I have gotten as far as getting all the bills we pay, figuring out how much we take home, but the part I'm really lacking is what is really spent on say like TP or chicken things like that, a staple in our lives.
I also want to be able to plan out a entire month of dinners, even go so far as to cook them then freeze them so that I can take them out and have them done quick.
I thought of doing the coupon thing, but I'm not sure just how much of it we eat as a family. That was my only thoughts when I went to one of those coupon deals, it was more of food that we don't eat, then what we do eat.
This is just so overwhelming! Sometimes I think I would like to be back to the whole once a month paycheck. At least you paid all your bills at once and then you have what was left over to buy groceries with and put into savings and such. But then its scary because that's it, you have to wait a whole month until the next check!
So if there is anyone out there that reads my blog, that has some good ideas or things that has worked for them, please send them my way! I can use the help :)
1 comment:
I found your blog through a friend, I hope that's ok. I also decided that since the economy was going down hill I better organize my family's spending before we go down hill right along with it! My husband installed a program on my CPU called Microsoft Money 2007 Home and Business. I’m sure there are other programs that do the same type of thing, I know Quicken 2008 does pretty much the same thing an it is easy to use as well). Anyway, after we entered all the information we were able to see exactly where all the money goes. (It was very scary!) We even broke it down into smaller categories. I saved all the receipts for two-three months and went through each one entering the total amount where applicable. Because we don’t just buy food from Wal-Mart it was necessary to itemize each receipt and add up the totals and enter those amounts in their respective category. It took a lot of work and commitment but it gave us a pretty accurate idea on where all the money goes. We didn’t break it down to chicken and TP but food and house hold supplies works too. Since I raid the case lot sale at Harmon’s twice a year we use the average option because obviously we don’t go through $90 worth of TP in 60 days and use no TP the other 10 months! We also took a good hard look at all the “luxury” things we have in our life that we can live with out for a year (or two) and cut back the allowable spending on the highest level of categories that we could and found that after a few sacrifices we saved a lot of money. There are other ways to save money as well. Baja has a bundle offer that would have cut our internet, phone and cable bill by 150.00 a month, but then we decided who needs cable for a year and we saved even more! It helps to shop around and ask the competitors what they can do for you, make then earn your business. I bet they are hurting financially too, or will be soon? On a funny note, I actually did save 250.00 by switching to GEICO! I also car pool for every activity my kids have. Two girls in dance and a boy in gymnastics mean a lot of driving three days a week. So I car pool and do any errands I have on the days I drive.
Hope this helps!
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