Budgeting

We try to do this as much as possible. We have a cell phone, but it is a pay by the minute one. We get a new $30 card, which is for 300 minutes, every 3 months. We'd get one for less but they don't have them, we just don't use the phone that much. We don't have cable or satellite. We haven't bought a convertor box for the t.v. yet either. We have a home phone and internet services bundled. We keep our thermostat between 65 and 67 degrees and we live in Michigan. We bundle up to keep warm, with electric blankets made available on the main floor of the house. We buy dvd's either on sale or from the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. We don't eat out but for once every couple of weeks or so, and then it is usually fast food, not a super expensive meal. We eat at home most times, and I make quite a bit from scratch as it is healthier and cheaper. We had a garden this past year and will be doing so again next year. For Christmas this year, we are using my husband's bonus and that is it. I am waiting until he gets it to go shopping, and he'll get it either the Friday before Christmas or the Wednesday before.

Ever since I was a school girl, I guess my parents and guardians inculcated in me the value of spending wisely. Modesty aside, I always returned any loose change I receive every time my elders send me to errands requiring money; in particular, buying things for them. I don't wait for any monetary fee because I know I shouldn't ask for anything in return. Until I started working after graduation, I brought this value together with me. In fact, I never experienced being out of cash because aside from budgeting my salary, I also had a savings account where I deposited any excess funds out of my pay. When emergency comes either for expenses in school or needs of relatives, I found it easier to extend a helping hand because I had something to spare. But things have really changed ever since I got married more than five years ago. Honestly, I don't have any savings at present, either on hand or in any local bank. What I only have for my disposal is the net take home pay I get every month which is approximately six thousand pesos or 120 dollars. From this, I still have to pay the monthly rent which amounts to 60 dollars, aside from my daily public transportation fare, expenses for food and utilities. I couldn't possibly cut back on any expenses because we don't have a computer at home, so there's no internet service. You might be wondering where I'm typing right now; this is the computer assigned to me here in the office. Also, we don't have a telephone and cable connection; so I could say that what we have are only the bare essentials. And if this still isn't enough, we have a substantial amount of monetary obligations with various individuals, loan agencies, credit card companies, and pawnshops. Hopefully, we'll be able to fully pay all of these by next year and save some for our daughter's future education.

Our money is so tight that several months ago we had to cut every thing we could. Our utility bill was just ridiculous this summer. We did not do anything different but they raised the rates. So we had to cut out every thing we could. We kept the internet and cut our Direct TV to just basic programming. I dropped my cell phone. It basically was for emergencies anyway. We managed to cut about $280 dollars from our costs. Food was even cut back. We buy mostly generic/store brand foods and only spend about $200 a month the feed two adults and three teenagers. It is nice that the price of gas is coming down now. It allows us to buy more food.

I have already gotten rid of everything that was needed, all my magazine subscription, 2 book clubs (kept one since I still have to buy 2 books), cell phones have been gone for awhile (wish we had this one back in the winter driving weather and to check on hubby at work.) We do have dishnetwork but without it we get no TV at all and I think the kids and hubby would then drive me nuts! LOL! Internet and home phone we have. My phone and Internet costs us a little over 40 a month. We have a mortgage, outside wood furnace payment, 2 credit cards, house insurance, vehicle insurance (both taken down as much as we can) We do have 2 vehicles but only use the truck when getting wood. We dont go out the only fun thing for me is I get 10 dollars on Sat. to do womens pool league, which I was going to quit but hubby said no way. He said it is the only break I get out that is fun. I do use coupons when it is for a good buy or something that we normally use. I wish we had stores around here that did the double coupons but we dont. I spend on the avererge weekely about 40.00 on weekly things like diapers, wipes, shampoos, cleaners, ect., For groceries it comes to about 700 a month. Milk and juice kills us the most with 5 kids. Right now I put anything extra on a credit card bill. When we get income tax it will be spent on mostly bills and paying off one of the credit card bills totally. Then that money will go on the last credit card bill. I HATE BILLS! LOL!

I was in so much debt at one point in my life I despaired of ever being any other way. I only ever wanted to be comfortable, to just be able to buy clothes and girly things when I wanted, clothes for the kids, to have a bit of money for a bit of fun, but I never thought it would happen I just could not get it right. Over the last few years I have learnt how to budget money I learnt that I could not have savings until debts were cleared so that is what I did all last year we had no spare money because I put it all in to clearing debts off. Towards the end of last year I did it and I then decided at the start of this year to set budgets for everything which I have gradually been able to do, I then try to beat my budgets by getting everything for less than the budget I have set so that the spare money then goes into the savings pots I have set up as bank accounts. It has been hard work made harder by this blasted credit crunch/recession but I am determined to beat that, I now need to organise myself into selling off the things in the house that are just lying around to bring a bit more money in.

Yes, I re-evaluate our bills every other month and get rid of things. I have my Netflix account on hold and cancelled my blockbuster account. We also cancelled our XM Radio. I just tried to lower our car insurance but we already have the minimum coverage. We are cancelling our home phone. We skimp on heat and electric as much as we can to save. We are pretty much at the bottom. We have no "fun" money or grocery money.(I get food stamps)We do still apy for cable and internet but we wouldn't have TV without cable and we need the internet to work. I could cut back on cable if I had too, but that's all that's left to cut.

we are finding it sort of difficult right now, we do have cable and the internet but no cell phones either. we try and do something 'fun' about once a month but since i am not making any money right now (i am was on sick leave and my ei ran out but i will be going back to work probably next week), so that will help but we are a bit behind in our bills right now.

