What Are Some Ways You Have Learned To Cut Back?

With consistent rise of prices of all essential articles including food items,it has become a tough time for many families to manage and maintain their livelihood. Since the intensity of livelihood problem is not same for many of us and the opportunities and challenges prevailing across the countries are different,we need to respond to such problems quite differently.Here in India,inflationary pressure is also unbearable for many low and middle class families,but there are a great deal of opportunities too. May God help you and others there to find ways and means to get over this rough situation and live in peace. Thanks.

I found that I can save about $30 a month on my electric bill by unplugging everything unless I'm using it. I also cut way back on food--I boil chicken bones and beef bones for soup, save all leftovers for a pot of soup (keep a container in the freezer for these) and eat frozen dinners that are only $1 per meal or less. I drive more efficiently now. I coast down hills and when I see a red or yellow light ahead I take my foot off the gas and coast. It's called hyper-miling. I get books at the library and cancelled my two magazine subscriptions, which I got for $10 a year. The library has moves, music and audio books, too. I don't go out to eat or to movies. I shop after 4PM when there are a lot of markdowns at the grocery and buy from the damaged goods cart at the back of the store. I haven't worked in two years. I have a small income that I have to get by on and these things help stretch it. There are no jobs here and things are getting worse, not better. I also use my cash back credit card to buy everything and pay it off each month in full. I use the cash "reward" as a savings account deposit and my rainy day fund has grown nicely because of that.

I have also started making bigger batches of food...not only do I have meals prepared ahead of time but it saves on energy use making it once and not making something over and over again. I also plan my trips..even around town as not to waste gas.

hi krause tina I am still here as we are still homneless but my son has part time wor k, some times two part time one week, next one parttiem but at least hes really trying but with this screwed up economy I will not be getting out of here into an apartment anytime soon. for myself my social security and ssi checks are stuck now for two years no raises, after the admins here takes out room and board monthly I get the huge amount of 125 for myself so I maylot and mysurvey. and I use lifetime landline ATandT phone with no long distance at all which costs about six dollar a month,and I keep from buying a cell phone although I think everyone my age really should have one. I do not have a television but it would help if I did. actually I could get a cheaper price on my cable internet if I had tv on it too but the tv will not come cheap. so I stick to being very careful and try to be most content with what I have. also being here is not an ugly nursing home it a way up above that and it beats being homeless and wandering from shelter to shelter if you can even get in to one.

Believe me I know it is hard out there and I agree with the gas having to get back and forth to work, I think that car needs a tune up bad because I have been spending 60- 100 in gas just to get to work and home, but it is a necessity. I have cut back on a lot of things, I learned to take my lunch to work. I have been watching for all the sales at the grocery stores,and I usually get most of my can goods well some at the 99 cent store around here. I do take left overs as well. I buy the store brand things at Wal Mart unless they have some sale going on.

Do nothing on credit. Whether you have a job or not, whether you have an income or not, whether you have savings or not; OWE NOTHING TO MAN. Jesus Christ asks, 'Why do you worry about what you have to eat and to drink and to wear? God knows you need these things, and will seek after them if you seek after Him ... that is, Seek ye first the kingdom of God! All those things will be added unto you!" I know it's hard to believe; but it's not 'seek the reasonable belief in the Kingdom of God'

As for me, since the price hike has been phenomenal, I am not able to make both ends meet. So in order not to get into debt. We have made some cuts. Both me and my wife, have not taken any new dresses during the recent festivals.Of course, we did not cut it for the children. We have cut back on going out and having a dinner in a expensive hotel.We have cut back on the movies, and prefer to watch them in the D.V.D.

GartenGerty says it right here. she has started a post titled "Use it up. wear it out, make it do or do without". . . . I like this and it holds a ton of meaning. Good luck, I know what you're going through believe me. Trust in God is a neccesity for sure. Hugs

Life struggle is a never ending dilemma. It is with all these challenges in our life that we become humble humans. I have lived an extravagant lifestyle in my younger days and spent lavishly as if there was no tomorrow. But God has His ways to mellow me down as I suffered dark moments for many years after that. I made foolish decisions which made my life a real misery. It was a bitter pill to swallow. I've learned my lessons and as far as possible I hope never to walk that path of road again in my life. I wish now to live a simple lifestyle and probably will try to make ends meet by commercializing on my passion in cooking and baking.

