I am a close cousin to the Ostrich. The kind that bury their head in the sand when they are in danger (which is apparently a myth, but anyway...). The area of my life that consistently has me eating and breathing sand is in the area of budgeting. When things are moving along well in our financial world, I don't mind keeping my budget up to date. When unexpected things pop up and our budget starts to blow its borders I get more and more reluctant to even look at it. I'll find all kinds of excuses to not work on it. I know in my brain that not looking at it isn't going to make it any better, but that Ostrich in me likes to pretend it does. Usually it results in the problem getting worse. Isn't that true in all things?
Last week I finally gave in to the internal prodding (Holy Spirit's conviction!) to "unbury" myself both figuratively and literally. The desk area was looking more like the recycle bin every day. What I found at the bottom of that pile was not pretty. We use Mvelopes for our budgeting (based on Money Matters from Crown Financial Ministries, a cash/envelopes based system). I had to zero out every. single. category. We are a "carry no-credit" type family. Not that we don't use credit cards, but we don't carry credit from month to month. This means that what is in the checking account must cover what is on the MasterCard. This month that means that all our backlog of savings disappeared. Yikes. I'm glad I "unburied" my head now before we were paying the interest.
This prompted several changes in our household. The first of which was to take advantage of the bundled savings through Verizon for phone, Internet, TV. Should save us about $50-60 a month. The second was to start figuring ways to shave the grocery bill. A friend in Texas had started doing the Grocery Game. A friend in Texas had blogged about how she was saving significant money on groceries and household items by using the Grocery Game LIST to maximize coupons to stockpile things at rock bottom pricing. I've been doing it about 2 weeks and have saved about 30% so far (doubled my previous per trip savings) and it looks like I'll manage to save even more once I have collected more coupons. Lastly I'm looking to figure out how to save on our next biggest expenditure - gifts. Our biggest gift giving season is right around the corner - a ton of birthdays and, of course, Christmas. I'm praying for some good sales and some good ideas to come within the next few weeks!
So, how do you save on your expenses? Have you cut something you previous thought was a necessity? Have you started knitting? Do you sweat it out at 85 degrees in your house? I want to hear!
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I tried the Grocery Game for about 9 months but gave it up.
My problem is that I never really bought the items that the coupons were for...so as a result I had a lot of product in my cupboard that ended up giving, or worse, throwing, away. I think that if a person is very brand specific or buys a lot of processed items (frozen dinners and boxed items) it is great, but don't often buy those things. Not that we don't eat processed things! For instance choc chip granola bars, I almost always buy the Target brand generic at $1.50 as oppsed to a box @ 2.50 with a coupon for .10 off....but you have to buy two boxes!! Even with double coupon day it just didn't seem like a deal to me.
What I DID like about the Grocery game is that it told me what produce was on sale and that was helpful as I planned weekly menus.
And it did teach me how to stock pile things when it is on sale.
I have a friend in NC who used Grocery Game, saved a ton, and fed a large family for pennies with it!
I will say that it was great for cleaning supplies. I only recently ran out of dishwasher soap that I purchased during the Grocery Game Years. And it is a thrill to leave the store having spent only $80 when the original bill would have been $150. But in the end it was a lot of work and a lot of waste for me.
Good luck with the budget!
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