Over the past few years, David & I have encountered more than our far share of financial issues.
There was that time we had to pull Maddie from part day preschool because our BAH got messed up & the Army was taking back $350 a month from us.
There was the time that David wrecked his bike (that we took out a loan for) and then bought another bike (because we can’t do just one vehicle).
We’ve had blown tires, car trouble, dog issues, etc etc. Between life & kids & things that come up, we’ve learned how to save quite a bit of money monthly.
Some months we put that extra bit into savings, other months we splurge & buy things we want/need.
But today I decided I’d share with you the simple ways we save money every month and hopefully they can help a few of you guys out as well.
-We don’t have cable.
A cable/internet combo bill around here runs $150-$200 depending on what extra channels you have.
We have Netflix ($8 monthly), Hulu, ($8 monthly)
We have Amazon Prime ($90 a year). – 2 day shipping + some free TV shows & lots of other good perks that you can read about here.
And we have Hulu Plus. ($8 monthly). Sign up here & we both get two weeks free (if I’m not mistaken) I know you get at least a week free trial, so what’s the harm?!
-Netflix updates by the Season. Wanna watch Sons of Anarchy from the beginning? Gilmore Girls? FRIENDS?! (Coming in January)?! Netflix is the way to go! You can even set up profiles for everyone! I have one, David has one & the kids have one that takes them straight to Netflix Kids meaning no chance of them watching some adults TV show.
-Hulu adds shows daily. Shows that come on cable on Tuesday night are on Hulu Wednesday night. We’re not missing out on any of our shows and Hulu also has TONS of movies & series on there.
So where as some people pay $150-$200 a month, we pay $54 for internet and then $16 a month for Hulu + Netflix.
I don’t know about you, but $70 is a much better number than $150-$200 (and some people pay for Netflix/Hulu ON TOP of that cable/internet bill).
-Phone bills.
David doesn’t have a smart phone. He just has a basic flip phone. Yup, you read that right. He has a flip phone. It cost us $15 from Walmart and he’s on no contract with AT&T.
I have an Iphone.
Our phone bill is $90 a month.
We have unlimited texts, tons of rollover minutes because we never really talk on the phone, the lowest minute plan they offer (which I think is like 700 minutes) and I dropped my unlimited data (I was grandfathered into it once AT&T took that option off the table) to the lowest data plan they offer because it was cheaper than keeping my unlimited plan.
Two smart phones with shared date, minutes & texts before we made the switch was costing us almost $200 a month. It was like $190 something.So we’re saving about $100 a month just by changing up our phone plans.
-Shopping.
We are HUGE thrift store fans!
Our home decor comes from thrift stores, our clothes too, random things – thrift stores are the way to go and MUCH cheaper!
I needed shelves for our living room, Target had some for $24 for two mini ones.
I managed to snag up two mini ones from the local thrift store for $6. Plus a can of paint to paint them the color I wanted ($4). $10 beats $24! And I had leftover paint to use on other things.
Kids clothes — they outgrow them SO quickly that we usually check Goodwill and local thrift shops for them even over stores like Once Upon a Child (because they’re sometimes pricey unless you catch a good sale).
For things like socks and underwear, we do buy new.
Shoes & jackets & coats are both. Sometimes we’ll go ahead and buy new if we find good ones that will last for a while and sometimes we’ll grab up some cheap ones still in great shape from thrift stores.
Our clothes — same. Sales racks, thrift stores!
I did go shopping for myself around my birthday because my family sent me some gift cards & I had some blog income that I used to get myself new clothes because after my tummy tuck I had ZERO pants that fit me & the weather here is changing and pants were necessary. I did snag a few things from Goodwill for myself though too and hit up sales racks. I don’t think I paid full price for anything I bought & I know I won’t outgrow them like the kids will.
Also sites like Twice (I blogged about them here) — Sign up and you get a $10 credit and then if you download their app & sign in using the account you just made, you get another $10 so that’s $20 free right there to buy clothes (and purses and shoes -coming soon) with.
And then there’s thredUP that is bascially one big consignment shop for Women & Kids (shoes, purses, clothes, etc etc).
(You can also SELL to both of those sites!)
Groupon is another great site. It’s how I usually buy my Starbucks (because we all know that I’m a junkie). You can snag deals like $10 Starbucks card for $5! – That’s a BOGO, people!
Bing.com is another! David uses it to search and he earns points just by searching! Those points he later redeems for things like Amazon gift cards that he then turns around and uses to buy the GoPro headset he wants, etc etc. (he saved up and ended up gettings his $13 headset for $1.86!)
-Groceries and other household essentials.
When it comes to grocery shopping, that’s probably the one things we’re not cheap/skimpy on.
We go through a lot of food & snacks & toilet paper & pet food, etc etc.
I shop at the commissary for most of our food.
Meal planning does help – keeps me from over shopping.
I don’t really coupon often (I don’t have a printer) but that does help if you can manage to not buy everything just because you have a coupon for it (I’m guilty of that).
We don’t really buy generic brands, we just shop.
Like I said, meal planning does help. It gives me an idea of what I’ll need for the next 2 weeks to make meals with.
And we shop at SAM’s club (Membership is $40 a year). I buy some of our snacks from here (gummies for the kids, mini chip bags for packed lunches, random things like that), I buy our cleaning wipes from here (generic), dish soap tabs & laundry detergent as well as ground turkey & chicken.
David & I spend a day writing down prices at the commissary & then another writing down SAM’s club prices so we could compare them. A lot of things ended up being cheaper for us at the commissary but I know not everyone has access to a commissary like we do, so my best advice is to do like we did and just compare prices.
-As far as our monthly bills go:
Two car payments.
Phone bill.
Kids’ lunches.
Gas. (David has a motorcycle, so that helps a bit too)
Hulu.
Netflix.
Car/Rent insurance.
Bike insurance.
Life insurance (David has a policy not through the army).
Internet.
I’ve set up our bills so that just about the same amount comes from the first of the month paycheck as it does from the mid month paycheck so that we have the same amount of spending money leftover each pay period.
-We have three checking accounts set up.
One : David’s account. I transfer over an “allowance” every payday for him and that’s what he uses for gas in his bike, food, drinks, etc etc so that I don’t get any surprises from the bank account because he forgot to tell me about having to grab lunch here or there or what not.
Two: The bill account. I’ve set up our bills to come from this account so that I can transfer money over to it and not have to worry about forgetting that a certain bill still has to clear in another 4/5 days because it’s already deducted and in the other account.
Three: The regular account. It’s the main account that all the money goes into before I split it out to where it needs to be.
The leftover money is what we live on until whenever, what I use for groceries, gas, kid stuff, etc etc.
-Mortgage/rent/utilities.
David’s in the Army (In case you didn’t know that) & he gets a BAH (Basic housing allowance) as part of his paycheck and with that, some people choose to live off post and rent somewhere or buy & pay utilities, we (like a lot of others) opted to live on post where every dime of your BAH goes to housing to cover your rent & utilities.
We’ve lived off post and rented & paid utilities in the past, we just found it to be easier to live on post this go around.
When we move to somewhere we hope to be for a while, we plan on buying a house and living off post.
I hope these tips help you the way they’ve helped us!
Good luck and happy saving!
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