We dropped our cable and cell phones last year in order to get our bills to where they are manageable. We want to get our cell phones turned back on again, we really do need them. But our plan is when we get our taxes back we're going to pay a large sum towards our cell phone payments that will appear as a credit on our account. That way, we should only have to pay about $50 a month.. and if we have trouble one month we still have that credit on our account and won't need to pay anything.. of course we realize if we don't pay anything on our account then we will have to make larger payments in following months when the credit is gone.. which will be around December or January when money is the tightest because of Christmas. Also, I've gotten a part time job to help with finances. I plan on starting a savings account with some of my money, and putting part of it towards paying down debts.. and the rest can be extra spending money. Hubby and I also talked about how we've been irresponsible with our bills, and allowing ourselves to overdraw our bank account.. which costs a fortune in the long run. This is something we are going to try to not do anymore.

Tina my dear i hope all will be well for you soon. For the moment we have cut back in buying online movies with no orders for this year so far. The amazon offers are really tempting sometimes. As for the real life, well being busy with my exam session, and spending less time with my girlfriend meant less food we had to buy to eat togheter, so less expenditure for the moment in the last 2 weeks as well.

One thing I have learned to do is to spread our meat budget, what use to be a meal can now become three or four meals. If the same meat you would have eaten in one meal gets into soup, along with beans and other vegies, it can really strech it. Sews are also good, I can get bargin meat at the store and use in stew. I also make three or four meatless days with the use of beans, eggs, or tofu.

I agree with ya, the biggest way that I have been cutting back, simply saving the money as 'padding' to my checking account and more money I can put towards things like bills/credit cards - is by not eating out and like you said, making big meals that you can eat over and over again. I love leftovers. Just yesterday I made a big army-sized batch of vegetarian chili. Inexpensive and best yet - DELICIOUS! It will keep me set for about a week of dinners I would imagine. I also can't seem to cut back on gas. I constantly work in different cities, anywhere from 10 minutes away to about 45, so it always varies and I really have no control over it. Bummer too, because gas prices seem to be climbing. But what can you dO?

Limit the use of electricity so your electric bill will go down. Don't eat a lot outside, instead prepare your food always. Limit you intake of meat, buy veggies that are in season. Avoid shopping and going to the mall.

There are many things that I do to cut back in these tough times. Electric: Although I don't unplug everything that I don't use, I do make sure that anything that DOES use electricity even when it's turned off. I have bought a watt meter that tells me how much electricity everything is using. Anything that changes from 220-110 (has a transformer in it) will keep using energy... one of the things I noticed was my electric shaver plug... you can just touch it and feel it's hot... even when it's not plugged into the razor. Some cell phone chargers are the same way. I have replaced ALL my incandescent bulbs with CFL (compact florescent light) ones. This has probably been one the biggest changes I have seen in the reduction of my power bill. When I am gone for any length of time (24 hours or more), I turn off my Hot Water Heater. It is kinda stupid to keep water hot when no one is using it and one of the technologies that I feel we are going to see in the future is an instant-hot system where we don't have 30-50 gallons of water in a vessel with it always staying hot. How often do we really use hot water? I have changed the settings on my TV to give me the best looking picture with the lowest amount of energy... my TV now uses 1/3 the amount of electric than the settings out of the box. I make sure all my computers are configured properly so that they 'go to sleep' after a certain amount of time and then 'hibernate' after a longer period of time. With three computers in the house, it makes a big difference. My house faces East-West. I have planted shade trees on both sides of my house to ensure that the amount of sun that is hitting the sides of my house are reduced. I have found up to a 20° difference in temperature on the wall from the shade to the sun. With that said... I made sure when my house was built that I had a heat pump that was too big for my house. Every year I have it 'serviced' to make sure that it is operating at peak efficiency. I have added extra insulation into the roof of my house and when my house was built I had radiant barrier insulation (aluminum-type on one side and regular insulation on the other) installed. Purchases: One the the GREATEST resources I have found for buying items has been the internet and for various reasons. 1. I can find the lowest price by comparing different places. 2. I can read reviews to find exactly what I want... maybe this TV IS better but it's more than I need. 3. I use my iPhone application that allows me to scan a barcode when I am in a retail store to see what the price of the item I am looking at is down the street. 4. I use TWITTER! BIG. I can find coupons/sales/specials and more from friending various sites/people/companies that post all kinds of great information. 5. Buying online saves me 7% sales tax and a lot of times one can find free shipping... even if a product is the same price online vs. brick/mortar, a savings of 7% is quite large. Credit Cards: I always use a credit card that gives me something. 1. Airline Miles 2. $$$ 3. Points (to purchase things or do redeem for cash) Combine: I also try to combine savings. Example: there may be a web site that has a points system... buy from our site and get so many points... then I purchase with a credit card that gives me cash back. Finding places that have something on sale that I have a coupon for has many times gotten me stuff for free. Purchases: I try to purchase what I NEED and not necessarily always what I want. Instead of buying everything at one store, I have found which stores are consistently lower for different items and buy exclusively what is lower priced at those stores. Using coupons can cut my grocery bill up to 10% or more... and there are other parts of the country that double and triple coupons making savings even that much larger. The amount of money that I have coming in has gone down but the money I have in the bank has actually increased. That is so great to see... now if the economy would just turn around!!! Thanks and great question Zelo

