We're buying a house, and moving this week.

We had a great deal and the payments were going to be the same amount like our rent, BUT on january 1st a law changed and now we end up with a 9.8% loan and our payments will be $160 higher, since we gave notice and someone is moving in our appartment in one week we have no choice but go ahead and get the house anyway. We will refinance as soon as possible, but meanwhile life is going to be super tough.

We had a low weekly budget for food already, around $30, now we'll end up with $21 for food and toiletries, cleaning products and diapers (we switched to sposies because of allergies, we spend $10 for two weeks on diapers)

Here we have a front loading machine and high efficiency fridge and dryer. In the new house we're getting a 20 years old washer and dryer, the washer is top loading and dryer needs to run 2 full cycles to get anything dry.
We're getting a used old fridge, not energy efficient either.

Where and how can we save money?
Please give me all the tips and advices you can think of to help us save on bills.

I'm going to start a vegetable garden, big endeavour that will hopefully feed us 3 from April til October. We are pure vegetarian so no worry about meat, eggs and such.

Where shall I shop? How to budget? Where to start?

I know we can make it, I just need a little help to get started.
Please share with us :)

Ys,
Radhanuga

My first thought was about the dryer…can you line-dry? My friend has a retractable line dryer outside. I have a small portable folding wooden rack, and I even use it sometimes in Winter (on sunny days in front of a big window). It also freshens the air nicely.

Congratulations on your home…sorry about the payment going up!

Have you read the tightwad gazette? That's an excellent start to get a lot of wonderful ideas if you haven't read it yet. Often your local library will have it.

Can you watch a child or two in your new home? Just watching one full-time should bring in enough to cover the extra needed for the house payment.

Don't use that old dryer except for things that HAVE to be dried. Lay items on a wooden drying rack. We use to just hang up everything and used doorways or whatever we could find to hang the hangers on until the stuff was dry.

Look around and find a clothes drying rack or somehow install a line outside to hang your clothes to dry. I know that when ever I hang things to dry and don't use my dryer that I save money.

Wow! I am impressed that you can get by on $21 a week for groceries I'm not sure of anyways you can cut back there.

I have also heard that keeping your freezer full will help it to run more efficently. Even if you have to just fill it with blocks of ice or such. I never have a problem keeping my little freezer full though with just food.

Also a little thing, but don't use a screen saver on your computer. If you leave your computer on and need to walk away just turn off the monitor. My computer geek dh says that the monitor is the biggest energy sucker on the computer. We also switched to flourscent (sp?) light bulbs- expensive at first, but we do not have to change then as often and they use less electricity.

That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!

Tawnya

Well we will be with you doing this, this year - as we are moving for Feb 1st to a houseing co-op. There our T/H rent will be almost $200 a month more than our apt PLUS utilities which are included here. So we are in the same situation with having our expenses go up a lot.

I plan to line dry a lot as dryers are very expensive. I'm trying to empty our deep freeze as I don't want that expense (It's barely got anything in it right now). Filling with jugs of water will make it more efficient freezers use way more energy when almost empty.

I'm planning to cloth diaper more (I've got all 3 in disposies most of the time now because of the move). If that's not an option for you - maybe potty training would be? Diapers are expensive! I'm really hoping Maddy potty trains soon because 3 in diapers either with laundry/soap or disposies/wipes is really expensive.

Also keep your heat down lower as houses tend to be way more expensive to heat than apts are. I also try to turn the lights down low in the evenings.

I don't know that you can go more cheaply on food. We can't get down past around $100/week Cdn for groceries/formula/medications/cleaning stuff even on the cheapest of foods and cd'ing completely all three. My kids EAT and Megan has to be on formula right now :o So I don't see how you can cut back more there. I know with us buying bulk works out cheaper in the long run. I buy oatmeal/flour/rice by 25 lb bags. Even produce - I bought 50 lbs potatos and carrots this fall at a year end produce stand closeout that we ate off of for over a month. Way cheaper than buying little quantities.

Also for me - cutting back on online trading/buying/giving. When I add up what I spent this past year in postage shipping things or having things shipped to me - it's a LOT of money. So for us - if I can't find it locally this next year - I"m not going to be buying it and I'll also be donating locally rather than sending things to online friends.

I agree on the tightwad gazzette book - I have them and they are an invaluable resource. :thumbsup:

The first year we lived in NY we had no dryer - we had 2 clothes drying racks that we used to dry our clothes over our heating vents. Drying outside wasn't really an option for us up here. I also kept our thermostat turned down low - so low that when I called the energy company to renew our fuel oil deliveries the woman at the company thought we used supplemental heating sources. We just all wore sweaters and slippers.

We minimized trips, shopping once every two weeks or so. And kept up with regular car maintenence so gas milage wasn't so bad.

If you have sunny windows you may be able to grow some things in a window box right now, you will at least be able to start seeds. For your garden, if you know how or have someone to teach you plan to can and freeze what you can. Our garden was quite the tomato producer. Don't forget to ask your neighbors (if they're friendly) for thinnings in the spring. You may be able to get strawberry and raspberry/blackberry thinnings that won't help much this year, but next year will. We also get flowers and fern thinings and use them to landscape.

The tightwad gazzette is a very inspiring read.

Good luck with your new house!

Thank you so much for the answers so far, lots of great ideas :)

I do have the Complete Tightwad gazette, I read it last year but should definitely read it again.

Keep the advices comming :thumbsup:

We used to have a shower rod in our laundry room that I hung things to dry on. This was especially useful with DH's work clothing. I still line dry just about everything but it's because it's how I was raised and even how I *had* to do it for many years. Also, if you have shelving over your washer/dryer, it's perfect for little ones clothing. You can hang their things (including cloth diapers) on a hanger then hang it from the shelves. Their things are so short, it won't hang too low and interrupt your movements during washing/drying.

