Your thoughts on what to cut...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can you spend $400+ general merchandise mostly at thrift shops? This doesn't add up to me. You need a line by line itemization, your generalization means nothing.

Why is your gas expense so high?

OP drives 15 miles a day doing errands. Agreed with previous PP: what OP needs is a job.

[Anonymous]

OP, I've posted a couple of times on this thread. You've now mentioned misc household stuff a number of times. I'm not trying to be petty, but it does seem as if you don't realize how much those little dollar amounts here and there add up.

And yes, $400 even at thrift stores is still $400.

Huge amounts of money to be saved in your budget overall. And a PP made a good point that you aren't even looking at potential utilities savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can you spend $400+ general merchandise mostly at thrift shops? This doesn't add up to me. You need a line by line itemization, your generalization means nothing.

Why is your gas expense so high?

OP drives 15 miles a day doing errands. Agreed with previous PP: what OP needs is a job.

FYI - OP said it's actually more like 25 miles a day in a subsequent post. Agreed on the job part.

[Anonymous]

Why don't you use the old envelope method? Put $50 in an envelope for thrift store shopping but that's it for the month. $XXX for food, $XX for household items. Don't use the credit card, points or no. Try that and see if you can curtail yourself. Your DH is right, you are using shopping as a way to fill your days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With the shutdown and furlough, DH is imploring me to cut expenses. I think I am bare bone as it is. Here is what I spent last month for our family of three.

Credit card payments: $689.00
Groceries: 616.45
General Merchandise: 466.13
Gas: 258.60
Cell Phone: 191.01
ATM Withdrawals: 80.29
Other: 345.61

Total: $2647.09

That accounts for about 37% of DH take home. It is only form the amount he gives me for groceries, household expenditures, etc. The rest covers the mortgage, utilities, etc. So, all of the above, is basically so called "discretionary spending. DH does not drive to work - spends about $6 per day on his commute. His car - paid for - sits in the driveway most of the time. I drive my car about 15 miles a day, picking up and dropping DD off at school, doing errands, etc. Looking for help here.

Cut credit card payments to interest only.
$616.45 for a family of three for groceries seems a bit steep. Wegmans is popular for a reason. Couponing can become a full-time job ... half the time I've noticed I can get store brand something or other for cheaper than name brand w/ coupon. You could probably get it under $450 unless the three of you like eating 10 pounds of meat a week.
Cell phone is pricey. I've got unlimited talk/text and 2GB data for 2 phones for ~$130 a month from AT&T.
Gas seems a bit off, do you really get 6-8mpg?

[Anonymous]

Stop going to the thrift shop. Just stop. It's obviously a trigger for you. I'm a thrift store junkie myself, so I know the great deals you can bag and the sense of "what am i losing out on" when I don't go, but you need the $400 a month more than you need the deals. If you don't need that pair of pants badly enough to spend $20 at Target, you likely don't need them at all.

[Anonymous]

I would keep paying down the CC, that's really necessary for your long term financial health.

I would cut the thrift shop/clothing/shoe budget - can you pledge to go a whole month without buying any new apparel, house decor, or even stepping foot in a thrift shop?

I would also switch out of the almost $200/month phone plan. If you're stuck in a 2 year contract, there are usually items that you have flexibility to cut - insurance for the phone which isn't generally a good deal, texting plans, reduce your data plan, etc.

I sympathize with you and your DH. I, the DW, spent a year as the primary breadwinner while DH looked for a proper job and sitting around home all day, he'd notice all these little things in the house that "needed" to be fixed, replace, or upgraded. He was spending $200/month on random Amazon purchases. It drove me nuts! He would counter that it's all necessary, much like you are OP, but somehow once he got a good office job that keeps him occupied, somehow there were just fewer things around the home that needed fixing.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes it takes a "fasting" period to break a bad habit. DH & I found that we had gotten lazy with cooking and were eating out way too much - lunches out plus coffee at work plus ordering in 2-3xweek was adding up to hundreds a week. It was out of hand so we had a one week moratorium on eating/drinking out. It was enough to break the bad habit and get us back into the swing of cooking at home, preparing our coffee in the morning before heading out, etc. Now we order in once a week and it's much more reasonable.

OP, I think you need a one-two month moratorium on all non-grocery shopping. You've established some addictive, pricey habits and you just need to go cold turkey for a bit. Once your moratorium is over, it will be a lot easier to use moderation when you do occasional stop in the thrift store again and maybe you'll be able to keep a more reasonable budget of $50/month.

Just for a reference - my entire annual budget for clothing was $550 and that was after three years of not buying anything new for myself. You are spending that much per month! I would have to donate a dozen items each month just to make enough room to accommodate all those new clothes you have rotating in.

