With or without?

Well to start with we cut out the cell phones, and just kept the land line..we stopped the garbage pick up, and haul everything to the dump. We have not been running the air conditioning and have cut our electric use in half with other things. No more going out any where. My husband is in construction so jobs have been here and their. Their has not been a whole lot going on with work. we had to drop our health insurance, an are down to sharing one vehicle because the other one does not have insurance. Dropped down to just basic cable so i can keep the internet. I have also been selling off different things around the house that we really do not need. that has been keeping us going so far. We planted a big garden, get our eggs from the chickens, and i have been getting milk from a neighbors cow, and started making my own butter, cheese, ect from it. So i have cut our grocery bill down to all most nothing. we have been eating very little meat or junk food. Lots of vegetables.

Well, I have cut back now to the point that I'm feeling a bit scared. I'm considered poverty level to begin with and so am very used to it. It just in the past couple of months hit us really hard. Really the only thing I could cut out would be my internet and tv. The tv, phone and internet are a package deal & the tv is basic..20.00 per month. I work at night and have a 15 yr old....need the phone. I smoke and have cut way back on that...need to quit. This is the first time in a long long time that I really didn't think I'd be able to make rent. It's pretty close and I have to get really creative with the groceries this week. Things are really tough out there. I am worried about affording my daughter's basketball when it comes up. It is her passion and it is good for her. I can't imagine making her give that up. I think I would give up the internet before I let that happen. I just hope it doesn't come to that.

We've cut out cable and cut back on our food budget. We're taking a smaller vacation this year. And we're cutting back on smaller things too.

Hello opiniontedlady, well as the money needs to be kept in reserve for really crucial things i've cut back by not replacing things that wear out, so currently we live without dvd player, cd player, air con in the car - which strictly speaking is a necessity but not as necessary as say an engine repair- just things like that. My two luxury things are gone, new books and perfume. I'm always careful with money anyway so I'm just hoping we can get through as my work is much reduced this year.

The way I am cutting down is by canceling my Sunday Paper. I can get the new from the internet. I will be discontinuing my Netflix account at the end of this month. I'm looking into changing my DirectTV to something cheaper. I also disconnect all appliances when not in use. I brought the new upright washer and dryer which is suppose to save on water and energy. I wash clothes only twice a week using mostly cold water. I have all those new lightbulbs throughout the house. Could you tell me what TV package you had and which one you have now. I would be interested in knowing what channel you are missing now. I find DirectTV is way to expensive. Thanks!

i guess i need to cut my shopping... as i shop a lot and spend too much money from it.. maybe bcoz im still single and nothing to do with it.. istead of putting it in savings... hmmm, i guess i should be addicted to savings than to shopping lol.. ill think about it..

We got rid of even basic cable. I do not watch much television and the converter box does the job just fine. We cut back on eating out. Not too much that we have that we can cut back on. We do try to be sensible in utility usage. We are actually making almost twice the money we were making a year ago, but we are living more cheaply and trying to pay off some old debts.

yes it is hard. Generally we have to cut back on grocery shopping, before we use to buy chips and stuff for the kids. now we do have to cut back on that plus we also had to cut back on their tv and ps playing time. WE also consider commuting to the grocery store instead of taking the car. Yes, we also unplug all electric appliance and we use the electric fan more than the airconditioner nowadays

Yes, the arrvieal of the financial crisis that we had to give up part of the previous life,such as reducing the number of barbershops, reduce shooping, out to reduce some unnecessary expenses,But I believe everything will get better.

Over the last year I have made way less money than I have in years. It has been very difficult making ends meet. Since both my husband and I work, we have an agreement to each pay half of our household costs. Well, in the last year, I have not been able to pay even half plus I have credit card bills I have not be able to pay. We no longer go out to eat like we used to. We don't go to the movies much, if at all. We do not take any vacations. We use coupons when we shop. We don't watch TV or have cable. We are soon going to look at our internet provider and see if we can lower our costs there. Also we are looking at our cell phones and thinking of how we can cut costs there. I have not bought any new clothes lately, no new shoes. We eat modestly. We only wash clothes a couple times a week and we have an economical washer. We want to get a new economical fridge but we just don't have the money right now. I work at home, so that saves on gas. When I can, I bicycle to my errands rather than taking the car out. Last but not least, my poor kitties have had to take a lesser grade food, food from the market rather than the pet store. I try, just after payday to get them some decent food from the pet store but this only lasts a few days to a week. The second week of the pay period, they have to eat food of a lesser quality. Of all the sacrifices we have had to make, this is the hardest one for me. No more bottled water either. Sad times.

Lets see.....i have cut back, well actually cut out all the magazines i used to subscribe to. I actually still get tons of them anyways, but the ones i get now are all free subscriptions i find while scouring the internet. I was also a emember of a couple of mail order book clubs, and i cancelled those memberships as well in favor of exchanging books back and forht with friends, and scouring the wonderful flea market we have in town that has a huge room filled with thousands of used books where paper backs are only a buck a piece. We also don't eat out a lot, and i try to plan my meals based on what is a good deal and on sale at the grocery store at the time, and take some time to plan in meals made form leftovers and such.

We have quit using credit cards. If we can't afford something at the moment we just go without it. We have all compact florescent light bulbs in our house. We turn up the thermostat during the day and put it lower at night. Being a stay at home mother, I've cut out a lot of the running that I used to do during the day and basically stay at home while my hubby is at work. Also, my hubby used to make two round trips to work a day in his truck. He now makes one, when he comes home for lunch he takes his bike back to work (it is modified with a gasoline engine that gets 100+ miles per gallon, pedal assist).