How low could you go with your expenses?

[Tradd]

Here's an interesting game...and I don't mean numbers exclusively, so much as WHAT could you cut and/or totally get rid of?

Me -
Get rid of landline/DSL - landlord has said I could use her unpassworded wireless network anyway! Use Tracfone for the few phone calls I do (I'm on email for about everything). Do online banking at work on lunch (for secure network). Savings: $50/month

When I move in a few months I'm thinking about getting a more extensive cell phone package and getting dry copper DSL. Savings would be probably $35-40 month (estimated). To have no internet at home, could just go to library daily with laptop (free wireless).

Do laundry by hand at home, rather than laundromat, aside from sheets towels (could just do 1 load of these 2x month). Savings $30/month.

Stop eating out (Subway is my idea of eating out) and try to keep to about $40 a week for groceries. Shop just about exclusively at Aldi. Give up soda and drink tea/water at work instead, and iced tea for when I need that caffeine kick. Savings: $150/month.

No new books. Savings: $30/month (but not every month)

Already don't have cable/satellite costs (TV-free), don't get newspapers/magazines, and no expensive hobbies. I'm still using a 3 year old digital camera (with the original memory card bought then) for photography.

Utilities are included in current rent, but once I move to new place and have to pay at least electric, I'll be OK. Already use CFLs in just about everything, have a laptop (uses much less power than desktop), and no power hungry gadgets.

Aside from new bras and a badly needed warm weather dress up outfit, I've not bought clothes for about six months. I will need some new things this winter, there is no way around it. Mostly tops.

Once I move my gas cost will greatly decrease, but my rent cost will increase. However, I'll save about $20 in tolls, will have cheaper car insurance, and more TIME (commute home is 60-90 minutes).

How about you?

[abi&ben'smom]

Well, I think that the only thing that we splurge on is going out to eat. ($30 max, maybe once a week, usually with some kind of coupon) My dh's hobby the last few years has been to cut all of our unneccessary expenses.

[1growingsprout]

Well we just cut the land line 60$ month...
thats a whopping $720 year : thats ALOT for a land line....

we are looking for a cheaper internet but what we have is very reliable... we have tried cfl's but for somereason the light gives me major headaches so they are OUT..

this month i am scheuduling my 'dryer' days

we are working on taking the bus if we do 'big kid only' field trips downtown...

i am being very religious about coupons and stocking up when things are free or almost free.

[happyhats]

Hmm, lets see. I know I could stretch the dollars more with food, and I'm trying. I'm learning to cook from scratch more, buy less processed junk, etc.

We could stop driving except for to my doctor's appointments. Maybe we would get a cheaper insurance rate if we did.

We could stop using the a/c so much

We've stopped eating out and buying non necessities so we could make sure we keep that up

[bwylde]

Last year we went barebones except for our phone/internet package (which, while we could possibly live without, I wouldn't want to). Anything else excess was cut out. I was amazed at how low we could go and we saved a ton of money which went right into our savings account but it wasn't a fun way to live for long.

[HydeParkB]

I could cut (I wrote "gut" the first time. Freudian slip?):

- Downgrade internet, save about $5/month. There would be mutiny though. If times were REALLY tight, we could cut internet altogether for a $30 savings.
- No library or zoo membership, for a total of $165/year.
- No book or movie swap websites. $20/month postage.
- Bike to work instead of drive on the days I don't go to community garden. Maybe $20/month. *
- More line drying. $10/month? *
- Could go to one car. It would be a real pain in the butt, but we could do it. Probably save about $700 or $800 year in maintenance, insurance.

* = Ones I want to do.

It's not a whole lot of month, but every little bit helps, right?

[Benji'sMom]

No TV or internet - 70
IDK what else, maybe some cheaper car or home insurance but I'm not sure that's possible.
I'm sure there's a way to save on food now that I'm only cooking for 3 instead of 4... I'm still experimenting with how much food to cook, etc.

[Siennaflower]

I could cut internet totally and save $60 a month. I could use the wifi at school and dh has the net at work. It actually makes me really mad that we pay that much but we'd have to have a land line for dial up and it would total about $35 for that altogether anyhow. I'm tempted to do it when dh gets home from deployment, but I'm on summer break and email is our only form of communication so it stays.

I could also cut Blockbuster.com, which I looooove...it's only $9 a month and we get probably 10 movies a month, which has helped us get through the (hot, boring) summer.

