More on Being Frugal

Today marks the commencement of week four with no house boy. And, we are doing well! My big fear was that with David gone, all of his duties would fall to me. But, Michael has stepped up to the plate and is doing laundry and straightening. Very nice.

I'm very happy that we were able to save that money each month, but with the economic news getting worse and worse, I've been thinking about other things we can do to watch our budget. Here's the list I came up with:

• Make lunches for the adults every day.
  
  • Potential savings = $70/week, $3,640/year
• No more Starbucks in the morning. We have an espresso machine at home, so this is a no-brainer.
  • Potential savings = $25/week, $1300/year
• Meal planning to avoid last-minute take out or restaurant visits
  • Potential savings = $60/week, $3,120/year
• Occasionally choose BYOB restaurants on Saturday nights
  • Potential savings = If we do this twice a month, it could save us probably $100/month, so $1,200/year

What changes are you guys looking to make?

Comments

[Mom101]

If we did meal planning to avoid take-out dinners we'd probably save about three times that. If only we could afford to have someone cook it all for us.

[christie]

Glad to see that your suggestions didn't include baking all my own bread, making my own shampoo, etc. My biggest change is meal planning and eating at home -- it's not too bad because I enjoy cooking plus eating out with our 3 month old and 5 year old is really not that great of a time :)

[april]

We meal plan every week and plan one night out (Wednesday) so I don't go nuts, and that night is usually ethnic which is cheaper around these parts anyhow.

Otherwise, we are also trying to stay home every other weekend because we tend to shop when we leave the house on Saturdays.

[kyooty]

we've saved 10.00 a day each day dh biked to work vs taking the van. :)