Saving money???

[neverfinished]

I have been watching the news this morning about the country going into a recession and the price of everything on the rise which made me think....

How is everyone coping with the rising costs?
Are you doing anything differently?
Are you cutting back?
Long range plans?

Maybe you can give me a few ideas I haven't thought of~~~ :o

[Lisa S]

I look around for the best rate on credit cards. The advance line portion of my credit card was charged 25% interest while my credit card interest was only 5%. I followed the lending institution's directions and paid off the advance line portion of the balance sooner.

I shop at a discount grocery store for my once a month big shop. It's much, much less than the pretty chain stores. I shouldn't go anywhere else, but the convience of going down the street for milk and bread is nice.

I almost always buy store brand items.

I try to buy my meat in bulk from a farmer. Better for you and less going to the store. I figure everytime I walk in the door of a store, at least $20 will fly out of my pocket.

I read up on which costmetic products really work. It's almost never the $50 jar of "whatever" at a department store. More often than not, it's something inexpensive at the drug store.

I don't drive much and when I do, I combine my errands.

If I shop online, (which I do a lot ~ it's that $20 flying out of the pocket thing!) I always look for coupons.

I trade kid clothes with friends. We have a system of passing them down. It saves some bucks.

[zuzus_garden]

Here are a few of the things we are doing:

We don't use credit cards (except the business card which is only used for the business)

Like Lisa, we combine our errands & run them on one day: P.O., laundry, library, groceries, gas

If you check out the Goodwill and 2nd hand stores, you can walk out with a new pair of jeans for $5.00 - beats the $50.00 I used to pay at the mall

We gave up soda pop and drink more water - saves money and it is better for us

:)
Zuzu

[dedavis]

My friend listens to the BBC, and says that the British take on our economy is that the media is blowing things out of proportion. I think that some of the greed and speculation of recent years is finally catching up with people in this country. That's not to say that greed is gone...

I have a fixed rate mortgage at a reasonable interest rate. That helps me feel a little more financially secure. I have one credit card and pay it off every month. I try not to spend what I don't have. I try not to want what I don't need.

I go to the library instead of buying books.

What I notice are food prices and gas prices. I plan to take one trip to visit family this spring, which I can do on two tanks of gas. Other than that I'm staying close to home. I'm trying to manage on two biweekly grocery shopping trips. I buy staples in bulk, and stay away from the inner aisles of the store where the expensive processed food is. I buy what's fresh and in season. I'm not eating much meat these days. In a couple months, there will be a lot of great food from the garden and farmer's markets. And I have stuff in the freezer from last year.

My goals this year are to make some changes to my health insurance and retirement savings, which will help in the long term. I'm also working on small ways to increase my income through my sideline businesses. And I want to put aside a little bit from each paycheck.

[Lisa S]

I think the Brittish are on to something. I have that sinking feeling too.

I try to live fairly frugally all the time. (Okay, I had an advance line balance, so how frugal can I be?) There are so many ways to spend money! If I buy my groceries at the cheap store and combine my trips around town, I can get a few of my splurge items.

[neverfinished]

I think you are probably right. It was such a gloom and doom type thing I was listening to....

I agree that I too, try to live frugally most of the time so I guess I don't think of what i do all the time as creative or cutting back.

I wish we had more of a choice on where to shop~~close by that is...

I do the bulk of my shopping once a month, buy large quantities of the stuff we always use. This is a 2 hour trip one way so it's a long day since I try to fit ALL shopping in that day.

We get our beef from a local rancher, we have elk in the freezer as well from the big hunt this fall.

Luckily we live in a very rural area and there are really not stores to shop/splurge in. I try to limit my online shopping as much as my will power will allow.
.

When it's cold I drive to work everyday but now that it's warming up I will be riding my bike or walking. Depending on how early a start I get :o



I keep reminding my DH that this summer there will be only ONE DS living here so that should cut our grocery bill by a bit I would think...:()

[cheapdiva]

Food is outrageous! I am sitting with a pile of coupons in front of me. I make a game of it . . . we have a CVS pharmacy around the corner and I buy what is on sale there and use their "card". You spend so much there and you get coupons for $$$ off of anything. Last month between my coupons and their $$$ off coupons I came home with nearly $50 worth of stuff for under $10. REALLY!

They had machine dish soap on sale, garbage bags, body wash - all the stuff we use. Then I head over to Walgreens to buy what they have on sale and do the same thing.

I keep all of the receipts for our groceries and personal care in an envelope every month. I add up what we spent and what we saved and then write a check to our household savings account for the amount we saved. I just did March since we are leaving at the end of this week on vacation - we saved over $45 just at the grocery store (on $350 worth of food). This money goes into our vacation fund and it is how we pay for our annual trip to New York.
And we save all of our change and once a month take it to the bank and this goes into the account as well. We manage to put well over $100 per month in this account and it helps.

[rubyslippers]

Groceries have been zanily priced here recently. Coupon clipping and all, groceries are killing us. We need a healthy CHEAP meal thread with the gas prices impacting groceries this badly! I like this thread as much as the "splurge" thread ... funny huh ... I guess we have to save to splurge don't we?!

