So now that word is officially out that I am leaving my low paying ministry position, I am having moments of terror!

So I use the Tightwad Gazette as my life line,,but what ways does your family change lifestyles to save money? My DH is giving up his cell phone this month, but I have to keep mine since I am on call for births most of the time, plus I plan to promote my doula business more to make up some lost income. (really 1 birth a month is all I would need to break even minus childcare expenses,,but 1 birth a month may be a lot to endure at a hospital, now that I have experienced home birth...what a difference!)

So I plan to do some sewing and selling. I don't enjoy sewing clothes, but do enjoy doing simple things like trivets (scented), pot holders, teapot cozies, slings, knotty dolls...so I may set up an ebay store and sell some of those things. I am setting up the sewing area next to the playroom and homeschool area, so I can work on it off and on while the kids do their assigned things. So realistically, I could make a couple of sales each month,,bring in a little money. Any other ideas along those lines of what I could sew that I hadn't thought of?

Just need a pep talk I guess, as the end of May approaches (unless they find a replacement who can take it only if they can start sooner) I am getting a little SAHM finances fright!

and I have 4 kids now! We don't have:

cell phones
cable/satellite tv
internet service you pay for
car payments
credit card debt


We do:

peruse the newspaper for free things to do (like visit local community colleges for local artist shows and free music like choral/blues/and other recitals)

tend a garden (we just planted seeds for "Skyscraper" sunflowers which may get up to 12 feet tall with 14 inch flowers!

go to the beach/walk to the park across the street

shop our local thrift stores when we need something like glasses or clothing we need

attend 4-H special classes that don't require a membership and only cost $2-4 per child per class for 2-4 hours of fun (we made a hydroponic garden and are getting butterfly chrysalys (sp?) this Fri!)

Make most of our food at home which is better for us and teaches many skills (we eat out about once or twice a year) like math and reading (we're homeschoolers).

I don't feel like we're doing without; a certain freedom comes from not working to pay for things/manage debt/etc.

Best wishes to you!

Lots of ways!

*no new cars...all of ours are used and paid for
*the cheapest cell phone package...we don't make that many calls anyways, more of a safety net for me
*cheapest internet....that means sloow connections lol!
*cheapest tv dish package
*cloth diapers....must say I am not using them as often as with the other two boys though! :rolleyes:
*eat out maybe once a week and not anywhere expensive
*try not to make unnecessary trips to town, cuts down on gas bill
*fresh venison in the freezer helps grocery bill
*I hardly ever buy anything online like I used to...I pretty much have everything already so I don't keep collecting more! I buy most walmart outfits for summer cloths for me and boys (garanimals $2.88 for shirt and shorts and I gotta add these do NOT shrink like the name brands!) and buy a few nice name brands outfits for church and going to the mall, or parties and I get these on sale.
*we do not subscribe to a paper
*we don't make any long distance calls and if we do, we use cell phone
*budget our groceries and buy what we need and less junk


Dh makes pretty good $, but we still live paycheck to paycheck....we can never get ahead and we don't live luxurious! Dh worked overtime last week and got a LOT for a bonus. We don't get overtime very often at his company. He just gave me $150 to spend on myself...I went to town yesterday and got all my new bras and summer clothes. This doesn't happen often so it was a treat for me! yipee!

I do have to say though...we have talked about how if times got really hard we would just get rid of the dish tv, internet and make do! My internet is only $16.95 a month, but thats a lot of groceries or a copay for a docs appt if we ever needed it. Crossing fingers that times won't get that hard.....
thats about all i can think of and i am nak@

here are things we do:
*don't go out to eat often, but learned how to cook the various take-out foods we like (I can make a mean pizza, DH is an indian gourmet, and we both are awesome with a wok, LOL)

*are on local bartering lists and philly's freecycle list (see if they have a freecycle near you at http://www.freecycle.com) This is a free for pick up list, and I've gotten tons aof awesoem things from it!

*ask for museum/zoo memberships for birthdays (Ethan just got a zoo membership from grandma for his birthday, and a gymnastics class from the other grandma)

* buy gifts through the year as I see them on sale for christmas, birthday's etc

there's more but greg's crying, be back later!

I've been home for nearly 10 years now. (use to be a special ed teacher) We are a family of eight on one income and we have four family members with high medical costs. I do look forward to when I can sub-teach again but we do manage. We do save every month.

The biggest ways to cut the costs of living and still "live" IMHO are the biggies and this is what we do:

1. Live in a much more modest home than the bank says we can afford.

2. We drive old vehicles and don't have car payments. Huge savings here!! One car is close to 200,000 miles and the other is 94,000 miles...both paid for and liability insurance. When we do have to get a car with a loan, we never buy new and we pay it off as fast as possible.

