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There are all kind of way to save money . you’re able to bring through money by paying care to minuscule things like unplugging gizmo when you ’re not using them .
If you ’re really serious about savingbigmoney , though , you demand to look at ways to lop yourbiggestexpenses . So , I ’m apportion the 5 biggest way to save money .
have me just say that all of these things require some amount of sacrifice . They are n’t always commodious or easy to deal with , but they have saved us one thousand of dollar over the last six years .
Inexpensive Housing
If you ’ve seen my post onhow we survive on less than $ 1500 a month , you bed that our mortgage is super humbled . This is no accident . Yes , we hold up in a part of the country that has a very low cost of living . However , we could have well spent 3x what we did on our house .
We knew we wanted a crazy modest mortgage payment , so we only look at the cheapest home available . Like , the choices of livable homes in this Mary Leontyne Price range were the home we bought and one other comme il faut option .
Our theater has had a muckle of employment done to it since we bribe it to make it much nice than it was . We ’re lucky to live in a small town that does n’t really have a “ forged area ” , but we certainly do n’t live in a nice part of town . We see law cars labor down our route more than you would in other street . So while I do palpate perfectly safe here , we have made sacrifices for our low mortgage payment .
Before we bought our mansion , we were deliberate to get really inexpensive apartments .
Our first apartment was downtown Grand Rapids in an area I did n’t feel super safe in . The apartment was so modest that our landlord was n’t even sure if two mass should live in it . But it was the veracious Mary Leontyne Price and we made it sour !
When we first moved out to the body politic , we rented the basement flat of a house about 10 miles out of townsfolk . It was really remote and the road did n’t usually get plowed in the winter , but it was a smashing cost and we really enjoyed subsist there .
aboveboard , when we ’ve looked at houses or apartments , we ’ve get going by looking at the chinchy pick out there to see if we could make them forge .
We have n’t always had the dainty place to live in the nicest region , but we have literally keep open thousands of dollars each class but choosing to notice cheap caparison .
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One Car
Since we got wed six year ago , we have been a one - car household .
Cars are super expensive ! Besides the initial cost of the vehicle ( we commonly spend about $ 5000 for a gondola ) , there is the cost of policy , alimony , and repairs . Each elevator car can well be thousand of dollars per year .
There have been a destiny of prison term in our marriage where only one of us was working . When that was the causa , the function soul direct the car to work . If the non - working person needed a vehicle , they had to drive the working someone to solve and then pick them up so that they could have the auto for the day .
When we have both been work , we unremarkably figure out a way for one of us to drop the other one off or else one of us had to take the air or ride a bike to and from piece of work .
This has n’t always been commodious , for certain . Austin walk to work for an entire wintertime once ( in below zero temp ) and I sometimes had to arouse up at five in the cockcrow to go get him from work when he worked nights .
Since we live in a pocket-sized town , we have made a point to apply for jobs in our field that are within walking or biking space when potential .
I feel like only suffer one motorcar is n’t that frightening when you ’re used to it and you just do it that you ’ll find a way to make it work . If you ’re used to having two auto , then it would certainly seem like a major inconvenience . To relieve one thousand of clam per twelvemonth , we ’ve made it do work .
No Smart Phones
I ’m just going to say it : Smartphones are not a “ pauperism ” . They are super commodious and add up in handy , but they arenota need .
Someday , I would care to have a smartphone , but it ’s not deserving the surplus monetary value for us right on now . ( And I have it off there are all kinds of cheap phone companies these daylight , but we hold up in a really rural arena and have a hard prison term getting dependable overhaul , so we stick with Verizon even though it ’s a piece pricey )
Here ’s the affair : We have the net at rest home . We have always worked at position that have wireless fidelity . Most place you go these days have barren wifi . We have an iPad and an iPod we can take with us ( wifi only ) .
So really , the only time we do n’t have internet memory access is when we ’re drive . We have a super erstwhile GPS and often print off MapQuest single-valued function older - schoolhouse - trend when we go somewhere new . If we absolutely want to know something directly and we do n’t have internet accession , we can “ ring a friend ” .
Our phone plan would go up a minimum up $ 50 per month if we both get under one’s skin smartphones , plus the cost of the phones . I estimate that we save at least $ 800 per yr by not have bright phones .
- Update : We now have saucy phone ! We held out for long time after most people had them until the price went right smart down . We only yield about $ 5 more per calendar month than we used to for dumb earpiece , so it ’s worth it .
Eat at Home
We eat on almost all of our meal at dwelling . We also pack dejeuner at home to take to study .
This is one of those “ death by a thousand cuts ” area of the budget . No , an $ 8 luncheon here and there is n’t that much . But 2-$8 dejeuner per calendar week = $ 64 per calendar month .
We usually expend around $ 25 - 30 each metre the two of us go out to use up . If we did that just once a hebdomad , we ’re looking at $ 100 - 120 per month .
I know people who regularly spend around $ 500 per month on take-away , fast food , and other eating house . That ’s $ 6000 per year feed out ! gaga !
We normally attempt to keep our budget for eating out between $ 30 and $ 80 per calendar month depending on our income at the sentence . Other than that , we eat at menage . And you know what ? I like eating homemade food most of the metre and I like the occasional treat of going out because feed out is a treat , not a daily occurrence .
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No Cable TV
The ordinary cable bill is around $ 100 per month . That means well over $ 1000 per class is being pass on TV by a whole great deal of people .
We have paid for cable once in our marriage . We lived in an flat for about four calendar month where it was literally cheaper to have cable and the cyberspace than to just have the internet . I do n’t know how , but that ’s how it was .
Maybe it ’s just me but after about a month of catching up on HGTV and episodes of Pawn Stars , it seemed like there was never anything estimable on ! We ’d sit and flip through the channels looking for the least dazed - looking show to watch .
We really just hooked up the antenna on our ceiling so that we could watch the Olympian trials . We unremarkably do n’t view veritable goggle box at all .
We enjoy Netflix and a few thing on Amazon Prime . We do n’t take care being a little behind on the fresh shows out . We ’re just used to it . Plus , I ’m a major tear - watchman and I ca n’t support the suspense of waiting another whole calendar week for the next episode !
We have on occasion pay for a calendar month ofPlayStation Vue , which is actually really cool . You get access to a ton of overseas telegram line ( depending on what software system you break up ) and you stream them . It can commemorate shows for you and there is n’t any declaration . you may just get it for a month and then stop . We design on getting a month of it in August so we can watch all of the Olympics .
I know cutting cable is one of the first , most obvious place to cut your budget , but so many multitude are still playing over $ 1000 per year for TV .
Those are definitely the five giving ways that we salvage thousand per year .
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illustration by Vecteezy