You may consider refinancing once you get settled. That interest rate seems a bit high. We purchased our home in July and our interest rate is nearly half of what they gave you. I'm not sure what the interest rates have been doing lately (not paying much attention since ours if fixed) but maybe you could shop around and see if you can get a better rate. I don't now exactly how loans work (that's DH's department) so I'm not sure about refinancing really soon after securing a loan.

If you have an Aldi nearby, they're bread products are really cheap. They also have great deals on canned goods. Consider getting your cleaning supplies at the Dollar Tree or making some homemade cleaners. I know some grocery stores now have a dollar isle that has cleaners, sponges, etc.

HTH

Sweetnsour,

I have no helpful advice unfortunately, but would love to hear in another thread how you feed 3 on $30 per week!!!!

Good luck to you.

What was the law that changed & man, 9.8% is REALLY REALLY high! Any way of shopping around for a better interest rate?

re: the older dryer you are getting in the new house (BTW, congrats on the house) have you checked to see if the hose is cleaned out? A clogged hose is an energy sucking drain !!

Also, vacumn the coils on the fridge ...

K

Why has your rate suddenly been hiked so high?

I would look into that first -- sound fishy, like a bait and switch situation.

I hope this is a short term situation for you!

Staples to buy in bulk:

Beans
Brown rice
Flour or wheat berries if you have a grinder
Yeast
Lentils
Corn tortillas (I buy 100 for under $3 and they keep over a month in the refrigerator)
Oatmeal
White sugar
Vegetable oil

Produce:

Cabbage
Onions
Potatoes
Carrots
Cheapest fruit you can find, no more than 25 cents a serving
-or- canned pineapple in juice

Other:

Vegan margarine
Salt/Pepper
Crushed garlic (a $2 jar lasts a long time)
Cheapest salsa you can find; usually a canned Mexican variety
Vinegar

Find a good, simple bread recipe that doesn’t call for honey, buttermilk, or other expensive ingredients. Leave out the milk. Make daily for toast and to eat with soup. You can also make pita bread.

Lunches and Dinners:

Cabbage salad
Sauted or roasted carrots, onions, and potatoes
Tacos with beans, rice, and cabbage
Potato soup
Lentil soup
Lentils and rice
Sauted cabbage and carrots over rice
Bean soup (mine is pinto beans, garlic, and salt; DH adds salsa)
Vegetable soup

Breakfasts:

Fresh bread, plain
Bread, toasted
Oatmeal


Also, buy all your toiletries at a $1 type store.
Sell anything you can think of.
Use half of everything; half the detergent, half the shampoo, etc.
Shower every other day instead of everyday.
Only shower (don't take a bath) and cut the time in half.
Wear your clothes twice to cut laundry.
Keep the thermostat low and wear a sweater; turn it off at night.
Walk anywhere you can rather than drive.
Don't buy anything that isn't essential to survival.

Peace,

Kimberly

Kimberly - that is a great list. I'm going to print it out. :thumbsup: The only thing I don't have a source for here is corn tortilla. Those are expensive everywhere I've seen them. But I can often find flour tortillas at the discount bread place for cheap.

Thank you so much Kimberly for that list :)

To the others re:law we were going to get 100% financing, and there was a change about it, with our credit score and income ratio after the 1st we could not qualify for it anymore.

Now for the high rate I think we'll try to refinance asap, meawhile we cannot go fishing for loans anymore, our landlord already rented our appartment to someone else and they're moving in on the 3rd, we have to be out on the 31st. We're supposed to close tomorrow :crossing fingers:

Here's my measly tip; I'm too tired to think of the rest of the stuff: When you use laundry soap, powder or liquid, you only really need about 1/4-1/3 of the amount recommended on the bottle. The rest just ends up left in your clothes cause the rinse cycle couldn't get it all out.

Trust me, my soap lasts for ages, esp when I buy the huge Costco containers.

Oh, and if you don't already do Costco/Sam's Club/Whatever, they are the best places for real deals. Not on everything, so you need to be up on your local prices (which I am betting you are, if you can feed a family for that little), but some things are out of this world cheap. For example, bread yeast where I bought it was $7 for the little bottle of Red Star. Costco had a 2 lb bag for I think less than $3. Add that to the $4.69 25 lb sack of flour I bought, and that was a LOT of bread for under ten dollars.

Speaking of, my simple bread recipe:(I used to make about 2 loaves worth of rolls or bread or pizza crust at a time)

Put warm water in a bowl, about 5-6 cups. Add about 2 tablespoons sugar or honey or whatever, and mix til dissolved.

Add 3-4 sachets or tablespoons of bread yeast and gently mix til all in and wet. Stick in the corner, pref in a warm spot, till all foamy.

Pour in flour (I have no idea how much exactly...I make this recipe by pouring things into the bowl straight from the container. I have never measured anything), prob 8-10 cups.

Add about 1-2 tablespoons salt, and 1/2 c oil if you want (I rarely did, unless I was making cinnamon buns or something), and start to knead. It should make a stiff elastic ball. If too soft, add a little more flour as you knead (1/4-1/2 to start). If too dry, work water in very slowly, a tablespoon or two at a time. Eventually you will know how much flour to dump in in the first place. Knead for about 5-10 minutes, depending on how much of a hurry you are in (the longer the better), stick in a bowl, and cover, and let rise for 1/2 hour. If you can't wait, you can shorten it, or even not wait at all, but waiting is best.

Shape how you want, and bake. Rolls at 400*, bread at 350*.


As you can tell, this doesn't have to be an exact science for it to work; a little practice will give you great results every time.

Anyway, hth!

HB,

Murali