Cutting Cost

With our current economic state (and I mean our family, but could be said as a country) I find myself, racking my brain, everyday, wondering how I can cut household costs. Being a stay at home mom, I figure my contribution to the family is to save money. With my oldest son having celiac disease, I do have to be somewhat careful as to what I bring into the home. Mind you, we live a extraordinary life style so not every tip will apply to everyone, maybe it won't apply to anyone, but this is what we do. Here are some money saving tips that I will pass on to you:

1. Groceries - I did a year of The Grocery Game...maybe it was 2 years. It saves a lot of money but is a lot of work and a lot of shopping. Living a little farther out of town, I would have to do all my shopping in one trip and running store to store was just too much. Plus, I don't like to shop! Instead, this year, I have moved more towards buying in bulk. That doesn't mean Sam's Club per say. I do buy some items at Sam's. But I also do a lot of shopping at Gordon Food Service. I also try to just buy basic ingredients that can be used many different ways. For instance, if I buy rice, chicken, vegetables. I can turn those three into quite a few combinations. I can stir fry. I can do a casserole. I can do each as a separate side. I could make a soup. I could probably continue. I also like to buy dry beans. They are cheap and just take a little planning to use. I also try to make my own bread. It really isn't hard to do and again, just takes a little planning. We don't buy bottled water and rarely buy pop. I have been getting by on about $400 a month. We are here, eating in the home 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. We also try not to buy too many specialty gluten free products. We do buy a pancake/baking mix and noodles. Those are really the only two items we buy right now. We may have found a new gluten free bread to love, so that might raise so of the numbers. Oh, oh, another great buy...popcorn! Buy it is a large bag in bulk and pop it on the stove, the way we used to! Not only is it cheap, it taste so much better!!!
2. Vehicles-we only have one. Yes, one! My husband's schedule is really flexible right now so it isn't a problem. This cuts down on insurance, gas and needless driving. Unless my husband becomes a workaholic, I don't see any reason we will go back to having more than one again.
3. Clothing- As homeschoolers, we really catch a break here. We don't have back to school shopping. We only buy when it is actually needed. That means, for instance, in the winter, I don't bother buying anything but a pair of snow boots for everyone. No one is running around in shoes so why buy them? We buy pants when they need pants because they have grown out of them, etc.
4. Home heating- while we are home all day, we can't really do the "turn the heat down when we aren't home". So this year we are trying something new. During the day, I keep all the doors to rooms not in use closed. We are trying an Eden Pure heater in the main living area. So during the day I leave the furnace down to 60 degrees and just run the Eden Pure. We produce heat through our bodies, appliances, passive solar (if we are lucky to see the sun), cooking, etc. Then at night we pull the Eden Pure into our family bedroom and only heat that room at night. Again, the thermostat is still set at 60 or less overnight. Then about an hour before we get up, I will turn the thermostat back up to 70 as I can't stand to get out of bed to a cold house. The one down side to this, the toilet seat is really cold in the middle of the night. We also use thermal drapes on our windows. This helps hold the heat in at night. On a sunny day we will open the drapes on the large window in our living room as it is facing south and grab as much heat as we can. Again, we close them when the sun is gone.
5. Phones- we have a house phone. We were using it for faxes. We haven't sent a fax on it in months. We do have it at a bare minimum, only paying for basic service, no caller id, no call waiting. We don't even pay for an long distance. I spoke with someone at the phone company and she was able to put me on a little higher price per minute but there is no monthly fee. We really don't use the long distance, but we still have the option if we need to. BUT, we might be dropping the house phone...not sure yet. Our cell phones are a much bigger expense. Jason still has an old plan that allows for free incoming. I renegotiated a plan with Sprint that for $29.99 I get 200 minutes, free mobile to mobile, free nights and weekends. This allows me to communicate with my husband as much as I need to with no worries. In order to get decent internet access, we pay for a Sprint broadband card, but that is unlimited (not sure if they still offer them that way). There isn't really anyway to cut those down any farther other than to eliminate a cell or the house phone.
6. Television- while I would love to go to just digital local channels, through an antenna, Jason isn't game. His hobby is mixed martial arts (think Ultimate Fighting, aka cage fighting) and he watches a lot of programming on direct tv, so we keep it. He has cut back on the Pay Per Views. With a lot of options on the internet for tv viewing (like your favorite shows), it could be an option to drop it all together.
7. Life insurance- we are still paying our life insurance. Sure, we (the adults) don't have health insurance. But if one of us dies, (maybe from lack of health insurance, just kidding!) the rest of the family won't be destitute. We only carry term life. I have noticed a push from our agent to switch us to whole life...NO WAY!!! But, when times are tight, the life insurance still gets paid. I don't know how I slept at night without it!
8. Taxes- our last main monthly expense is this lovely little tax bill we have with the IRS. Year ago, when we had a decent income, we were left with a good sized tax bill. We have been paying monthly on it ever since. With our decrease in monthly income, that payment became a real burden. And I don't know about you, but I know what happens when you own the IRS money...they take whatever of yours they can find. So it was a simple call and they lowered my payment for the next 6 months. The good news is, by the time that 6 months is over, our bill may have been wiped out by our anticipated large federal refund this coming year. :)

So obviously, we still have some cutting that could be done. But for now, this is what is comfortable. No one wants a miserable husband so I won't pull the cable. ;)

When I get done using up all the laundry detergent I have stocked up from my grocery game days, I will give making my own a try. :)

Do you have great tips? Leave them in the comment section!