[Ladybug]

I don't clip coupons because they are never for anything I buy. I buy only store-brand items, unless it's something I can REALLY tell the difference, but that's only about 3-4 items and I can get those on sale when we need them. Where and what do you all buy in bulk? We just bought toilet paper in bulk yesterday because it was on sale. Since our home is small and storage at a premium (AND there's only 2 of us) I'm not sure what I should try to buy in bulk. Any suggestions? My family has talked about setting up a coop where we buy things in bulk and split them, IF the cost difference is significant enough. Do any of you do something like that?

The main issue for us is gas prices. We have 2 vehicles, but due to our work/school schedules, we cannot carpool. We also live about 15 miles from work/school. I suppose the solution is moving closer to those things, but we have done that and we actually spend more. It's a university town and housing costs are crazy. By living in this smaller town, we actually saved money on our mortgage/interest rate. It probably all equals out in the long run, but this is a much more peaceful town and I don't think you can hang a price tag on personal peace.

[RoseMary]

We live almost 20 miles from the nearest small town, so gas and groceries are our biggest expense. Well, that and college expenses for our youngest! She will graduate in May, so those will be gone.

We don't charge unless it's an emergency and always pay off as much as we can. I try to do all grocery shopping bimonthly. But there are many times I make a weekly trip into town. The gas in this town is outrageous! Almost 20 cents more than most places in this area of the state. And, groceries are about the same. Unless you are willing to drive 1 1/2 to 2 hours away, they have you hostage to their greed.

I think Deb is right about a lot of things going on in this country. It is the greed of the average American that has caused them so much heartache. So many of them are losing houses that they knew they couldn't afford in the first place. The utilities alone must be outrageous in them. I hope that people will learn to take responsibility for their lives and live with what they can afford.

I know so many people that wouldn't be caught dead in a thrift store or Goodwill. I don't understand their mentality. They are buying new, cheap clothing at Wal Mart when they could get much better quality for less at the Good Will. Don't get me wrong, I buy at Wal Mart occasionally, too. But I'd rather buy Good Will.

We are hoping to have a good garden this year to supplement our ever dwindling grocery budget and also to change how we eat to a degree. We have also started buying from a co-op which helps a little bit.

I am not all gloom and doom about this. I think things will be rough for a while, but I do believe they will get better. Who knows--maybe I'm just dreaming:)!

[Ladybug]

I agree Rosemary. When DH and I were looking for a house, our banker kept telling us we could basically get as much house as we wanted. Yes, we could've spent a lot of $ for a much bigger, newer house, but we didn't NEED that much space! And we knew we didn't want a mortgage that would keep us from doing other things we like to do (travel, etc.) So, we bought a much smaller, less expensive, older home and we love it. There have been those who don't understand why we made that decision, but I don't care.

My Mom and I are planting a garden this year, too. Around here it is very hard to find good produce at the grocery stores and the farmer's market is so small that it's unpredictable. We will split the work load, cost and produce. Last year we had a VERY small patch with a few tomato plants and had more than enough for our two households. This year we're planting a lot more and hope to have enough so that we don't have to buy much at the grocery store. We'll still go to the farmer's market and see what's available, but hopefully ours will enough for us and to share.

[Lisa S]

I just love being a part of this group. We think alike. I love my home. I couldn't have put the quality of workmanship into it if we bought a bigger house. I never wanted a bigger house. More cleaning and for what?

Ladybug, you're so lucky to have your mom to garden with. What a neat idea to share a garden.

[Chyna]

Funny how you mention the overspending on the house. We've had many of these mini mcmansions spring up around here and all I can think of is that there are alot of people high in debt with those houses. And now you are seeing along with the mushroom houses (one day there is an empty lot the next there is a house there) you are seeing For Sale signs springing up. We were told when we were looking for a house that we could afford $100 thou on a house and yet everyting we were shown were dumps. Just by chance we saw our home now and we only spent $49 thou ($51 after fees). I just couldn't go that much into debt, made me extremely anxious and nervous to have such high mortgage payments. And mine aren't even that high compared to others. After we get my dh's inheritance the house will be completely paid off and we can save for an addition. That part I'm not sure about. Our mortgage is fixed rate and a pretty good rate at that. Now borrowing a comparable amount to do this addition is going to land us with a higher rate and I'm not comfy with that. Dh is gonig to talk to the money financial guy and get his opinion on that.

I tried to do the coupon thing and would either forget them at home, end up crumpled at the bottom of my purse or they just aren't the brands we buy. We get alot of our stuff from Costco and since walmart invaded out town we go there. In a way this actually saves us money since now we don't have to shop in Billings and save the gas. now if Target would move to town, I'd be one happy camper. And maybe Lowes too. But then Id be spending more since then I'd be there ALL the time. :()

[WannaBHomemaker]

We were broke before the recession, so now is no different. We are trying to save a little, but every time we do, something comes up and we have to pull it back out. Somehow we keep getting by. We spend about $50 a week on groceries, and usually have to fill up once (now around $70 each time). We use mostly meat we already have from last hunting season. I shop for dry goods at Big Lots (cheaper than the grocery store) and sometimes I can find good clothing there too. I'd love to get to go to goodwill, etc more often, but I usually am not the one with the vehicle. Now that I have a sewing machine, I'm trying to make things like table runners, pillows, curtains, etc. instead of buying them. We only go out to eat about once a week, and that even needs to be less often. We basically are frugal with everything, but we are still enjoying ourselves - we went to a concert a few weeks ago and next weekend we're going to a rodeo. :()