I see a lot of room for you to cut back. Budgeting is one of my hobbies, so buckle in this may be a long ride..
When I create our budget I start with our necessary bills just as you did, when it comes to gas in your car there's only so much you can do there, shop around for the best price (often not worth it as it may only save 2-3 cents/gallon), if your car runs on deisel you could consider a converter to run it on veggie oil for a long term solution, but as long as you're making minimum trips (work and only one day of errands/week) you're probably doing the best you can there. When it comes to cars I'm of the mind that if it still runs it's worth keeping. If you keep up on maintainance your cars will last a VERY long time. It's a HUGE financial mistake to sell a car before it's paid off (unless you absolutly can't make the payment), or right after you get it paid off. I recommend that you keep paying on the car until it's paid off and then make that payment to your savings account every month. In 1/2 the time it took you to pay off the car you'll have enough to buy a new one! The longer you keep the car the nicer the next car you buy can be!
Your groceries are SO expensive! Since you're staying at home I would try to go minimum on lunch for you (I have a salad-buy lettuce, tomatoes, and dressing and eat lunch for 5.00/week!- or pb &j with carrots and grapes, tuna salad-before I was pregnant-anything simple). Do you breastfeed? I don't see how old your baby is but if your doing solids you can make them at home rather than buying them. You are already cooking food for you and dh, so why not leave a little bit on the stove and cook it really well, then put it in a food proccessor/blender and in an extra few minutes have food for baby too? You can freeze it in ice cube trays and it's easy to just put one or two in the fridge in the morning to thaw out for lunch and dinner that day.
Find more info here:
www.wholesomebabyfood.com
Also, do you buy a lot of convenince food? If you're going to sah I would absolutly recomment honing your cooking skills. Every day we have something delicious like pancakes, waffles, omletts, oatmeal etc. for breakfast, all from scratch. It only takes 5 minutes extra to pull out the cookbook and toss the ingredients in a bowl, and the taste alone is worth it! If you have to get up and immediatly feed the baby, do a feed, change, and pop him/her in the swing for five minutes, or get a sling and wear the baby on your back while you make breakfast. It may take time to get the cooking down, and get the baby used to a routine like that, but it's well worth it.
For dinner try to do everything from scratch. DH can play with the baby while you cook-they need to bond anyway!-and you can take your time and get lots of practice. Planning your meals ahead of time will really help save time. I plan out 21 meals, and just keep a list, then decide at breakfast or lunch what we'll have for dinner (this way meat has all day to defrost in the fridge rather than waste electricity using the microwave and risk cooking it in there-its much fresher this way!). I make my list on shopping day and just make sure we have the ingredients for each meal, then I only have to worry about the regulars like milk and bread. When I plan my meals I try to base them on a dish rather than a food- for example chicken pot pie vs fried chicken. This way you can use less meat (a big expense) and a cheaper cut of meat (this week I got chicken leg quarters on sale for .49/lb!) because the flavor of the meat isn't so much the focus. Don't forget sides, you need to plan those too! Comparison shop! We get circulars every week in the mail and grocery stores often have them online too! Check their website if they're a chain and you can see what's on sale where. Some places will price match (walmart), or you can just go to the store that has the most items you need for the best price.
What does Dh have for lunch? Is he eating out every day? Why not take a couple minutes and pack him something yummy everyday? He'll be healthier and probably enjoy it more. My dh loves pb&j, so he has that every day, which is easy and cheap for me, but you could just as easily send leftovers from dinner, or lunchmeat, meat salad, whatever he likes that's easy for you! There is a great section on boxed lunches on the website below.
Check out this website for great tips on meal planning:
www.hillbillyhousewife.com
In my opinion $40 is WAY too much to spend on toiletries every month. You should think closely about what you're buying with that money. I clip coupons and watch for sales for shampoo, hairspray and toothpaste. Then I take my ads and coupons to walmart for the ad matching and stock up when I can get something really cheaply. My greatest buy so far has been a full sized can of hairspray for .40! This takes some time, but it's well worth it. Consider buying your TP in bulk. You can often get it for 1/2 the price this way! My favorite place is quixtar.com (this is a private site, and you have to have a code to join, but email me at
kristie_cregar@hotmail.com and I can give it to you).
I have long hair and I like for it to be nice so I use a regular cheap shampoo, and condition every other day to save money. Then I have a super expensive salon conditioner that I buy once a year at a BOGO sale and I use it once a week and let it sit on my hair for 5 minutes. I love what this does for my hair, and it's way cheaper than using salon products every day.
Speaking of bulk, now that you'll be making everything from scratch consider joining a wholesale club. At our local Sam's I can get my flour,sugar all that for half the price I would pay at the grocery store on sale! That's also a great place to get TP in bulk.
