It’s Just Money – haligonia.ca

Weight. Debt. Two subjects that are hush hush for many people.
Me, not so much. I publicly document my current weight for the whole world to see. The numbers don’t really bother me.

It’s no shocker that blogging has been one of the best tools that I’ve made use of to help drop the pounds. So why not use it as a tool to whip our finances into shape as well?

Hubby and I do all right. According to the world of finance, we’re commonly referred to as "DINKS" 😉 - Dual Income, No Kids.
Thankfully our salaries provide more than enough to cover our monthly expenses with wiggle room for a bit of fun. That means mortgage, car payments, utilities, groceries/household, transportation, retirement contributions and entertainment, while making minimum payments on our current debts – credit lines, credit cards & student loans. Okay the mortgage and car payments are debts but they are fixed monthly payments where I can slowly see a decrease in what we owe. 😉 We haven’t accumulated any new debt since November when we purchased a second vehicle. (Used and for a great price!) But, I’m impatient and minimum payments on the credit products barely make a dent. We do have a decent retire savings fund set up that we contribute to bi-weekly but no real emergency savings. If something happens we generally re-work the budget to make it fit or if it’s a more serious amount will borrow the money . By getting rid of our debt and eliminating several monthly payments, our savings account should be able to grow quite nicely.

So, for the next 6 months – Until the end of December. We’re following a strict budget.

Problems & Solutions

Food
One of our biggest expenses is Food – groceries, restaurants, take out, coffee etc. I quickly tallied our bank accounts and was shocked by the numbers. In May we spent approximately $1,000.00 on food. There was a lot of restaurant/take out and the long weekend full of sushi, brunch, ice cream etc. April was a little better coming in around $700.00. But those numbers seem extreme to me. A quick poll from this morning told me that I wasn’t alone but there was also a lot of people who managed to be quite frugal while still eating healthy.

We’re now on a Grocery Budget of $500/monthly. This includes:

One major trip to Costco ($300) to stock up.
$50/weekly for fresh produce, farmers market trips etc.

For the most part we’ll be do our best to eliminate restaurants/take out. I already do cook most of our meals at home but we each will have lunch out at least once a week. Then on weekends there’s a bottle of wine, a Starbucks trip, an ice cream cone etc. It does really all add up. From now on, if we want that those treats it has to come out of the $500.00.

I do read the flyers on a weekly basis to make sure I’m aware of what’s on sale, will use coupons if they’re decent and have no problem buying bread and produce that’s been marked down. We freeze all our bread anyways. If peppers are marked down, I will buy them, chop them and freeze them. Same goes for bananas. Discounted apples make great apple sauce. I already do a lot of things to help save but then the next day I will go out to dinner and spend $60. So really my efforts are only evening it out. Comparable to maintaining my weight instead of losing.

The one other thing that may help out a little is the garden. At this point, its up in the air as to whether or not we’ll have success growing veggies but I can only hope!

Power
I am not fond of NS Power. During the Winter months all our money goes to them. I’m talking $800 bi-monthly bills. Obviously not their fault since we’re the ones that have electric heat. Last week I called NSPC to discuss our bills. As of our next billing cycle we’ll be on a budget plan where we’ll be paying $160.00/monthly. If you’re wondering what a budget plan is, they simply take your last year’s cost of power and divide it up evenly by 12 months. Thus giving you the monthly payment. If at the end of the year you’ve used more power, then the difference gets spread over the next 12 months payments. If by some miracle it’s less the difference gets remove from your monthly payments.

The budget plan won’t necessarily save us money but it will allow for better cash flow over the Winter months. Along with the budget payments we’ve got to do the following:

Hang clothes out on the line to dry instead of going for the dryer.
Use the woodstove during the cooler periods. Especially since we get wood for free. Although, in my defence, I feel very uncomfortable leaving the stove on while we’re gone all day. Which makes it really hard to heat the house when we’re gone at the very least 9 hours a day.
Turn off the lights and unplug electronics.
Replace incandescent light bulbs with the more efficient compact fluorescent lights. An initial higher cost to purchase the bulbs but an overall savings since they last much longer.
Do dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher. Not sure if this makes a difference at all. I was just assuming. Anyone actually know?

Maybe Options
We’re currently on a monthly bundle plan for our Landline, Internet and Cable. Including taxes we pay $170.00.

Cancel Cable – Of the $170, $100 of that is for cable. This includes cable and the DVR. We have the basic option with no added packages. The DVR tends to let me down a lot. We set up a series recording and it just doesn’t record. I know that we should just take the machine back but the lack of recording just makes me want to cut the cable altogether.

Cancel Landline – Our landline is $30 and is barely used. I have my Blackberry but Hubby has no cell phone. We’ve often thought of picking him up a prepaid phone and disconnecting our landline. But he’d barely use the phone and the prepaid minutes expire, so that seems wasteful. Anyone have any advice or know of a good prepaid phone provider where the minutes don’t expire?

Other:

Special Occasions – We’ve made sure to include room in the budget for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and other special occasions.

Fun & Entertainment – It’s not too difficult to have a good time for cheap:

Explore local trails & parks
Use neighbourhood tennis courts
Play board games/cards
Go to the movies for free by using Airmiles coupons
Use family camp for a weekend getaway
Borrow books from the library
Have BBQs and potlucks instead of going out.

It just won’t be that bad. Sometimes we’ll just have to get a bit creative but that’s fun!

And last but not least, I’m lucky to have another option:

Take on extra work – I’ve been doing part time website design, maintenance, graphic design and social media marketing for the past several years. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to take on more. As long as I can balance my full time job with the part time gig, it’s all good!

And there you have it. I would love your feedback, tips and thoughts. You guys are always so informative and helpful!

I will be checking in with Monthly Updates starting July. ‘Til Debt To Us Part. 😉