Budget Problems...

Discussion in 'Other Conversation' started by Meg2006, Jul 1, 2012.

  1. Meg2006

    Meg2006 New Member

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    My husband and I were talking last night and we both really want to have Baby #4, but we agree that our finances are in big trouble and need some serious revamping, along with our spending habits (this is the issue). We go through this "Feast or Famine" thing at our house. The last week before payday, we are scrounging around saying, "Nothing but grilled cheese for you kids!" and we often eat nothing for breakfast or lunch (as parents), and try to have a decent dinner with the kids. Then, when payday comes around we are so sick of having a famine that we go out to eat once, and go to the store (Aldi) and spend all of our budget. After almost a week we realize we didn't really get ANYTHING except empty needless things (gummies, cake mix, generic pop, marshmallows, and so on). It's a constant cycle we have to break. Have any of you been through this, and broke the habit?

    We ARE improving: I wrote down every dish I was going to make for 2+ weeks, and wrote the ingrediants on the list. So we Have ingrediants to make dinner and lunch things for a couple weeks. DH and I are still relying on my Dad's left over competition BBQ for our lunch for a while (he always have alot of left over pulled pork that we have and it gives us lunch for a week). This coupled with shopping ONLY at Aldi has given us a step up this past week, but we're still feeling the Feast or Famine cycle. Any tips? Ideas?
     
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  3. tiffharmon2001

    tiffharmon2001 New Member

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    We have so been there! The question at our house used to be "where's for dinner" instead of "what's for dinner". It was so nice to go out and not have to cook or do the dishes, but it was so expensive. We had to make a change so we could afford for me to stay home. Here's some of what we did.

    Each payday, write down EVERYTHING you're going to spend the money on. Account for every dollar. That way, you have a goal. Don't reserve any "just in case" money because if it's there, you'll spend it (at least that's how we are). I do, however, budget some money for savings (usually only about $20 or so a week) which adds up and can be used if something comes up. Stick to your budget, no matter how bad you want to break it. Budget some money for eating out/entertainment and when it's gone, it's gone. Also, budget some money for you and DH to spend on yourselves. When we first started our budget, we each got about $5 a week. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get a little treat for ourselves.

    Next, make a menu before you go to the store and build your shopping list from it. When I make my shopping list, I write down all the things I HAVE to have for meals and household supplies first. Below that, I write down the things that we'd like to have if the budget allows-ice cream, soda, cookies, etc. Once I've done that, I go back through the list and write an estimated cost next to each thing. I add everything up and when I get to my budgeted amount, I draw a line. Everything below the line is extra. When I go to the store, I pay close attention to the price of each thing. If it's more than I estimated, I write down +$_(however many dollars more it was). If it's less than I estimated I write down -$_. I always round the prices up to account for tax. Also, if I have coupons, I go by the original price and count on my coupons to cover my tax. When I get to the end of my budgeted list, I add up the +and- to see how much I have left. That tells me how much of the stuff below the line I can get. Whatever I have left after checkout, goes back into the grocery envelope to be used for anything I might need to pick up through the week unexpectedly.

    I'm really strict about the list. If it's not on the list I don't buy it. If it's not within the budgeted amount, I don't buy it.

    It takes quite a bit longer to shop this way, but it has helped us so much! Now, I have no excuse for not cooking because everything I need is in the pantry and I already have a menu so I know what's for dinner each day. I do put on my menu one day a week that's "eat out" night, so it's already planned and not a temptation on other nights.

    We don't always stick to the plan perfectly, but most of the time we do really well.
     
  4. leissa

    leissa New Member

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    I do the exact same thing as tiffharmon. My list has the estimated cost next to each item, and I keep a running tally of everything in my cart. I once shared my method with a friend who was having a similar problem, and she turned her nose up and told me that she just was not that "obsessed and anal". I laughed at her and told her she would change her mind when she realized how much more actual food she came home with being that obsessive! It just takes will power and practice. Never take a debit/credit card, or check book, only cash. It makes it harder to spend, you're more careful about your choices. And when you end up having to put something back, it's humbling and makes you a more thoughtful spender.
     
