Comments on: Budget purging and budget pruning

By: tami

tami — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:12:27 +0000

This year we have gotten rid of our umbrella liability policy and upped our hazard and auto instead. That saved us over $500 a year.

We intend on getting rid of cable and our land line when the contracts are up.

I am going to cancel my gym membership so all told, about $2500! I’m pretty impressed with myself. We have a son in college and another one going soon. My priority with our budget is first to tithe from our gross, secondly pay extra on our mortgage principle.

God bless you all!

By: Christine

Christine — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:20:57 +0000

We’re in the process of changing our health insurance. You can shop around outside of your employer’s coverage.

I haven’t bought napkins in 2 years. We used up our stash, and I collected cloth from networking and yard sales, and we keep the paper ones from fast food places when we go.

As far as paper towels, I keep stacks of old hand towels that are my first go to. Sometimes you just need a paper towel though, so I bought my first 8 pack in at least a year last month. We’ll see how long it lasts.

We’ve tried to teach our kids to use less tp, but we’ll see how that goes. :)

By: dramon

dramon — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:20:42 +0000

I changed insurance companies and saved a considerable amount of money. It pays to shop yearly for this. I went with better coverage and monthly payments and still saved over 1,000 per year.

Also consider an umbrella policy, it is generally cheaper than having high liability limits on individual policies.

Condsider getting pet meds online or from Costco or another retailer. I was unaware that some medicines are far cheaper from a normal retailer than from a ‘pet’ place.

By: Kika

Kika — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:06:16 +0000

We gave away our second vehicle. It is not easy in a family of five to have just one vehicle (no public transport in our town) but neither is it impossible. My husband walks to work most days (even in -40 degree weather!) and feels it clears his mind and gives him a little exercise before spending a day inside a classroom full of middle-school students. Anyways, we feel different where we live due to this choice but it is allowing us to put more money into an emergency fund.

By: Stew

Stew — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:41:31 +0000

I am definitely going to look into “paying in full” for insurance. That might save us some cash.

By: Liane

Liane — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:49:17 +0000

Regarding the insurance – I always pay our premiums in full rather than paying installment fees by making monthly payments – it’s a considerable savings: I just saved $132 (on a 6-month premium) by paying our auto premium in full!

I also don’t believe that “bundling” cable, phone and internet is always cheaper – our phone and cable companies are always sending us promos but the numbers never add up: our cable and internet are combined and our landline is provided by another company and it’s still always cheaper than the promo rates offered.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:46:49 +0000

Alcohol is one thing I enjoy. I have 2 words of advice: Boxed Wine.

You can spend $7 for a 750mL bottle for inexpensive wine )or as much as $100 a bottle!), but if you buy boxed wine, you can enjoy it occasionally, as it lasts longer since it doesn’t oxidize as quickly as opened bottles, and you can buy a 5 liter box for less than $20, which works out to be about $3 a bottle.

And it tasts good, too! Carlo Rossi makes a very acceptable boxed wine, even Franzia is not too shabby. There’s 3 liter boxes if you drink only a little at a time, for about $10 to $15. It all is very affordable unless you’re a wino, in which case you probably have more problems to deal with than the cost of alcohol!

By: Lissa

Lissa — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:02:36 +0000

We cut cable TV last year and never looked back. We’re thinking of reassessing our home insurance and see if we could go to AAA since we have both our car insurance with them.

By: Carico

Carico — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:02:52 +0000

It is so hard to get rid of expenses or prune them back. You know I never think about my insurance that I pay on my home and cars and that is probably a major source of savings. Thanks for the tip. I also think that cutting back on certain eating expenses will not only help your wallet but probably your health too.