Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GREAT topic.

Eating out so little child has yelled in public "We never go to restaurants anymore!"

So there's that.

Crying into my at-home coffee vs. out in the world. Buying less expensive groceries/in bulk. Just for fun - gaining a few pounds because my body can't eat the healthy stuff. No babysitter, ever (to those that have family that have offered to watch your child or family that's close - you are lucky.) Not traveling.

Yikes. Your life sounds really sad, actually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep my house much hotter in the summer than I would like and much colder in the winter than seems normal. It sounds vaguely Soviet, but the truth is, doing this saves me $200 to $300 every month.

(I set the air conditioning to 80° in the summer and the heat is 60 or 59 in the winter)

"saves me $200 to $300 every month."
Your mansion must be huge.

Not necessarily. My house is just under 2k sq feet and managing our thermostat saves hundreds each month.

My house is 2500 sq. feet, and we rarely have an electric bill of more than $250 - most often, considerably less. What would your bill be if you didn't "manage" your thermostat to ridiculous temps?

DP. I have a 3k sqft house, all electric, and we have partial solar to offset the bill. But it's an older house with high ceilings and a ton of windows (all old). We keep the temps just barely uncomfortable and the power bill is routinely $200/mo, was $500 in the freezing cold February we just had. May and September are admittedly almost nothing.

Some houses are just like that and there's no real way to fix it, except to build new with a better design.

Anonymous wrote:GREAT topic.

Eating out so little child has yelled in public "We never go to restaurants anymore!"

So there's that.

Crying into my at-home coffee vs. out in the world. Buying less expensive groceries/in bulk. Just for fun - gaining a few pounds because my body can't eat the healthy stuff. No babysitter, ever (to those that have family that have offered to watch your child or family that's close - you are lucky.) Not traveling.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep my house much hotter in the summer than I would like and much colder in the winter than seems normal. It sounds vaguely Soviet, but the truth is, doing this saves me $200 to $300 every month.

(I set the air conditioning to 80° in the summer and the heat is 60 or 59 in the winter)

"saves me $200 to $300 every month."
Your mansion must be huge.

Not necessarily. My house is just under 2k sq feet and managing our thermostat saves hundreds each month.

My house is 2500 sq. feet, and we rarely have an electric bill of more than $250 - most often, considerably less. What would your bill be if you didn't "manage" your thermostat to ridiculous temps?

Anonymous wrote:You really have to focus on finances before expenditures. For example:

*Make sure you have the best mortgage rate if you own a home;
*If you rent, try to negotiate A better rent
*Pay your credit cards off in time
*Get the best interest rates on savings
*Strategize credit card use to get cash back or points
* Maximize 401 k matches + other employer contributions
*Check to get the best health care coverage/rates ( if married, check to see if you should use your health care spouses, or both
*I am sure there are many other ideas....

*To save $ on shopping OP, we buy very little meat
*We make our own food
*We have clothes swaps with friends + family
*We rarely drink alcohol
*We buy boxes of holiday + greeting cards on sale
*We have one car
*We live in a small house
*Overall we live like we're poor except for our several trips a year...we won't give them up

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You're insinuating it was Biden's fault. I'm sure you didn't mean to do that. Right? Because if that was your intention, it would make you a goddamn idiot.

COVID disrupted supply chains. Higher prices were the effect. Trump made things exponentially worse with his stupid unconstitutional tariffs. But then again, Trump hates America and everything it stands for, as does anyone who voted for him.

The massive stimulus spending under Biden, which was far more than needed, definitely fueled inflation big time. Because the Democrats had the trifecta majority they went big time on spending in the name of covid recovery, but it was insanely excessive.

-- not a MAGA.

+100,000

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep my house much hotter in the summer than I would like and much colder in the winter than seems normal. It sounds vaguely Soviet, but the truth is, doing this saves me $200 to $300 every month.

(I set the air conditioning to 80° in the summer and the heat is 60 or 59 in the winter)

"saves me $200 to $300 every month."
Your mansion must be huge.

Not necessarily. My house is just under 2k sq feet and managing our thermostat saves hundreds each month.

My house is 2500 sq. feet, and we rarely have an electric bill of more than $250 - most often, considerably less. What would your bill be if you didn't "manage" your thermostat to ridiculous temps?