I could cut out the newspaper since I go to coupon clipping sites when I need them, and I totally would, but it's in dh's name and they won't talk to me so it has to wait until he's home. Would save us $6.50 a month for something I don't even read :

We use prepaid cell phones and buy 2 $10 cards each a month. We only ever use them for emergencies, and our family and friends mostly text or email us. We could do without for an extra $20 a month.

We are selling the truck and getting me a bike and a trailer for dd so when we move I can bike to school or the grocery store. Can't do that here because we live next to a crazy farm road where people drive 80 : But the truck gone would give us an extra $350 plus tags, maintenance and gas costs. I'm REALLY looking forward to getting that $$ back in the snowball.

I don't buy any paper products anymore since we use cloth everything and we use bar soaps and shampoos which last longer. Oh, I could switch our cleaning products but I stock up once a year from Amazon or Frontier, when I can get in on a coop. And of course we could eat nothing but beans and rice for a while but I'm not willing to go there just yet. I've done well with switching to frozen veggies and only getting seasonal fruit. Making bread helps too, so long as I make several batches at once. Oh and homemade yogurt is the best!!

Good thread, really puts things in perspective

[Ruthiegirl]

Our big splurges are activities for the kids -- summer camp, camping, soccer, swim team, piano lessons -- we dress like paupers and eat a lot of rice and beans, but we do spend on the kids.

So, I could save a lot right there, maybe a few thousand a year.

[llamalluv]

We could (if we had to) - give up A/C $5-8/month, our weekly breakfast out $25/week, our monthly dinner out $30/wk, flavored beverages $3-4/wk (go to tap water or milk only), switch to beans and rice/rice and beans $50/wk, quit Weight Watchers $80/mo (who needs it when you're living on beans&rice/rice&beans?) and never see any movies except freebies from the library $5/mo.

We really don't waste a whole lot of money, since we are trying to get out of debt and are sending every extra penny possible to the credit card. Our idea of fun is finding a 2-for-1 coupon for our favorite breakfast cafe, getting the bill for $11 (instead of the usual $18) and then leaving a $15 tip.

[jentilla]

I "could" cut

netflix 15
home phone 54
direct TV 45
always groceries at least by 50

[scrapadoozer]

Directv (although DH would cry) $60
Internet (although I would cry) $45
Landline phone $30
Netflix $4.50 (I split the cost with my brother)
I could probably cut $100 out of our grocery budget if I stopped buying certain things.

Total: $239.50 a month

[Sharlla]

Hmm, $100 average electric
$40 water, sewer, trash
$50 cell phhones (we would have to reduce our cervice, cell phones are an absolute must)
$26 car insurance

So total must have bill would be $216

I could cut storage $26
$40 off the cell phone
$65 cable/internet
$80 karate lesson

saving us $211 Although I don't think $427 a month in bills is all that bad really.

[velochic]

We could cut a bunch of stuff if we had to. My mom lives with us; I could put her out on the street and that'd save us a lot. (just kidding ) Seriously: food (especially online gourmet), cell phones (we want to keep the land line so dh can easily talk with family overseas), zoo, museum, eating out (we don't eat fast food, so each meal out is quite a lot), satellite TV, high-speed internet, 1 of 3 cars (paid off, but all the other expenses, especially the one mom drives, which requires premium fuel), annual trips to visit dh's family and our annual vacation, taxable and retirement investments, and the big one: dd's school and the fuel costs taking her. I could trim a TON of fat from our budget if times got tough. I'm too embarrassed to give an amount.

[MorganRiley]

If it was only up to ME and I didnt have to consider my dh or children
I could...

- get rid of 2 cell phones (-$80)
- get rid of cable (-$50)
- spend way less on food that isnt "necessary"/treats (-$200)
- cancel movie pass at rental store (-$25)

[kijip]

We could do a whole heck of a lot:

-Cut out movie rentals and $3 theater and dollar CD buying (maybe $35-60 a month for that?)
-Reduce our food bill by not eating organics and local to the extent we do (I figure we could go down to about $300 a month, from $450-600 a month).
-Cut out cell phones and just get a regular landline (net savings of $80-90?)
-Cut out magazine and newspaper subscriptions (about $300 a year)
-Cut out internet and just use it at work (on lunch) and at school. $40 a month gone.
-Drive less than we do (we already have 1 car, no car note) We might be able to drop it down to one tank of gas a month (from 2-3 per month, usually closer to 2 than 3) That would save $70-140 a month.
-Cut out classes, activities and memberships for kid related things (Save about $400-600 a year).
-Cut out eating out ever (about $150 a month in a normal month)
-Stop making donations and buying gifts (this would be thousands of dollars a year, we give to a number of charities and enjoy making/buying presents).
-Opt not to build new furniture for the dining room. Tons saved.
-Switch to cheaper shampoo/not use it.
-Clean my mother's apartment (she has cancer) rather than paying someone to do it for us. ($80 saved). We do this because I can pay someone to be a cleaner but not pay someone to be a daughter- it gives me more time to spend with her before she dies.
-stop investing/retirement contributions
-Not take camping trips and other vacations
-Not go to plays or operas.