  5. Lindina

    Lindina Active Member

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    Another help might be to shop the outer wall of the store first. That's where the real food is.

    And use the food ads when planning your menus and shopping list. Know when "your" store has sales/clearance, if they ever do BOGO, how they handle coupons, how they handle "rain checks" (if a sale item is sold out before you get there). Make the produce manager your new best friend, see when they throw out stuff that is actually salvageable, and see if they're actually throwing it out or giving it away for nothing or nearly nothing. Learn how to make something out of it -- like black bananas - if they're not actually liquid and pouring out of the skins, they're usable (make banana pudding or banana bread for snacks instead of buying cookies). Shop the "manager's specials" in the meat department.
     
  6. tiffharmon2001

    tiffharmon2001 New Member

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    *like*:)
     
  7. Meg2006

    Meg2006 New Member

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    Thank you so much for the great ideas!!! TiffHarmon, you gave DH and I a great idea we will use next time we are out: Instead of scratching off items on our grocery list we will write the prices down next to the items to indicate we got them. This way we will be able to make a good budget and cut the other stuff out. We are also going to utilize www.sparksavings.com. We have used it in the past, but definately not religiously.

    Leissa, I don't mind being "obcessive and anal'' about the things that count! lol. If it helps feed my family, I'll be as obcessive as I need to be! lol
     
  8. Brooke

    Brooke New Member

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    You will succeed since you and Dh are both on board with it. We have been there to some degree; however, I was so tight with money because Dh was not that I was in a constant state of feeling poor and lowly. It really helped when we started to make it a point to "budget for a splurge" :lol: . Sometimes it was ice cream. Sometimes it was McDonald's for the dollar menu. It didn't cost much and it kept us from spending more on junk when Dh felt deprived. :roll:

    So happy for you! God honors our desire to be good stewards. He'll make it happen.
     
  9. Meg2006

    Meg2006 New Member

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    We made our own laundry detergent yesterday and DH made me a clothes line in the garage! That way, after I dry my clothes, I can open the garage door and let them dry. Our dryer is not going great. It takes three turns to dry 1/2 a load of clothes. :/
     
  10. Birbitt

    Birbitt New Member

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    You've had some great ideas there. I have a few money saving tips for your cleaning products. Clean everything with plain old white vinegar, which also works as a fabric softener. You can buy gallons of it for very cheap, then you can pour it into a spray bottle (even diluted with water) and use it as a window cleaner, and all purpose surface cleaner. Put some in your mop water and use it to clean floors, if you need to clean toilets then use vinegar and baking soda, let if foam and then swish with the brush. If the smell bothers you (it does me) add a few drops of a cheap health food store essential oil (you can pick up bottles for a few dollars). The smell goes away quickly otherwise.

    The money you save on cleaning products you can put toward groceries.
     
  11. Actressdancer

    Actressdancer New Member

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    This doesn't work for some people, since some people spend cash like water, but what worked for me....

    I figure, to the penny, how much money I NEED to leave in the bank to cover bills that either come out automatically or have to be paid by check/debit card. Then I transfer whatever I'm going to savings.

    Then I withdrawal ever single other cent. When I do that, I can clearly see how much money I have to spend for the two weeks. I can see how quickly I'm going through that money, too. I used to budget it into envelopes for specific things (groceries, music lessons, fuel, etc.) but I've gotten out of the habit.
     
  12. Meg2006

    Meg2006 New Member

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    Birbitt- Thanks for the idea! I can't STAND the smell of vinegar, but I'll try it and put some good smellin stuff in it! Right now we buy generic Pine-Sol and I love that the house smells...clean...but it smells a little too muich like a hospital for me. lol I wouold love the house to smell nice and lavendery or something. Thanks for the idea! My DH and I were tlaking about cleaning products, and I was naming off natural things that people use to clean with and I said, "I think some people use vodka, I heard." We laugh and he says, "You'd come in and I'd be drinking the household cleaner!" He's an ex-alcoholic, so while we were joking about it...It might just happen. lol

    Amie, that's a good idea too! We take our rent out first ($650) and then calculate up the rest of our stuff. I'll pitch the idea to my husband!
     