[Anonymous]

OP, I agree with others that you do not need to be spending money on clothing. In fact, if this was a typical shopping month for you, it sounds like you could stand to weed out your closet and selling/donating the excess.

[Anonymous]

To OP-where do you put all that thrift store junk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To OP-where do you put all that thrift store junk?

The OP's problem is likely that she's not buying junk. Most addictions stem from the adrenalin rush and , for a seasoned shopper, there's no adrenalin rush like finding a $500 coat selling for twenty bucks, a Gucci wallet in the $2 mystery pile, quality household goods selling for pennies on the dollar just because someone else took the tag off first. Before you know it you're going twice a week to pick over the new stock before someone else can "get the good stuff".

It's the "But I got it on sale" fallacy writ large. All you can think of is how much money you're saving and It blinds you to what you spend.

[Anonymous]

Some of these responses have been pretty harsh on the OP ... but if she reads this forum regularly, she'd know that that was the likely outcome of posting here. People can be really snarky if they think your financial priorities are not in the right place. I have been lambasted more than once.

I do agree with the above posters that your spending on clothing/thrift store merchandise is the number one thing you could stop doing immediately and save a significant amount of money. You might be able to shave some off your grocery budget, cell phone is high but you are likely locked into a contract that would cost you to get out of (I am waiting mine out and will switch to Virgin Mobile at the first moment I can!), a gym membership if you use it is a worthwhile investment into your health, and so forth, but most people have pretty full closets already and do not *need* any additional clothing more than once or twice a year and because that is such a big line item in your budget it makes sense to cut it to zero at least for the duration of the shutdown. If you need to, you could reduce your CC payments to the minimum temporarily as well and that would save you some $$. Also, I think your husband has a great idea in terms of getting rid of cable TV. We did that 3.5 years ago and do not miss it. Especially since he is not a sports fan, there is no reason you *need* cable. There are plenty of alternatives out there now.

But other than those items I listed above, it seems as though you are pretty bare bones. Your entertainment and eating out expenses are low and that is where many people blow a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

You just don't NEED that much clothing, esp when you aren't working. You could wear the same pair of jeans 3 days a week and who would know or care? And it doesn't sound like it would come to that because you already have so much clothing. Seriously I buy clothing 1-2 times a year -- once a year at an outlet for work tops/sweaters and once a yr bc I have been using credit card points to get $200-300 at Banana Republic, which if you time it right is enough to buy a new suit for work.

When I lived in NYC there was a temptation to buy because it would be a weekend, you'd be walking around, would walk by a Gap, walk in and come out with a $30 shirt that you did not need and often did not wear more than once or twice because it was an impulse buy. I just stopped going into stores or would go and say "this looks nice, maybe I'll come back for it." -- I don't ever remember coming back for anything or if I did, it wasn't there anyhow bc it had been sold, displays had been changed etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can you spend $400+ general merchandise mostly at thrift shops? This doesn't add up to me. You need a line by line itemization, your generalization means nothing.

Why is your gas expense so high?

OP drives 15 miles a day doing errands. Agreed with previous PP: what OP needs is a job.

FYI - OP said it's actually more like 25 miles a day in a subsequent post. Agreed on the job part.

Still expensive. 25 miles per day is still about 750 miles per month. If her car gets 20 mpg (and even a Dodge Grand Caravan can get that) that's about 38 gallons. At $3.50 per gallon, that's $135. Still not sure where she's getting $260 for gas in a month unless she is either driving a lot more than she says or she has a Hummer. At $3.50 per gallon, $260 is about 75 gallons of gas. She should be able to go about 1500 miles or about 50 miles per day on that amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I am simply paying off the balance on the credit card. We have no car payments - both my and DH's car are paid for.

Regarding eating out - almost never, maybe once a week. I don't do Starbucks.

DH, fortunately, is excepted so his pay will be made whole when this is over. In the meantime, I guess we may have to tap into some savings.

However, DH has been after me for months to cut back, I do it for a time and then he comes in and tells me it is creeping back up! I really resent it a bit b/c I know I am trying hard buying everything on sale, virtually buying nothing new, etc. and b/c he works and I don't. I don't work b/c his career has been itinerant with the Federal Government and that has made it difficult for me to put down roots and make a career in once place. So, his career is partially to blame for my not working.

Maybe OP spends a lot because there's a control issue at work here. She probably, on some level, does not love that he is telling her to cut back, that he is the one with the power since he's the one earning the bucks. It sounds like she'd like to have a career and she resents the loss of hers. Also, a family budget should be an agreed upon thing--there should be goals in mind about how your money should be working for you, what your priorities are as a family. Sounds like the two of them are not on the same page. Oh, and what is DH spending on himself?