I use to be a shopaholic. I mean I had a whole blog called The Geeky Shopaholic.
But now I’m 44 and a married woman of almost 7 years and my shopaholic days are far behind. Instead, I’ve become a much more frugal person. Why pay more for something when I can pay less?! So here are some ways that I’ve found to save money and cut back on our spending.
Please keep in mind that this is what works for my husband and me. We don’t have kids just three fur babies. Budgets are highly individual and personal. What works for us may not work for you and that’s ok. But hopefully, you’ll find an idea that you’d like to try for your family.
Watching the Electric and Gas Usage
You hear jokes about married couples fighting over the thermostat all the time. Well, my husband and I are no different. We don’t fight about it, but we don’t really agree on it either.
I acclimate to temperatures really well. My husband not so much. But we have found what works for us.
In the winter we keep the heat at 68 degrees, sometimes up to 70. This keeps our Gas bill at a reasonable rate for us. On very cold days, we just add more clothes. You’ll find me in my cardigan and thick fuzzy socks. My husband will be in a hoodie.
During the day in the spring and summer, I keep the air on 75 degrees. Or I don’t have it on at all, and just have the windows open. When it’s time for Cap to be home, I turn it down to 72 to cool the house down. At night we set it to 70. Last summer this kept our bill under $196 when many people I knew were paying way over that.
If you’re electric and gas bills our high, try adjusting the thermostat to see what temp you can adjust to that will also cut back on your bills.
Take a Look at Your Cable and Streaming Services
We haven’t had cable in years! We just didn’t watch it. So we canceled it. If you find you’re not watching cable anymore, try canceling it. You’ll probably find you don’t miss it at all.
We also regularly look at our streaming services and pause or cancel ones we’re not watching as much. We always have Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and Paramount Plus. Prime is a yearly fee and there is always something on Disney to watch. Paramount Plus is something we get for free through my husband’s workplace.
The other services like Hulu, Netflix, and HBO Max we get when there is something we want to watch on that service and then pause when we’re no longer watching it as much.
Also, check with your workplace, maybe they have an offer similar to my husband’s and you can get a service for free. It never hurts to ask.
Adjusting Our Cell Phone Bill
Our cell phone bill was outrageous. Finally one day I had enough and went to our service provider and asked what we could do to lower the bill. They put us on a new plan that still had everything we had on our old plan but was a special one they were running for new customers. It shaved $50 bucks off our monthly bill. Again, it never hurts to ask.
Watching the Grocery Spending
We all know that groceries are one of our biggest expenses. It’s right up there with the house and car payments for most of us.
Because of this, I’ve been obsessed with trying to get our grocery spending down! So here is what we’re doing to lower our spending and save money on groceries.
Shop every two weeks.
I use to go every week and I spent a lot of money. Instead, I found that by shopping for two weeks at a time, I spent around $50 less. I do sometimes still have to make a small trip before the big trip. This is usually for things like bread, milk, or tea.
Create a meal plan and always shop with a list.
My meal plan is pretty flexible and simple. I plan enough suppers for two weeks. I don’t assign them days so we can eat a meal based on what we feel like eating that day.
For breakfast, we are cereal and breakfast bar people. Though sometimes I will plan out one or two big breakfasts of something like eggs, bacon, and biscuits. My husband usually eats out for lunch if he is working. I keep things like hot dogs, Chef Boyardee, and sandwich stuff for easy lunches at home.
Once I make my meal plan, I make a list of what I need and only buy the items on that list when I shop.
Switch to store brands.
For pantry items like sugar, rice, flour, pasta, and vegetable oils, I find the store brand to be just as good as the name brand. Also, store-brand paper towels, toilet paper, and pain reliever work just as well for us. We also really love the store-brand cookies and snacks.
But sometimes the store brand isn’t great. We hated the store-brand mac and cheese! So even though it’s around half the price of the name brand, I’m buying the name brand.
Store brands are often a dollar or more less than the name brand so it’s worth trying to see if you like it.
Order online.
Shop around online to see if you can get some of your list items cheaper. We started buying our puppy pads from Chewy and we saved around $20 a month purchasing from them and having them auto-shipped.
Of course, Riker is house-trained now and we only use pads at night so we don’t order as many but it’s still cheaper and better quality from Chewy. And with our next auto-ship, we have treats coming too. We hope to switch these over to Chewy going forward as we found some better deals from them versus Walmart.
Buy Bulk.
I started buying bulk paper towels, toilet paper, and garbage bags. This means I’m not buying these things as often and I save a few dollars as the bulk package is cheaper per roll.
Buy the big packs of meat.
I started buying pork loins and cutting them up into chops and roasts instead of buying these things individually. I can get a pork loin for around $13 and I usually get 6 chops and two small roasts from it. There is no way I could get those things for under $13 if I bought them already cut up.
I also buy large packs of chicken breasts – I try to get the ones priced around $12 to $14. I then bring them home and freeze each breast individually.
Try grocery pick up.
If you have grocery pickup in your area try it out. You can see exactly what you’re spending so it’s easier to stay within your budget. Also, you’re not tempted by things you don’t need as you would be when shopping in the store.
I use to feel really bad about what I spent on groceries until I read an article that said the USDA put the average cost of food for a family of two at $150 per week. And that is just for food.
I spend around $200 to $250 for two weeks and that includes our toiletries, paper goods, household chemicals, and pet supplies. So, while I still want to improve on this number, I don’t feel so bad about it anymore.
This is what we’re doing to save money. I hope got some ideas about things you can do to cut back on your spending. I would also love to hear your tips for saving so be sure to share them with me in the comments.