I want to eliminate cable altogether but my husband doesn't want to. I suggested going basic cable but he might lose out on his sports channels. We are going to cut our landline since we both have cell phones too. We have already trimmed down our grocery bill and even though petrol has gone down, he is now using the car because they offered him his own free parking at work. I didn't agree with it because it means that he loses his monthly metro tickets of $100 (paid by the company) if he takes the car park. He thinks the cost wouldn't differ either way but I think otherwise. He is pushing me to work full-time (I currently work part time) to cover the expenses he doesn't want to eliminate, but I'm concerned for my 6 yr old son. It's going to cost to get a babysitter or put him in an afterschool program, and he thinks by me getting a full time job, that should cover the costs with some left over. I don't know.

I don't really watch much television, but the kids do. I can't really cut that out. I make a lot of money online, so that one is not going anywhere. Other than that there is not really much that I spend money on that I could cut down except buying things for the kids they don't really need.

I do not watch TV, because I usually get all the info, news and entertainment from the internet, so I have not had cable TV at home for 6 years already. Also in my country it is actually cheaper to use mobile phones rather than home phones. And when I do shopping, I really try to check and compare prices in order not to accidentally waste some extra 10 bucks when I can actually save them instead. And my whole family lives like this, which is quite smart I think and in the end of each month really helps us to stand strong against the inflation and the crisis.

Hi Katsmeow! I think this problem of budgeting is way more common these days. I hear about it all the time and of course I do it with my family too. We just recently moved into a new house November 1st of this year because we had such a bad mold issue at the old house. It was a dangerous situation. In the summertime a friend and I opened a daycare and that helped my family a lot with extra cash and I even was able to add a couple more bills a month to our budget. Now that my friend and I decided to close the daycare that money is gone so it is a big tighter and it's going to be even more tighter with my hubby who is going to be getting laid off of work in a couple weeks and christmas around the corner. I'm just preying for a miracle! Every October I get a raise from work but this year it hasn't kicked in yet and apparently my job is giving us a retro check from October 1st on. I'm still waiting for that. As of right now our utilities that we cannot live without are rent, hydro, gas, water. I am also stuck in a three year contract with a cellphone plan and also we had to finance new couches because our old couches had mold all over them from the old house. They were ruined badly. We also have our phone and internet. Since we've been here at the new house we've managed to live without cable or satalite and it's not so bad. The internet sure can give me those sources. Have a great day

Budgeting is a bane. Have you ever heard that ? Right now there must be thousands of people doing this. Here in Trinidad electricity bills went up about twice in the past year and when I budget now its not to buy cheaper its what to do without. I've found that even then its sometimes a struggle between needs. Like what medecine you can do without or whether to learn to like black coffee because you can do without milk. Its a hell of a thing, not having enough money. Last week only on one day, Thursday, was I able to eat a full place of food. All the other days it was bread and something or pies or a small can of uncooked vienna sausages. This is the life honey ! As we all are having it !

Is that $200 a week for groceries or $200 a month. If you are only spending $200 a month for a family of 7 I want your secret. I pay between $160 to $200 per week on groceries including soap, and shampoo and stuff. First of all our cars are paid off, so we have no car payments. We also have a high deductible on our insurance, and that saves us a lot of money. My husband has a cell phone but his work pays for it. I have cell phone but it is a prepay phone. I only have $20.00 every three months, so it is really cheap, and if I have an emergency I have it. I don't chit chat on it. It is only for emergencies, and quick little things like getting directions or letting my husband know where I am. I try to combine all my errands and do them on one day so I limit the amount of driving I do. We have our internet and our cable with the same company so we save a little bit there, even though it is still pretty pricey. If my husband were to lose his job cable would be the first to go. The internet pays for itself like you said with the money I earn on line. We almost never make long distance phone calls. I also call my phone company every three months or so to talk about how to reduce my bill. They always find someway to lower it, but it tends to creep back up after a few months so I have to keep calling them. We get our DVD's from the library. We don't turn on the heat or the air conditioning until things become completely unbearable.

One way I found to save a lot of money is by clipping coupons and then going on double or triple coupon day at the store. Usually I can find coupons for items that are already on sale. This saves me almost fifty dollars a month. I also make sure all the lights are off when we are not in a room and a huge help is shutting off your computer when you are not using it.

We have more unecessary stuff in our budget now than we did a year ago. Last year, we just wouldn't spend anything on entertainment, we spent less on groceries, etc. We've relaxed a bit this year because my husband makes more now. We should get back to being more vigilant until we finish paying of our debts. We could eliminate a lot of small expenses and cut back on our grocery budget as well as cut down our cell phone bills.

We do try to cut cost also, cause of everything is going up. We try to cut going out and buying things that is necessary. We just rather to stay home then going out often having dinner or luch outside. Even our load for our cell phone we don't load when it' is necessary to call or urgent that is the only time we load for our cell phones.God bless!

You are right there I used to have fun before bills got paid and now we pay all the bills first except we have cable and phone and internet but it's all combined some things we get free samples of to use from different sites like walmart.com and other things we try to fit in a budget but we always after we pay the bills say dang we could have saved here and there because you do't have as much as you would like to have left over in the end but we always try and make it. Thanks for the discussion.

that's financial planning...proper budgeting, eliminating something for a necessity or a preference. Well that's very good and it is worthy to be followed. I will also do that coz my mom does too. For me, I save a fixed amount of my money in an insurance and the rest I save in a bank and the others I spend for my personal needs. I am planning to help mom with the bills soon.