  13. tiffharmon2001

    tiffharmon2001 New Member

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    I do something similar to that. I pay for everything with cash except what is automatically withdrawn from our account. I don't write checks unless I need to have a paper trail for something and I rarely use my debit card-usually just if I order something online. I have our budget for the week saved on the computer and when I withdraw cash for something, I change the color of that item in the budget. Then, I look at my account online and compare what I say I should have with what the bank says I have. That way, I know exactly how much I have and where it's going to go.

    The only reason I don't like to take out everything that's not being used for an automatic withdrawl is that I've been caught a time or two with a bill that was due to come out on the weekend and ended up coming out on Friday rather than Monday. Also, I don't want to take a chance of losing the cash. So, I make a trip to the ATM/bank every couple of days and get out the cash I'm going to need right now.
     
  14. Actressdancer

    Actressdancer New Member

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    Oh... I don't carry it all around. I should have said that. I have a secure spot that a thief would never look in. I also put my debit card there; so I only have as much cash on me as I intend to spend in that particular trip. Can't go over budget when that's all you have!
     
  15. Samantha

    Samantha New Member

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    Feeding a family of 6 on a budget has definitely been a trial for me. Especially since I've been trying to weed out the processed stuff and go with more fruits/veggies instead for the kids. The months we don't struggle as much are the ones where I plan. And I mean this takes me a couple of hours. I plan breakfast, lunch, and then all the dinners. We rotate out breakfasts so I just always make sure I have the stuff on hand - oatmeal and fruit, yogurt and fruit, eggs and toast and fruit, cereal and fruit - for breakfast, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, pb&j, grilled cheese, cottage cheese and crackers etc. for lunches. They eat pb&j at least three times a week for lunches.

    Then for dinners this past month has been our smoothest budget wise. I planned out 25 meals that I prepped - chopped veggies, browned meat etc and I bagged them and put them in the freezer, we've pulled one out and tossed it in the crock pot almost every day the past month. This has been amazing for staying in budget.

    I'm planning to do it differently this month because of the stress of the prep day last time but I definitely think that making dinners once a month that can be popped in the crock pot or oven on the day of is definitely a HUGE budget saver. I mean we even splurged on meats we don't usually get and still spent less on food than we had been.

    Another thing I would urge is an envelope system. I just created one for our family that has worked great this week. I took a simple school folder with the three prongs in the middle, put in page protectors with a blank piece of white paper in each, used a wet erase marker to label each page protector and then slid the allotted cash for each thing in the labeled page protector. This has been great! It fits nicely in the bag I carry around as a purse/diaper bag so I always have it with me. We have found that using cash as much as possible really helps curtail frivolous spending.

    We also sat down with a calendar page and jotted down the dates our regular bills are due so we could see which paycheck each of the main bills was coming out of since my DH gets paid twice a month. Things are tight from the 1st to the 14th every month because that's when our biggest bills are all due. So our grocery and other money comes out of the check he gets on the 15th and has to last from the 15th of that month until the 15th of the next month.

    I typed out a budget for the remainder of 2012 - looking at each month and remembering to add in things like car registrations which are due in September, money for Christmas shopping, money to spend when we take a family trip to a nearby flea market, etc. I budgeted every penny of my husbands checks sending excess to savings.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2012
  16. ABall

    ABall Super Moderator

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    we finally had to get a debit card, for bills because the cost of money orders and stamps were adding up. But use cash for everything else......

    I really don't get spending money and the kids don't get an actual allowance... which I know bums them out...... when DH gets over time then yeah they get an allowance. I try to help as much as I can doing surveys and I am on a product test panel where I get rewarded with Amazon gift cards as well as using Swagbucks to get Amazon dollars...... its not much but it adds up and I can usually get MOST of the the kids birthday stuff for free with that....... so it helps.

    I also use a list, and as many coupons as I can. I don't drive, which hinders us some, but means, only one car to pay fuel for and we plan all of our shopping.
     
