Feb 27 2009
Know what your Spending
Know what your spending. This might seem like such a simple idea, but you might not realize where your money is going. I learned this lesson first hand. We talk about cutting back on things you don’t need, but what about the things that you do need. Do you know exactly how much you are spending on those! I thought I did, but found out I didn’t. My hubby pays the standard household bills. Things like the heat & electric, phone, Internet, and TV. I decided that I budget what we spend elsewhere, but wanted to check out those bills too. You could imagine my surprise when I found out we were paying $200 for phone, TV and dsl. OMG, my jaw just dropped! Why did I not realize that before? I guess I never took a detailed look at those bills. You know the scenario. It starts out cheap and after a yr the rates go up. Boy did the rates go up for us. We just never payed attension. Well I am happy to say that I did take care of lowering those cost. Right now our expenses need to be drastically cut. Living on commission isn’t a good thing when our financial market took a hit. Hubby’s job is directly related to that field. So first and foremost I tackled the phone and dsl bill. I knocked off all those features I don’t use. I have a simple basic phone, but did keep voice mail and caller ID, and unlimited local calling. Now my dsl, well that was next. I managed to find a new provider and knocked that bill right down too. We decided as a family to go with just regular DTV and get rid of satilite. I understand losing your cable or satilite might be too extreme for some, but for us that was the best decision. You might want to cut back to fewer channels, or get rid of the movie channels. I find that something like Netflicks was actually cheaper than the movie channels we were paying for! At least with a place like Netflicks you can choose the movies you want. Another great idea is the library for movies. They are free there. Our library is wonderful. Tons of movies, and the latest releases too! I am happy to say that I went from $200 a month to only 47.00 for phone and DSL, and regular DTV. The best advice I can give is don’t forget to check those things you “need” and reevaluate their cost.
