You know how when you are about the run out of shampoo, you become super conservative with how much you use. Then you add some water to the bottle to make it go a little further. Why don’t we do that when the bottle is full? So annoying. Same thing for the old paycheck. Our new mortgage plus daycare, plus all the fixes we’ve had to do has motivated us to start trimming down on spending, so I’ve been researching money-saving tips and energy-saving hacks. We’re focusing on not spending money on things we don’t really need, lowering our monthly bills, and trying to get better deals on the things we do need to buy. I would LOVE to hear (read?) your tips for all these things.
Not Spending Money
I know it’s not rocket science that if you don’t spend money, you’ll have more of it, but that doesn’t make it easy to do. The two biggest nonessential expenses we have are miscellaneous purchases on Amazon (prime is really screwing us with its efficiency) and ordering take-out or eating out. Let’s be honest, we have a one year old, so we’re not eating out a lot—just going nuts on Caviar (food delivery app). So, what did we do? Easy, just stopped buying things on Amazon. Cold turkey. That actually worked. Caviar was harder because we do need to eat, even when we’re tired. We started out by trying to adjust with a few weeks of Blue Apron, which was pretty awesome, but still more money than we wanted to be spending. Blue Apron helped motivate us to want to cook every night again, so we started meal planning. We even write our menu on a little chalkboard on our wall. It really helps! When we do order take out, we pick it up so we’re not paying the extra fees and we’re only ordering from places that are lower cost.
Lowering Our Monthly Bills
This was trickier than I thought. There were the easy fixes like cancelling subscriptions (Hulu, and sadly my gym membership - I wasn’t going, so it didn’t make sense to keep it up). Then there are the other bills: gas, electric, water, phone, internet, car insurance and trash/recycling/compost pick up. We started with our phone bill, this was stupidly high. We had unlimited data and switched to 4 GB/month, saving about $80 a month. That seems like a quick $80 but then we actually had to use 4 GB or less in a month. Today is the last day of the month in the cycle and we have .02 GB left—we made it! We used the old shampoo tactic here, when our data started to get low we started putting our phones on airplane mode. Next month, we’ll have to pay more attention earlier on. We have Comcast for our internet and our bill ranges from $50/month to $80. When it goes up I get on the phone or chat with them to get the bill back down. I’ve learned that this is just the relationship we have to have with them and no one seems to do anything about it. The other internet option here doesn’t get good reviews, so it doesn’t feel worth it to change. I’m not afraid of conflict and there’s something about arguing with a chat robot and getting my bill down that gives me a unique sense of achievement. Our water bills had been really high because the irrigation was damaged underground and the water was running. Our last bill was a three-month period (I had to switch the bills to one-month periods). So we’ll know next month what the real monthly water bill is. Our gas and electric bills are the ones I think we can really get down.
Our house has been really hard to heat, it’s a lot bigger than we’re used to! I’ve had the thermostat set way higher than it actually feels. I can’t get the temp. in our daughter’s room above 65F at night. Our bedroom is freezing, I basically have to read my book under the covers so my hands don’t freeze. So we had a guy come out and give us an estimate on insulation and window improvements. He recommended we get an HVAC relay installed to which only costs $10,000 (and save us $14 a month on our gas bill!). He also gave us a price to insulate our attic (which we think we can do ourselves). He did say that our bedroom is the best insulated room in the house. Weirdly, after all that, our house seems to be warmer and more evenly warm that it was before and we didn’t do anything. Maybe it was all in my head? It has been sunnier and warmer the last couple weeks which probably helps. We are also installing a new ceiling fan in our bedroom. If someone out there could rate ceiling fans that would be great. I couldn’t find anything about which ceiling fan to choose. I guess most people just choose one that looks nice? We ordered a Haiku Fan by Big Ass Fans, it can be controlled by our phones, a remote or the light switch. We also have a bunch of Hue lights which are great, and I definitely recommend them!
Should I have bought this lovely piece for $4 at the Rebuilding Center.
Getting Deals
I’ve mentioned that we have this awesome Rebuilding Center here in Portland, it’s a great place to get affordable used and reclaimed stuff. Also, some cool art for your office. I have also gotten some great stuff from my neighborhood Buy Nothing group on Facebook. Recently, I asked for 2x4s for my garden beds. If I don’t get them on there, I’ll buy some (maybe from the Rebuilding Center). I’m also spending more time planning and price-checking than I used to. Out of impatience or laziness (not wanting to go to more than one store). So I’m trying to be more patient about my purchases so I can be more economical about small things.
What do you do save money or not spend as much money? Any tricks?