3. No vacations unless we save up the cash beforehand.

4. No new furniture or expensive home deco stuff.

5. If we see something we think we need to have, wait a full 24 hours and see if the need is really a need or merely a "want".

6. No long distance calls. (this may be tough for some who are close to family)

7. Almost Never eat out. Except for a very very special celebration. Most families spend way to much on eating out, IMHO. I mean it is just FOOD and to me that is like burning money when we eat out. *lol*

8. Never charge for Christmas gifts. I start buying them in August and only pay cash. Try not to buy anything on credit for that matter.

I guess those are the big differences I see between our one-income family and the other families who live in our neighborhood.

When we still had really young children we never went out on dates. Instead, my dh and I would have "date night" at home every Friday night. It was great and saved money! Now that we have two children old enough to babysit our younger ones, we get out every other week and pay them. (don't mind paying them since part of it is saved for college)

I also do have a budget and I do track every penny spent. I save money in advance for expenses like auto insurance, tax/liscense, and repair, life insurance payments, and other "bigger expenses" like those.

HTH,

Michelle

well for me to stay home, my dh works a ft job and a pt job. He will done with his pt job this week though, it just isnt worth his losing sleep over over an extra $100 a week. He works 6pm-5am at his ft job, and had broken up sleep during the day to do his pt job. We are starting to cut back now so we can afford everything on his one ft income.


We dont get the newspaper

our cars are a 97 neon thats been paid for for a few years, and a 95 caravan we bought from an old man selling it off his yard.

we do have cable, but are probably going to cut that out thats been costing us $50 a month..

We have bluefrog.com for $4.95 a month, slow speed, but cheap.

we do not use long distance phone calls

we have prepaid cell phones but for emergencys only. We dont use them to chat w/ people.

we shop at aldis for our food

i buy consignment clothing for the kids , but most of thier clothes they get for gifts for bdays, xmas etc.. so i dont ever really spend a lot on them.

I never get my hair done at a salon, I have been going once a year , but my mom usually gives me a g/c for my bday to get it done.

I have clothes in my closet that are about 5yrs old lol.. i dont ever get myself new stuff except undies and bras. And I have 3 pair of shoes total, sneakers, sandals and one pair of dress shoes.

I dont have any fancy clothes they're all walmart target brands.

We dont go to the movies, or rent, we get them at the library or wait till thier on tv.

Alot of our furniture is new since we didnt have alot when we moved into our home, but we charged it all and we have alot of debt.. we consolidated our bills and refinanced the home to save on the monthy charges

We visit family alot (locally) to entertain us lol.. or they visit us.

my parents pay for the kids preschool as a gift to them to help us out

We dont really shop at the mall, once in a blue moon, but we usually just go to walk around and window shop

we do eat out a lot and thats where our $ goes fast, its a bad habit and its hard for us to break it. I hate to cook and with dh wokring such crazy hours it seems we're never eating at the same time. We eat out on his nights off so about 3 days a week.

we have a budget of $120 a week to pay for food, gas, and any extra we will do something fun with the kids. Once we're out of it we dont do anything till next paycheck.

Im sure there is alot we can cut out, but this is what we've been doing for since 1999 for me to stay home.

Oh and our vacations to disney we always use our tax money to pay them off, but the souvineers are usually charged lol

Eat a healthy meal or snack before going to the market so you don't buy on impulse.
Go to the library often so you feel like you've been somewhere and got something
Have services you can do for others occasionally and get some extra moola coming in (can you do weddings, blessings, etc?)

-No cable
-No CC debt, if we can't afford it, we don't buy it.
-No cell phones
-Only eating out 1-2 times a month if that.
-Buy meat in bulk and put in deep freeze
-Cut coupons
-Sell stuff on internet
-Dh does car repairs for others in his spare time
-BARGAIN shop! ;)

When I was going through tough times, I did the following:

no cable
no newspaper
call the phone, utility, county and ask about low income flat rates
one credit card, paid off every month
grew my own veggies
lots of rice and beans (huge bags, super cheap at Costco)
no new clothing
heat, a/c, lights off most of the time (in CA this was a pita but not really that bad)
calling card for long distance
all meals eaten at home (even now we only go out to eat about once every month or two including fast food)
all clothes dried outside on the line
no rental movies
regular tv (non-cable non sattelite)
lots of library check outs of books and movies
no (or very few) trips more than 10 miles out of town to save gas
Thrift shop for me, Once Upon a Child for Emily's clothes
Free activities through the Library

I love the idea of asking for museum/zoo memberships for birthdays and Christmas!

I extended things like Top Ramen to make them last 2 meals for both of us. (yes I lost a lot of weight -- back then I was a size 4 LOL -- but she grew just fine, if I could afford peanut butter and meat she got the lion's share).

Ummmmm.... I'll try to think of more, but these are the basics.