We already use cloth at home for everything, hang dry most laundry, have no tv service, garden, buy cheap or used clothes for our son, bargain shop etc. These are lifestyle choices, not strictly to save money. We are privileged of being in the position to pay our mortgage, save money, give money and spend money on things that matter to us or make our lives simpler.

[Ellien C]

Originally Posted by velochic

I could trim a TON of fat from our budget if times got tough. I'm too embarrassed to give an amount.

me, too.

I've often thought that if times got really tough we could finance into a 30 year mortgage instead of our 20. That was always my plan if I was suddenly unemployed or making significantly less. I'm not so sure that's viable these days. And we are about 4 years into our 20 with 5.75% interest, so that really might not be an option. We do have equity, even at current home values.

[BetsyS]

We were thinking about this recently.

If times were dire (like no job in the household dire), we'd qualify for WIC, which would bring some food in the house. I have a pretty good pantry, plus my parents also have a good pantry, and they would help us out with garden bounty, I'm sure (we have a garden, too). With a rice and beans mindset, we could probably get down to less than $40 a week on groceries. We have a dog, but he could eat generic food.

We could put our student loans in forebearance.

We have a $2000/year out of pocket per person on our health insurance. We currently get that taken out of dh's check, pre-tax. In a desperate time, we could rethink that, and have the money every week instead. I suppose if we were really broke that we could switch dh to a generic blood pressure medicine on Walmart's $4 list to drop the cost, plus if we were hospitalized (and we still had the insurance), the hospital would work with us to help pay off our part eventually.

We'd still have to pay the mortgage. Taxes and homeowners' are taken care of by our escrow account.

We could cancel our car insurance, not drive our car, and save gas money. That would also save us the yearly tag costs (not much, but if you are desperate). My dh drives a company car that he is allowed to use for limited personal miles. We'd just do all errands/what have you when he is home, and we'd stay home otherwise. Our family practice doc is within walking distance, as is a Kroger, so we'd be okay.

We'd cancel cable, cell phones, newspaper, trash pickup. We wouldn't buy anything. We'd ask for clothes for presents (our families give birthday and Christmas presents). We could cut each others' hair (we have clippers, cause we cut the little boy's hair; I am not brave enough to do dh, but desperate times....). Our dog could get his yearly rabies shot at the vet school clinic for like 5 bucks. We'd just have to keep our eye out for the date. We'd get movies from the library for entertainment. Of course, no eating out.

All that we'd HAVE to pay would be the mortgage, utilities (gas/electric/water), and food.

[Tradd]

Part of the reason I started this thread was because I'd been thinking about this lately, what with the news and all, PLUS the recent threads about the media showing examples of families cutting their budgets drastically - but they were cutting luxuries, not things like cable, canceling the newspaper/cellphone/magazines/internet, REALLY slashing the grocery budget.

I have to say though that nowadays that with the 'net being so necessary for job searches it would take a lot for me to totally cancel it. Yes, you can use the library, etc., but at least in my city, you can't take a CD or disk with you to attach your resume when applying with a job from library computer. If you've got a laptop you have more flexibility, as you can just go to a free Wi-Fi spot, such as your library, but at least in my city, you can't print on the library printers, if that's an issue.

[Tradd]

I was just looking at my landline phone bill - $12 of it is voice mail/unpublished phone number! It's interesting when you look at the details of your landline phone number and if there's anything you could cut there.

I'm considering dropping these two things! I do most things through email. Virtually the only people who leave messages on my landline voice mail are telemarketers! The people who need to leave me messages seem to do it on my Tracfone vm anyway. I don't worry so much about a published number as I used to.

Will think on it a few before calling phone company to cancel.

Anyone?

ETA: Decided to keep landline voice mail, but am nixing $2.50 unpublished number fee. I only pay $55 for both landline/DSL (I use onesuite.com for cheapo long distance).