cutting costs?

[paganmum]

OK I need some serious advice from the frugal momma gurus please!

Long story short we are getting ready to move, in just under a month our lease is up. We like this place that we are renting the rent is cheap and the place is big but the landlord and his staff are a royal pain in the butt to deal with and we aren't in town so no way for me and the kids to get around with out a car.

The problem is that we want to move back into town (city what ever you want to call it) but it is your typical large college centered area. so there is a lot of demand for places and 80% (at least of the leases) run strictly from Aug-Aug.

We found a place that is big enough for us but is about a $100 more a month then we really want to pay. With our pets we really don't have any other options.

So I am trying to figure out a game plan for making this work with out Dh stressing himself to death.

Are there any good general tips? I can provide more information about specifics from there I think. We do not use credit cards (hell we don't have any!) and we don't eat out very often.

TIA

[kerc]

do you have cable tv?
what's your phone service like -- can you cut anything there?
can you perhaps bundle the services if you must have them?

what's your grocery bill like? can you find a way to save money there?

do you go out for coffee? that's 3 bucks a day ---> easy 100 bucks a month.

[paganmum]

cable tv is the lowest end basic right now, our home phone is my cell phone and that is a pay as you use the minutes set up. I don't drink coffee and I'm trying to get off pop. Dh is a coffee drinker and that is one cup a day that he makes at home. The grocery bill is running about $400 a month I think. We have been weaning out pre-made foods since the additives set Dd1 off, and I cook about everything from scratch. We are typically buying flour (all purpose and bread), milk, eggs, fresh fruit and veggies (frozen if money is really tight that week), meat, some cheese, butter, etc. And everything has to feed the five of us and plenty of crunchy snack stuff (usually fruits/veggies/pickles etc.) for Dd1 who has a limited diet due to sensory issues.

We are trying to improve our eating to improve out health (for me and Dh) and for the benefits to the kids. But we are also trying to balance the price tag it seems to come with.

[LEAW]

Will you end up saving $ because of less gas for the car? Do you own the car or is it lease/loan? Can you drop your auto ins. levels and save a bit? Are there some foods you eat (beans, etc) that come in a cheaper form (i.e. dry and bagged beans are cheaper than canned) that you could prepare? Can you make any of those crunchy snacks for the toddler?

Can you get a PT job just 1-2 nights a week and make the difference while dh watches the kids? Delivering pizza or making coffee would make that much easily. Sitting at the library shelving books, working any retail store, etc.

Do you have stuff to sell to make a small nest egg of savings? If your new place is smaller, you might not have enough space for everything...

[paganmum]

Dh thinks that he will be saving about $60 a month on gas (if not more) with us moving back to town. He hasn't figured up what he would save on lunches since he would be able to drive home for lunch if he forgot his that day.

I hadn't really looked into the food part of it that much. Dh and the kids aren't really bean eaters so getting them to eat beans takes a lot of work, basically dh will only eat refried black beans on tacos burritos etc and the kids right now won't touch them with a ten foot pole period. Crunchy snacks for Dd1 (5yo) tend to be apples, carrots, celery and other crunchy fruits and veggies, she has an aversion to most breads and crackers. Ds (almost 7yo) loves homemade crackers and breads, and an aversion to fruits and veggies. Dd2 (3yo) will eat anything especially if it is on my plate. I'm going to look around and see if there is anything that we can either buy in bulk or some other form then we do that would make it cheaper. I don't really care about easier. LOL!

Our car insurance is the bare minimum allowed by state law so no cutting left there.

Might look into a pt job but it migth be more hassle then it's worth unless I watched a kid or two at home since I can't drive and Dh doesn't get off of work until 7pm. But that is something to kick around.

I have actually been weeding through our stuff to cut down on what moves with us. I know that in the move we are going to be loosing some living space. so we are going to have to loose some of the stuff we don't need. I have been trying to sell it. The seling is just going slow. I'm thinking about putting it up on ebay. We also should have our tax return soon and are going to put some of it into the savings account to make sure that we have something set aside for emergancies or *really* tight times this time around.

