HOW TO CUT EXPENSES FAST!
1. The very first thing I did was sit down and figure out what I actually needed for a month of bills just for necessities of life- commonly known as a budget.
• Rent/ Mortgage
• Electricity
• Water
• Propane/Gas (if used)
• Gas for Car
• Car insurance
• Food
Common Additions
Car payments
Credit card bills
Streaming services
Cable
Internet
Phone bill
2. In that list of bills what can I do to lower or get rid of some.
What to look at- easiest places to cut for the modern person. In the 1930’s a lot of this wasn’t an issue at all.
Streaming services and cable.
Do NOT hesitate to cancel it all. Noone is going to die if you have to watch dvds for a few months. Don't have any DVDs anymore? Well, the local Library does and that will also give a reason for a family outing. The library was a Godsend when raising kids on a very small income. Besides books and CDs to borrow for free they also had activities, story times and summer reading programs. When my kids were little we lived in Fort Lauderdale and the grand perk on the summer reading program was 2 tickets to a Miami Marlins game. Granted we were in the Nose Bleed section of the bleachers and we brought our own snacks but it was an outing that the girls were very proud that they earned by reading. There were also a number of special activities through the year.
**SAVINGS at least $125.00
Streaming services are anywhere from $7.99 a month to $14.99
Internet:
You can apply for the Affordable Connectivity Program
Find inexpensive services that may not be the best and fastest but are so much cheaper it is worth it!
Phone Services:
I use Verizon which is the most expensive but also the largest so coverage is pretty reliable and even though I know there are better deals out there...lazy to search. But just recently I was thinking how I don't travel for work anymore and we could save a lot of money with Straight Talk. Find a deal on the basics..if you are paying for lines on your kids control their data usage or block them from the data part and just have a phone in case of emergencies. They will get over it. AND… when things are looking up- or back to some side of normal, you CAN go back to all your favorite services.
Electricity:
Where would we be without it for any length of time? We take our usage for granted and leave it on all over the house, whether fans running or lights on, tv going, the list is endless.
• if you are not using it turn it off! If you aren’t in the room turn it all off as you leave, even if you think you will be right back, usually you aren’t because you get involved in something else or a conversation with someone.
•set your heat to 68 and your A/C to 78. That is what is recommended. With that being said we do a few things when it starts to heat up outside that works a good long while and usually until night time temps reach high 60’s, low 70’s and daytime reaches almost 90, it works!! We have our windows upon with box fans on all of them once the outside temps are lower than inside. Even if when I go to bed with just a sheet and an additional fan blowing somewhere in the middle if the night I am looking for blankets we have at the foot of our bed on standby. We watch the temps in the morning, usually I check the hourly weather and temperature expected on weather.com when I get up to give me a clue when I do my next step. At the point it has reached 69 or 70. I shut off the fans and pull the blinds and all the curtains- no we don’t shut all the windows and take out the fans, it is enough just to have curtains drawn. We have one large round fan I tilt to hit the ceiling for the day… moving air is part of why this works and we are good all day. We don’t have any curtains in the kitchen but it still works. We are right in the middle of a heat wave, some “heat dome” over us and thankfully have the A/C on - Mid to high 90’s everyday with heat index worse and our electricity went out. The first thing I did was close all the curtain in the house- windows were already closed- grabbed a battery operated fan we have for emergencies to move the air, looked at the indoor temperature (73) and headed back outside to finish gardening-which thankfully was some watering of vegetables that was still in shade waiting for the sun to hit them, outside temp 92 and climbing. A little over 2 hours before they got it going again and it was still cool in the house- 74.5! Our house is OLD - so insulation is sparse and scattered as it wasn’t put in during the mid 1800’s and it still kept the cool air in. It would have been a miserable night but I have 4 fans for 4 people that we would have survived.
Part 2
Will be about Food/ grocery shopping etc.
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