Best Way You Have Saved Money on Monthly Expenses

[Anonymous]

Another idea is to evaluate how much clothing you/your kids really need. I have a tendency to overbuy for myself and even for my two boys. How many t-shirts does one kid need? I'm trying to cap it at 8-10 outfits a season for them, plus extra t-shirts/sweatshirts and any other special things (like church clothes). I try to do laundry once/week so we don't need anything beyond that.

for myself, this has meant evaluating at the start of the season (mostly spring/summer and fall/winter so twice/year vs. 4x) what I need, and buying a few nice things vs. a lot of cheap things (so two or three new nice t-shirts that cost $40-$50 instead of mindlessly buying less expensive ones throughout the season. it's not only for money saving, I think it helps with clutter/junk as well, but it's something to consider.

[Anonymous]

Find a good mechanic

[Anonymous]

Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remembering to take my birth control every night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

+1

[Anonymous]

Sometimes little stuff does help. This week, we skipped going to the grocery store. It's amazing what we managed to eat from freezer and pantry. Obviously can't do it every week but once every month or two is probably workable and really did save my entire weekly shopping budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

+1

Well, that and the remembering to take your birth control poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

+1

Well, that and the remembering to take your birth control poster.

Lots of truth here. I've made lots of financial decisions, some good and some bad. The smartest was buying a very modest house. Alas, my parents keep asking us when we will move to a nicer place (which to them means: new construction). However, the small house is the number one factor in us having margin to invest or direct to other priorities. I am so glad we didn't buy anywhere near what the bank would likely have loaned to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of little things!
Can I say one abstract thing? Thinking of budget categories in the bigger picture. Perhaps looking at the monthly X budget or the annual Y budget and seeing it differently than weekly/monthly. When you think of X budget (say groceries) as a larger whole, you realize all the little mistakes you make.

For example, eating out. Seeing what we spent over 4 months, I realized we could have gone out to a fancy child-free restaurant every week, and paid for a short babysitter. Instead we were racking up $10 at ice cream shop, $20 at chick fil a, $25 at takeout, etc etc. Seeing the big picture shows me it's possible to live better. If I wanted to spend the same (I don't, I want to spend less), we could be trying out that hard-to reach restaurant once a month. Therefore, I choose to just eat at home more, but know it's possible to make a dream come true if we feel like it.

Similarly on eating out, lately, we start out the month with $0 in Restaurants budget and a bigger amount in Groceries. If we eat out, it comes out of groceries (we then track it in restaurants). This is just a trick we play to tell ourselves, eating out comes out of 'eating.' It is ALL the same--feeding ourselves--but we can do it more efficiently if we keep that money in Groceries. A choice to eat out is just limiting our ability to stock up/make awesome homemade meals.

We do that grocery for eating out budget too. It's helped me 100% cut eating lunches out, even on weekends, which was usually my downfall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

This doesn't help those of us who are looking to buy a house today and the average home in MoCo or DC is over $400K.

[Anonymous]

Get rid of cable (now we use only Netflix and Amazon, which we already had, and Sling. Saves about $100 per month)
Bring lunch to work (saves about $50-60 per week)
Order take out only once every 2 weeks, and only if necessary (saves about $100 per month)
Cut back on coffee runs (saves about $15 per week)

It's not life changing money but allows us to add a little more to the kids' college funds each month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

This doesn't help those of us who are looking to buy a house today and the average home in MoCo or DC is over $400K.

Actually, it helps quite a bit unless you have decided to be house poor either because you are wedded to a location or just want to appear ghetto rich in a McMansion. It just comes down to being honest about what is affordable and what isn't and forgetting this "stretching" nonsense that everyone talks about (terrible idea). On a 500k house with 20% down/400k mortgage that should be doable on a $200k HHI with plenty left over for other stuff. However, if you want 8000 sqft and 2 European SUVs in the driveway then you will need to read the previous posts about eating mayonnaise sandwiches and leftover conference room food at work so you can make your mortgage payment every month.

[Anonymous]

We don't eat out at all unless we are on vacation (I have a rule that I don't cook dinner on vacation) or celebrating our anniversary. This includes coffee, lunches, etc.

We only grocery shop once per week, from a list, after meal planning.

We go to Costco for gas - the savings from the gas alone more than pay for the membership fee. (We live nearby, so don't really have to go out of our way to get gas there).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

This doesn't help those of us who are looking to buy a house today and the average home in MoCo or DC is over $400K.

Yes! So glad we bought in a neighborhood that was not even up and coming for 3x our then annual income and a thirty year mortgage and paid ahead. We will finish our mortgage in a total of 22 years (hopefully before our oldest starts college) and it has allowed us to have a lot more flexibility than we would otherwise have.

This means you need to think outside the box a bit (you won't be living in Georgetown or Bethesda or Chevy Chase or AU Park) but there are a lot of good options out there for a $400K house still. PG, a fixer in DC, further out in MOCO, a Hispanic neighborhood in MOCO. At first those of us raised in Lily white suburbia may scoff but if you look past your stereotypes and assumptions about where you will live, if can make your life much better. Less traffic in the not as fancy areas. Pay less for housing. Fewer asshole lawyers for neighbors (my dad is a lawyer so I love them but you know what I'm saying).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Little stuff doesn't matter so much with the HHIs on this forum. The best things you can do are buy a reasonable house that is only 1x-2x HHI with a 15 year mortgage and buy Hondas/Toyotas/Subarus with cash and drive them until they die (10-15 years). The other stuff doesn't matter so much if you get these things right.

This doesn't help those of us who are looking to buy a house today and the average home in MoCo or DC is over $400K.

Yes! So glad we bought in a neighborhood that was not even up and coming for 3x our then annual income and a thirty year mortgage and paid ahead. We will finish our mortgage in a total of 22 years (hopefully before our oldest starts college) and it has allowed us to have a lot more flexibility than we would otherwise have.

This means you need to think outside the box a bit (you won't be living in Georgetown or Bethesda or Chevy Chase or AU Park) but there are a lot of good options out there for a $400K house still. PG, a fixer in DC, further out in MOCO, a Hispanic neighborhood in MOCO. At first those of us raised in Lily white suburbia may scoff but if you look past your stereotypes and assumptions about where you will live, if can make your life much better. Less traffic in the not as fancy areas. Pay less for housing. Fewer asshole lawyers for neighbors (my dad is a lawyer so I love them but you know what I'm saying).

Not to mention, DC is problematic if you plan on having kids (or have them already) since you will be forced to pay for private. I'd look into the suburbs in VA and MD for something that fits your budget and has good public schools. If you narrow your search down to DC proper or MoCo you better find a way to earn more money.