How We Save Money

If this is your first time joining me, you should know that, though right now I bring my cute little baby to work with me, my contract is up at the end of June and I will be staying home with her thereafter.  My salary comprises about a third of our income, so when I stop working we’ll have to be very cognisant of how our money behaves!  In preparation for this, we are attending a Financial Peace University class at our church.  This is a 9-lesson class on all things money based on seven baby steps.  I won’t go into great detail here (seriously, find a class or pick up a copy of The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey) except to say that we are focusing on steps 1-3 right now:

1. $1000 in the bank as an emergency fund.
2. The debt snowball (paying off all debt except the house).
3. An emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses in a money market account.

In an effort to put as much of this together before we lose my income, we are in super saving mode!  I thought I’d share some of the things we do to save money.  Here we go…

Cloth Diapers and Wipes

According to awesomebeginnings4children.com, it costs around $2400 to diaper one child from birth to potty training.  That’s some expensive poo!!  We chose to use cloth (or fluff for insiders) for Alice.  I purchased my whole stash, including prefolds, covers, pockets, inserts, wipes, wet bags, wipe warmer, and even a box of detergent for $175 at a Facebook garage sale.  You can really spend on fluff if you don’t look for deals, as some diapers run $30 per, but if you search you can usually find someone willing to sell you some quality hand-me-downs.  See my cloth diaper post for more information.  You might wonder if I make up the cost difference in laundry, but with my HE washer/dryer combo, I only spend about $.17 extra per MONTH!  Which brings me to…

My Beautiful, Wonderful Washer/Dryer

I have an LG washer/dryer combination machine.  It’s fabulous!  It was a little costly up front, about $1800, but it’s soooo worth it.  Our family needs about two loads of laundry done a day, so I could be spending a buttload on laundering our clothes.  The LG is an HE machine that uses AC technology to dry.  In other words, the dryer is actually a dehumidifier, which saves energy to run.  A word of warning: this machine does not get clothes completely dry.  I usually have to hang dry everything to finish, but it’s worth it to save on energy costs.  Plus, it’s easier on the clothes themselves, so they last longer, which saves us money in clothing replacement.

Our Paperless Kitchen

We do a 99% paperless kitchen.  Instead of paper towels, we use dishrags and kitchen towels.  We use cloth napkins at every meal, and I even pack them in lunch boxes to save on paper towel use at work.  I don’t buy disposable sponges.  Instead, I have a couple of cute, washable dish scrubbers.  We do buy paper towels to clean up cat puke messes and the like because I’m a wuss when it comes to nastiness.

Brita Water Filter and Contigo Water Bottles  

No plastic water bottles to cost us a ton, poison us with plastic, and fill up the landfills.  I love my Brita and use it to fill my bottle every day before I leave the house.  The Contigo water bottle is my favorite because it is stainless steel, has a pop-up straw to prevent spills while drinking in the car or on the treadmill, and never leaks in my diaper bag.

Cook/Bake/Make it Myself

I LOVE Costco.  You can find all kinds of neat pre-made, pre-packaged products for consumption there.  I fell into this trap bigtime.  I thought I was saving money by buying in bulk, but really I was spending way more than I needed to for the convenience of having someone else prepare things for me.  We recently pared down our grocery list to the absolute essentials: flour, sugar, eggs, milk, coffee, cheese, cottage cheese, baking powder and soda, corn or arrowroot starch, potatoes, oatmeal, pasta, salt, canned fruit, and frozen veggies.  I mix my own pancake batter, bake cookies from scratch, and even use my breadmaker to replace buying Orowheat.  My next goal is to be able to can my own fruit so that I can spend even less!

Freezer Meals

As a working momma who also attends at least one karate class per night, my evening time is at a premium.  I could really spend money on delivery, fast food, and pre-packaged dinners if I’m not careful.  According to thesimpledollar.com, an average meal out costs about $12.72 per person.  Let’s say Dan and I ate out as often as I cook, which is about five nights per week.  That’s $25.44 per meal, which totals $127.20 per week and $508.80 per month.  If we wanted to have drinks or desserts it would cost even more!  Here’s a better plan:

Once a month I prepare a month’s worth of freezer meals.  I started by downloading meal plans from Pinterest, but we rarely liked all the meals in the package.  Now I plan them myself so that I know we like every meal on the plan.  It takes a whole day of planning, shopping, prepping, and filling freezer bags, but it actually saves time!  Instead of spending an hour each night making supper five nights a week, I spend about 6-8 hours total for the month.  Then I can just grab a bag out of the freezer and throw it into the oven, crockpot, or skillet and have supper in a flash!  The ingredients usually cost around $200.  Combine that with our essentials-only grocery plan from above, and our monthly grocery budget is less than $300.  That also affords us homemade cookies and cakes, and the occasional bottle of wine.

Foam Roller and Homemedics Massager

My husband spends his days hauling furnaces in and out of attics, installing boilers into basements, and the like for his HVAC job.  I am a momma and an athlete.  We have our share of aches and pains!  We were shelling out about $100 per week for chiropractic plus the occasional massage, but we decided it was just too much.  Dan bought me a Homemedics percussion massager for my sore back during my pregnancy for about $45.  We also have a firm foam roller that I purchased from my chiropractor for about $30.  Each night we take turns massaging each other with the machine, then rolling and stretching with the foam roller.  It’s not quite the same as having a regular chiropractic tune up, but it’ll do until we have some wiggle room in the budget again.

No Cable

Simply put, we subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime.  No cable tv.

I know there’s more, but I can’t think of anything else specifically, and this post is getting long anyway.  Do you have any tips for me?  How do you save money for your family?