Frugal Fridays – Focus on the Details

FPIES and other allergy stories have interfered lately, but Frugal Fridays are back! (At least for this week, at any rate.)

When we left off of this series, we had a basic plan to pay off our debt and two looming questions:

What if we have less money than bills?

and

What if we want to pay off our debt faster?

That’s the topic for today: Focus on the Details!

THIS is the part where all other Frugal Friday tips come in to play. This is the part where we focus on where the money is going, and how we can keep more of it in our pockets.

Eliminate Monthly Expenses

The first step is to take a good, hard look at our budget and go through it item by item. The first thing to ask is: can I eliminate this?

Some common items that people often eliminate to streamline their budget are:

• Cable TV
• Gym memberships
• Land line phones
• Magazine subscriptions
• Memberships (Audible, other entertainment, etc.)

Basically look for anything that costs money on a monthly basis and decide whether it is worth keeping. You may surprise yourself with what you realize you could eliminate from your life – and your debt column!

I’m not going to go into huge detail about this; there are already TONS of blog posts and news articles written about this subject that are easily found online.

There are two things that should be kept closely in mind when doing this part of budget slashing: be brutal, and remember that numbers don’t lie. 

Reduce Monthly Expenses

Once you’ve gone through that, the next question for the items still remaining is: how can I reduce this bill?

An example from my own budget: I recently noticed a sales pitch when paying our cell phone bill and called the company. They were running a promotion that enabled me to change our plan, actually getting MORE coverage while saving $50 per month!

Pretty sweet!

In another case, I didn’t want to eliminate our land line completely, as cell phone service can get patchy in our area due to our rural location, and I wanted the reassurance of direct 911 access whenever necessary. However, we NEVER use our land line. EVER. It seemed stupid to pay for all the “bells and whistles” on our phone when the ringer is turned off and we haven’t made an outgoing call on that phone in over 5 years.

After a quick call to the phone company, I was able to shave a $45 per month phone bill down to a $10 a month “911 only” plan. Yes, it’s $10 a month, but the peace of mind in knowing that no matter what the weather is doing in our area I can access emergency services is worth that to me.

Saving $35 a month is still a great savings!

In my experience, there is absolutely nothing to lose (and often quite a bit to gain) in calling every single bill you have to see what can be done to lower your monthly bill.

I’ve successfully gotten my bills lowered with my electric company, phone company, insurance companies, and even credit card companies.

The ones that couldn’t lower my bill often were able to suggest tips or tricks to lower my usage, and thereby lower the bill.

Start calling one service provider per day to see what they can do for you. You might be surprised at how helpful they can be!

This technique works for simple, straightforward bills, but also can be applied to more complicated expenses…such as a mortgage or car note.

Refinancing a mortgage isn’t an absolute; even if you do qualify, there will be a lot of hoops to jump through – and it might take you years to pay off the closing costs with the difference in monthly payments. It may not be worth the expense, but it is worth running the numbers on.

Same goes for any auto loans you have. These will be easier to refinance, and you may be able to get a much kinder interest rate – or even keep your payment the same but have a shorter payoff date!

Again, no guarantees, but worth looking in to.

Reduce Living Expenses

The next step is to look at your living expenses. This is where food allergy families get shafted.

Normal families who can eat whatever they want can start playing the coupon game. They can wait for super cheap meat to show up in their local store sales sheets. They can figure out how to feed a family of 4 on $300 a month.

Food allergic families usually can’t do that, at least not to the same extent.

Often we are restricted to particular brands or types of foods that offer little in the way of coupons or discounts.

This is where it is important to get creative and think outside the box.

Some examples:

– If you have the storage for it, buying a whole grass-fed and finished animal and having it butchered is often much cheaper than buying individual packages of the same meat. You’ll probably find that scoring a second-hand freezer in good shape from Craigslist and running the electricity on it still nets you a less expensive meat source.

– Try to find co-ops. My local health food store operates as a regular grocery store, but for buying in as an owner at a small annual expense, almost everything in the store is less expensive than for non-owners. Plus, they offer discounts of 10% off any cases I buy. So things we consume lots of, I always buy in case form to save the 10%.

– Recently we’ve begun feeding my Dad’s chickens soy and corn-free chicken feed in order to have (possibly) safe eggs to trial for Zac. The feed is more expensive than regular chicken feed, but the biggest expense was shipping. A $21 bag of chicken feed cost almost $19 to ship!

I investigated Azure Standard, and found that we have a drop point within an hour of my house! Buying the chicken feed through Azure Standard means that I spend $60 for 80 pounds of feed instead of $145 for 75 pounds of feed purchased directly through the company. That is HUGE!

As a food allergic family, the best advice for reducing living expenses is to coupon what you can, look for cheaper ways to buy things (our quinoa is FAR less expensive through Amazon than on any store shelves), and cut back wherever and however you can.

In the end, you can shave hundreds of dollars off your bottom line through being fierce and determined about your expenses.

But what if that’s still not enough?

If you have cancelled as many bills as you can, reduced the monthly outlay on as many of the remainder as you can, coupon clipped where you can, bought in bulk, started buying whole cows, and done everything else you can think of to reduce your monthly costs, and you still have more month than money?

Come sit by me. We’re in the same boat. 

The only thing left to do at that point is to do what you have to do to survive.

Sell things on Craigslist or eBay. Try to make extra money wherever you can. Have a yard sale and clear out your house (added bonus of getting rid of clutter while making some money!).

In our case, we’re short on income because I’m staying home to keep Zac alive. Last summer I was very scared that my son wouldn’t be able to survive if I kept working, as my breastmilk was the only thing sustaining him.

Each food pass we get puts us closer to my return to work. When I return to work, we will no longer have more month than money. So for us, the situation is painful, but (hopefully) temporary. We’re willing to do typically…unwise…money moves in order to survive the few remaining months until that date (like putting living expenses on credit cards – VERY bad idea!).

If your situation is NOT a temporary one and you have more month than money,  it’s time to get really, truly harsh with your reality. You’ll need to decide if you should move to a less expensive living situation. Ask yourself if you can survive as a single car family. Look in to second jobs, or finding a better paying one.

Try getting a consolidation loan from your bank. They’ll often make you close out those credit card accounts, but the monthly bill will be less and the interest rate more favorable than the interest rate on a credit card.

It’s painful and stressful to be in that sort of financial situation. I hope some of the suggestions I’ve made can help anyone in that scenario begin digging their way out.

If you are truly in a bad place financially, you have to take charge. Next time, I’ll talk about continuing your education.

What techniques have you tried that have netted you the biggest budget boost?

Read the rest of the series here:
Part One: Where Are You Standing Financially?
Part Two: Organize Your Debt
Part Three: Make a Plan
Part Five: Design Your Dream Life

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