$40 is also a lot for household products. My budget is 10/month! I mostly try to use natural cleaners because I hate chemicals, and don't want to expose our baby to those yucky things (ours is still on the way). You can find TONS of advice on the web about natural products and how to clean with them. My favorite advice comes from about.com's frugal living section you can find here:
http://frugalliving.about.com/
I would seriously consider making your own laundry detergent. This was a big expense for us 'cause we never wear anything twice and I use cloth to clean with rather than paper towels (big money saver!), plus we plan to use cloth diapers. Go here and find a terrific recipe for easy homemade laundry soap (I asked some cloth using mammas their opinion and asked the frugal living guide on about.com her opinion and it was cleared with the following exception) if you have hard water you'll want to add vinegar to your rinse, or consider adding calgon water softener to each wash. I do vinegar in a downy ball, 1/2 cup and it comes out in the rinse to prevent soap buildup and dishwater grayness in whites. The recipe:
http://www.soapsgonebuy.com/ProductD...1&Show=ExtInfo
There are several recipes but the powder one is great and the easiest to make.
While we're talking about laundry, have you considered a high effeciency set? They cost a lot up front, but pay for themselves over and over, especially as much as you're using yours with cd and baby clothes! DO NOT let the salesman convince you that you need the most expensive model. The cheapest model will do. They'll tell you that you need one big enough to fit your comfortor, but how often do you wash your comforter? Is it worth an extra $500 to avoid a trip to the laundr-o-mat once a season? It's not worth it to me! Plus the smaller your unit the less energy it will use. Don't over scrimp because it's a 10-20 year committment, but think hard about what size you need, don't let consumerism take over.
When it comes to entertainment lots of opinions differ. There are lots of things you can do for free, but if you don't enjoy them they are pointless. If you're like us taking a walk is not as fun as dinner and a movie. So, we allow for this in our budget. We try to go to a medium price restaraunt like Applebee's or Chili's and we can eat a good sized meal there for $30. I budget so we have two dinners out each month, plus two trips to the movies at the matinee price (if you go before dinner it's cheaper and you can discuss the movie while you eat!). I also add in four magazine subscriptions each year. We look around for the best price on magazines (publisher's clearinghouse), and save up money all year so it's not an unexpected expense. For anything of this nature (where we save all year) it's easier for me to take the money out of our account in cash each week and put it in a labled envelope. If I leave it in our account it gets lost in the mix and dissapears. I do the same for our eating out/movie budget. Then when we go out to eat we take the cash and leave all other money at home. This way we know not to spend more than we have in cash for everything including tip and drinks.
Medical bills are tricky. As a pp said if you're spending money on well-child visits I would reconsider. Just because that's the norm doesn't mean it's a requirement. When I was a kid we went only when something was wrong. My dh has never seen a dr in his life and is one of the healthiest people I know! I would think strongly about this one. Do what you're comfortable with, but even cutting back to every other well child visit that is recommended is still safe. If you only have a question I have never had a problem calling my dr and getting a response the same day, he's honest about whether he needs to see me about it or not. He even does prescriptions over the phone if he knows what's going on. This way I don't have to pay for office visits or a copay.
When it comes to clothing the best advice I can give you is to check out
www.freecycle.org they're not in every area, but they're all around the world and people will give you TONS of baby clothes. With our first baby on the way we have not had to buy anything and the only things we still need are a mattress for the crib and crib bedding (we got crib, glider rocker, bathtub, swing, boppy, car seat, clothing, everything! for free!!). There are more baby items on our freecycle than people can use! If they're not in your area check out goodwill or other consignment shops for clothes. As you said baby goes through them fast, so who cares if someone else wore them first, baby will only be wearing them for a few months anyay! Why spend a fortune on them?
You should add gifts into your budget. We save all year for Christmas (again we use the envelope method for this too). $400 is enough budget for our Christmas including wrapping paper and everything, so we save $34 aside every month and never have to worry about how we'll pay for Christmas. Plus if dh gets a bonus we can use it for some debt or put it in savings for a house. I would NEVER recommend counting on a bonus to pay for Christmas, I worked for a company that without notice decided to start giving out hams instead of money for a bonus one year. Talk about strapped! I was couting on that money! But now we always have enough, and with that money sitting there every month I know that if I find a gift I'd really like to give someone for Christmas in May I have a little money to buy it. If it's on sale that's even better!
As far as your debt goes I recommend using this method:
List your debt (car and everything) on a piece of paper starting with the largest interest rate ending with the lowest. Also write down your minimum payment for each item. Pay the minimum on all but the first item on your list (the highest interest rate), for this one pay as much as you can (at least 50) in addition to the minimum payment. When you can cross that one off take the entire amount you paid on it and add it to the minimum payment for the second item on your list. Keep this going and you'll have them all paid off before you know it. It's really rewarding to see how fast they start dissapearing after you get that first item off your list.
I think that's about all I have for now! Keep us updated on how you're doing!
