apps to get a little bit of cash back. Upside works for both gas and some groceries and food stores. Ibotta has some deals too.

Yes to fast food being insane. I go to McDonald’s maybe one a year at most for a cone or sundae and small fry. Did this last week and it cost more than $7! Chick fi la kale salad, 12 plain chicken nuggets (2 meal) and a small fry is about $15.

Order on the app, and use the meal deals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t go out to eat much like many of the other posters. It makes me curious about how restaurants and servers are faring; I used to waitress on and off in my teens through thirties as a second job and would make great money.

Restaurants are busy. We go out maybe three times a month. They’re full of people.

I’m sure the 11 remaining restaurants in the DMV are busy, lol.

??