  17. ABall

    ABall Super Moderator

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    something else I thought of........ chop, cook and freeze...... when you do your bigger grocery trips. buy what you need for left overs....... but not the same meal perse. (I"m sure Jackie is going to come and tell me I missspelled that).

    if you are cooking with vegetables...... cut up extra for the following week and freeze it, cook extra meat and freeze in portions for other meals. (like hamburger and diced chicken) ............. I often freeze left over ham for ham and bean soup.

    Buy dried beans....... I love pinto beans and corn bread....... like I mentioned ham and bean soup is very filling....... add instant mashed potato flakes to thicken it. ......

    Chili is cheap and easy........... I am making chili mac tonight.
     
  18. homeschooler06

    homeschooler06 Active Member

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    Homemade cleaners have helped us out. Shopping outside instead of middle helps to but not to easy here, at least for me. Our left over from each paycheck goes into savings. Sometimes its just a few dollars but its still helps. Biggest is using cash for shopping. For me this helps me because my bank card just takes over and it's swipe here and there and then it's like oh I just spend $$$ and didn't realize it. I found a template to make pretty envelopes and I plan to make them and put labels on them. I am making some for the kids too at least my youngest because she likes the envelopes too.
     
  19. Meg2006

    Meg2006 New Member

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    Thanks for the idea ABall! That's a good idea to prep the meals before hand and freeze all the portions! That certainly saves preptime and I can see that saving us if we are in a hurry. It sure helps that we can't say "Well, we didn't have time to cook" when the fixin's were in the freezer.

    We tried our homemade detergent out and it works great, and so does our clothesline! Now allwe have to worry about is our neighbor (landlord) asking, "WTH is this? Oh Yeah? Take it down. Nobody wants to see that." We live in a neighborhood of duplexes, and if you're not uniform then you get in trouble. Yea.
    I also made a upside down tomato planter out of a 2 liter Sprite bottle! I'm feelin pretty proud of that. lol I'll have to see if I can post a picture. Thank you so much for all the great ideas!
     
  20. ABall

    ABall Super Moderator

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    Good job on the thrifty topsy turvey planter.:)

    Well the point of freezing extra componets of different meals is to make sure that when those weeks come where you don't think you have much to work with ........ well hopefully you can stock up...... and if you have to deal with whats in the freezer then its there..... I read one article where one lady would take a package of bacon and cut off the ends..... and freeze them..... when a recipe calls for a little bit of bacon you have it..... and lets face it.... if you make something like BLT's a long slice of bacon doesn't fit on the bread :!:

    another tip...... everyone likes to go out to eat once in a while keep in mind the cheaper places to go....... I know wienersnichel aren't everywhere but for us they are one of the cheapest places, mostly because we don't buy the soda....... Wendy's is next in line for cheaper.
     
  21. vantage

    vantage Active Member

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    One thing that I found helps me to keep on budget and eat healthy is to go against two or three typical pieces of advise.

    The first is the idea of shopping bulk for a couple weeks at a time. Because we cook from scratch and use fresh produce it just does not work, we end up waisting produce and dairy this way. It also means I can bring home a rotisseri chicken or fried chicken and save a trip to a restaurant.

    1, I make a mid week trip to the store for milk, orange juice, fresh veggies and bread etc as needed. At this time I purchase the icecream and other items. This way we cannot binge on some items because they are not there (ice cream, orange juice and cold cuts -- spouse has issues with these items)

    2, Another is that I buy a few expensive items each shopping trip. That is we build steak into the menu, or shrimp, etc. We eat simple for a couple nights then have a really nice meal.

    Example : stir fried chicken and veggies, rice: hamburger patties, green beans, sliced tomatoes, and microwaved potatoes: chefs salad with garlic toast: 7 layer burritoes with chips and salsa: spaghetti and salad :spaghetti and salad (again) : tuna and soup: steak dinner with nice fancy salad, fancy sides etc.

    The goal is to stay out of the restrarants as much as possible.

    3, I do not shop coupons. I only buy my regular brands and they never have stuff I need (need) on a coupon. I instead build buy when something I normally use is on sale buy one get one. I get like 6-10 of them that way They are on sale again before I use them all up.
     

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