Well, Off I go into the wild blue yonder.
I have been thinking about this for a long time, actually. But starting in the fall, my teacher husband will be Reduced in Force. So much for just letting attrition take care of things, Mr. State Liar Superintendent.
Anyway, we have been a double income for a few years and have really gotten used to it. For the most part, we've done good things with two incomes, bought a car in 2008 that was a year old (so we have just under two years left to pay it off, then we'll need to replace our 20 year old Jeep that has nearly 200,000 miles on it). We ran up a lot of credit card debt in our younger, wilder, stupider years and have almost all of it paid off. We owe money for medical bills. We spend far too much money on food.
So, given everything that I've learned, the place we'll cut down the most is on the food budget. I have started to clip coupons and have a modest pile of them all filed in a nice big binder. I have signed up for the local paper, getting a fabulous deal (thanks to the ladies at Fabulessly Frugal, www.fabulesslyfrugal.com). I'll get the daily paper and 5 Sunday papers.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about a food inventory list and have a modest one started. I am sure as I learn more that it will change and grow as well.
The goal is to amass a stockpile that will feed my family for a year. And then I want to take the money I would spend on food and use it to pay off debt, get my daughter the things she needs for her final year in high school, go out to eat once in a while, and maybe get DD a car at some point. Oh, yes, and also survive DH's pay cut. And buy Christmas presents this year.
So I'll talk about my couponing here, and other measures I will use. While I'm not perfect, I do know most of the things we're doing will work for our family. I simply ask my readers, if there are any, to offer advice gently and not judge us for the mistakes we'll likely make.
In addition to couponing and things, we are cutting out our home phone, as it just seems to be the main number telemarketers call any more. We're switching our internet and satellite TV to a different provider and it'll be cheaper for the next year. This summer, we used some of our savings and bought a new fridge which will help us save energy and some on our power bill. Our water bill's going down, and we can remove one car from our insurance because our older child has sold his old car.
It's going to be a ride.