Most of the ways I save have already been mentioned so I won't repeat them. However, in a few months I will be starting a new vegetable garden. Even if you have only a balcony, you can grow some things like tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, etc. I've really worked on a plan for this year's garden and will only be growing vegetables that I like and would normally buy. That way, I can grow more of them and have a lot extra to can, freeze or dry for later use. I also have a very cool room in our basement where I will be storing things like potatoes, pumpkins, onions, things like that so I'll have them throughout the winter months. The way I see it, anything I can grow, I will not have to buy. Even if I save a few dollars a week, that's a few dollars a week in my wallet instead of in the hands of the store owners. Right now, with snow on the ground, there isn't much I can do but I do have about 5 herbs growing on a windowsill. I use these to season whatever I'm making since I've all but cut salt out of my diet. Also, read labels! I'm an avid label-reader. I'm more interested in the price-per-pound or per-ounce these days. I buy larger amounts of potatoes, rice, things like that because they are cheaper per pound than buying the smaller sizes.

Hi, Tina....Three years ago I had a good job and was able to buy almost anything I needed and have a little left over. Then I had to have two hip surgeries withing 2 months in order to even be able to walk again. Circumstances developed where I was to the point of almost homelessness so I had to take early retirement and I had to go through my retirement savings in order to eat and have a roof over my head. So now that's about all I have and I've had to stop the phone service, cable, newspaper delivery and some of the magazine subscriptions. Food and shelter and no extras any longer. My groceries are the minimum I can get by with and I no longer eat at restaurants. I make most of my meals from scratch so don't pay the extra for the convenience foods. I do have a cat and buy food and treats for her but she's not really that expensive. I'll do without myself if I must to keep her in her necessities.