Thank you for the ideas. It's getting me thinking and if Dh gets really worked up I'll run over the ideas with him.

[LEAW]

Even if you can't do weeknights at a PT job, you could just do one day on the weekends... every retail place I can think of needs a Sat/Sun person becuase nobody wants to work weekends... at $6/hr you'd make nearly $50 a day, minus taxes, so way more than you'd need to make the $100 difference each month.

And it would give your dh some "quality" kid only time...

[Belleweather]

Try requoting your car insurance through an online quoting service. I did that and saved $60/month. You could also look at raising your deductible or changing your coverage, if you're comfortable with that or drive an older or high mileage car.

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

There are several minor things you could do that would save you money. For example, you can use a divacup instead of pads or tampons. DD2 could potty train and that would save you on diapers. You could see if your DH could carpool to work, which would save even more gas! Do you rent movies? I know of an amazing and CHEAP place in town to rent from. Just some ideas, can't think of much else right now.

Ebaying stuff is probably a good idea.

[paganmum]

I think that Dh could carpool I'm going to have to toss that past him. He wouldn't be able to come home for lunches but it would be a money saver.

Dh is going to use his Ebay seller ID to get rid of our stuff that we haven't been able to sell off locally. That might have to wait until after the move though. But there would be plenty of garage space to put everything until I could completely sort out what was going and what was staying. (my rough gameplan for hte move is instructing those helping us to put the beds and other big stuff inside for assembly and the boxes in the garage for sorting. LOL!)

Which cheap place are you reffering to? I'm out of touch with what is still around and what isn't. We don't really rent movies much since we have a hard time getting them watched and back on time. Dh has been rentining the odd movie through his Xbox live account and then it's the couple dollars for the rights to keep it on his driver and watch it at any time and as many times as we want. So it comes out to less since there are no late fees. Better picture too.

Diva for me is a big maybe still......... I'm just kinda I don't know about it and it might creep Dh out. LOL!

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

The cheap place is Rentertainment, which is on campus, but it seems like you guys already have a pretty cheap way to rent movies (I know people who use blockbuster for $5 per movie. AAAHHH!)

And I love my Diva cup. It feels like a tampon (meaning it doesn't) and as long as you get it in correctly, which admittedly takes some practice, it doesn't leak and you can leave it in most of the day. The only people I know who have problems with it are....."small" if you know what I mean. And conservative, and easily squicked. But if you're comfortable with your body, it's usually not a problem.

[paganmum]

rentertainment is cool! It's just such a pain to drive and find parking. LOL!
I need to catch up on my red green and they have an awesome anime section.

I went poking around about diva cups. How long do they last? I know that they are washable and reusable but I think Dh would have sticker shock over the price I saw listed on the website. :
I think Dh wouls also be asking how I expected to keep it sanitary inbetween uses. Do you stick it in the dishwasher or something? I'm kind of confused. But, then again it would save Dh the embarassing trips to the store to buy pads when I suddenly run out due to kids finding where I hid them and turning them into stickers!

[LEAW]

Eh, the cups pay for themselves in 6 months of use... way awesome. You can boil them between use, or wash with soap and water, or whatever.

Watch the co-op board, they come up a bit cheaper on there.

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

I just wash mine with soap and water after AF stops. Then I put it in it's little bag, stick it on a shelf, and wait until it's needed again.

[wife&mommy]

I LOVE the diva cup!

[EarthyMamaofDaisy]

I'm always looking for ways to save money too:

I got a free breadmaker and I started making my own bread. You can get some of the ingredients in bulk to make it even cheaper.

I just recently joined a co-op, I can't believe how much cheaper everything is!
I stopped using paper towels for cleaning and am using microfiber cleaning cloths.
I just discovered that with being low income I qualify for a significant reduction on my home phone ($19/month). I just have to fill out the application and send it in.
If money is that tight you may qualify for fuel assitance and electric assistance.
I stopped buying hand soap and am now buying a huge bottle of Dr. Bronner's tea tree liquid soap and I dilute that and put it in the soap dispenser.
Hope these ideas help!