I started having financial trouble in 2007 when I lost my job. I made a good sum of money with my work but I loved to spend it.... I did manage to have a savings (not nearly as much as I should have) but that savings did not last long with a big home rental payment and a truck payment to make. I had to downsize very fast. As soon as my rental agreement was up I relocated to a smaller, cheaper rental (which was actually good because it was more energy efficient). That cut my rent and it also cut my electrical bill as well. I started cutting off lights that were not being used and unplugging things such as cell phone cords that had been left plugged in. We planted a garden and started raising chickens for the eggs. I clip coupons but if something is cheaper with the store brand version I will buy it instead of the name brand. After my cell phone contract ended I ditched it and got a prepaid Straight Talk. I get unlimited everything for $45 a month and they actually have better service than Verizon does. With my pay as you go cell phone if I cannot afford to pay the bill one month because of an emergency that needs the cash from that bill I just let it go and pick it back up when I can afford it. I bundled my satellite, house phone and internet service for a nice savings. I saved over $90 a month and still got to keep everything. I did cut out all of the extra movie channels and such on the satellite. I had also subscribed to Netflix so that we had some sort of entertainment to replace going to the movies. I did end up having to let my beautiful truck go back and I got an older Isuzu Hombre to drive around. It was much better on gas mileage and not as expensive to fix if something broke on it. (The tires on the F-150 were well over $100 a piece new and I did not ever have any luck at finding used tires for it.)I only had to have liability not full coverage and this saved me quite a bit of money as well. No more going out to eat or ordering pizza to be delivered. I started using alot of those recipe books that I have and I started subscribing to blogs that were all about making meals from scratch. Hill Billy Housewife is a wonderful site! I now make my own pizza's and alot of the times I will make more than one meal's worth so that I can freeze more for later. I buy several things from Sam's club in bulk because it is much cheaper. Sugar is much cheaper in a 25lb bag from Sam's than from a 5 or 10 lb bag at the grocery store! Flour, spices, yeast and most baking supplies are bought in bulk at Sam's as well. I use internet sites such as Mypoints and RewardPort to earn giftcards. When I cashout I will get CVS or Walmart giftcards. I am learning to use the CVS cards to my advantage and hit some of those sales with cash back coupons to be used the next time around. Again I follow blogs and coupon clipping forums to learn how to do this. Trust me it is a work in progress and I am not able to walk in the store with a $10 card and get $40 worth of stuff free... YET. When things got really low and I lost my unemployment wages we had to move to a different home. The owner of the home was remarried and the home that we rented had been sitting empty for a while. My family and I got to rent it for work that we put into it. We had to clean the yard ( which was very over grown), paint, repair the porches (front & back), fix plumbing problems and all sorts of stuff but it gave us free rent for several months. After my Fiance went back to work we started paying rent which was way cheaper than where we had been living. During the move we also had to let the bundled package of internet, satellite and phone go. We relied on Netflix for entertainment and my future MIL always had new movies on hand as well. Fortunately it was during the summer and we survived on lots of tomato sandwiches from the garden and jello for dessert! Of course we had the eggs from the chickens as well... you can eat deviled eggs, boiled eggs, fried eggs, egg salad...all sorts of egg dishes! Those chickens really came in handy for us. We are doing better now financially but I am still sticking to my frugal ways because one never knows what might happen. With gas prices shooting up we drive as little as possible and we never go out anymore. I did cancel Netflix when their prices went up but if there is something we want to watch my Fiance hits RedBox on the way home from work and returns it the next morning going to work. We are driving a paid for 4 cylinder Isuzu Trooper now and it saves a bundle on gas prices. I make his lunch and his coffee for him every day. No vending machines or fast food restaurants for him. He is a big soft drink person so I buy what is on sale at the grocery store and he carries them to work with him. In a vending machine he can spend 70 cents on a canned drink and $1.25 on a 20 oz bottle drink. I always buy the canned drinks and we take the cans off to the metal place when we get enough saved up. His family is also big canned drink fans and we get them to save their cans for us as well. That brings us in some hefty change to go into the change jar every other month or so. If things start to take a down turn for us financially again we will drop the luxaries that we have now. The cell phone and satellite will be the first to go. We have had the bundled service long enough that we are not longer obligated to the contract. The internet & phone will stay on as long as we can hold on to it. I earn money online as well as giftcards and that comes in handy for us. I usually earn enough a month to pay for at least the phone/net myself along with the giftcards that I earn. I take in babysitting gigs when I can get them too. I don't have a steady client who comes in daily but I do have a few people who I babysit for just a few hours at a time occasionally. I know that I am no where near as frugal as most folks but this is what our family does to cut costs/expenses.

I am not a frugal person! I just don't want to be! I have tried and I hate it! I'm not a spendthrift but I just hate being resticted! I eat two meals at work a day when I work. That has been helpful over the past 9 years! Sometimes I take leftover food from work to eat on weekends. So I don't spend alot of money as some people on food do. I found out milk is cheaper in bags then jugs. When I shop I always go to Walmart. I like it and it near by. I had my days cut back at the stble I work at. Thanks to that I am making less money from that job. That caused me to cut back on monthly payments on two monthly bills! One doesn't care I had to do it! The other one is pissed off and wants my old monthly payment a month! I told them the story but they just want their money! GR! So that is my story!

Well with the economy these days we really don't have a choice but to cut back. The ways I have learned to cut back are not go out so much by using the car make all trips at once. Eat out less instead of going out to eat. I quit smoking and save money that way as well. Not use as much electricity when its not need shut it down and if I can do with out it I wont use it. Keep heat at certain temp if have to just use extra blankets. Buy only necessary items not so much luxuries (do with out)