Damn. The Darling One is 12 weeks old. I've been working quite a few hours a week in the past few weeks so I can "ease" into this whole back-to-work thing. I will be up to 3 days in the office next week.
It's also part of my not-so-secret plan to cut my hours to 30 (or less). Call it a test-run if you will. Can I get enough work done in 3 days in the office and working from home the other 6 hours or so??
Paychecks-be-damned, I like hanging out with my kids.
So, internet, I challenge YOU to come up with some serious money-saver ideas for the KEEP THE HOME IN HOMESTEAD campaign. What's the single most important thing you've done that saves you cash??
Things I'm already doing and/or can't or won't do:
1. Groceries: Buying beef whole (cheaper AND yummier), freezing mass quantities of garden produce from my grandpa (Bumper crop of tomatoes this year....), eating a lot of egg salad (eggs are on sale a lot and make cheap meals),
2. Livestock: I will not buy a goat. Although Sweet Boy drinks enough milk to keep one in production round-the-clock. I refuse to have a child who's biggest kindergarten fascination is the fact that milk comes in cartons. (Ok, ok, I admit..... it BOGGLED me to see milk in cartons when I started school.)
3. Clothing: Not a lot of shopping going on around here. I do buy Lands End tshirts on clearance for work but that's about it. SB & DG are clothed almost 100% in hand-me-downs and Hot Stuff wears fire pants & t-shirts for work.
4. Media: Ok, our biggest expense? Probably movie late fees. Seriously. So we try not to get new releases. We don't have cable or satellite tv.... Rabbit ears. Yes. Rabbit ears. We get two channels downstairs and mmmaaaayyyyybeeeee one or two more upstairs if it is cloudy. We have a land line phone, 2 cell phones & dial-up internet and I've tried to talk myself out of internet service but I haven't been able to give it up.. although I am looking into juno.com or peoplepc.com... anyone have any experience there? We can't give up the land-line because cell phones don't work at our house. I won't give up the cell phones because I need to be able to get ahold of Hot Stuff on fires and his work is too cheap to provide him with a phone... we could get rid of the second phone but it would only save us $10/month (on a $65/month bill) so that isn't something I'm considering right now.
5. Unrealistic expectations: I just put my health club membership on permanent hold ($41/month) although we do use it enough to justify getting a couple of punch-passes ($8/visit) to use the pool.
6. Snacks: I don't drink fancy coffee or eat lunch out. We rarely go out to dinner. We only order pizza for special events. Hot Stuff does have a particular dill pickle sunflower seed addiction that eats up some funds but I'm willing to tolerate it since it replaces the Copenhagen addiction.
7. Utilities: We don't pay water or sewer. Electricity and propane are high but we try to use our pellet stove for most of our heating. We buy 2 tons (that's 100 bags) of pellets early in the fall (they are cheaper then and drier so they burn more efficiently) and that is enough for the winter.
8. Hot Stuff generally drives the Toyota car since he has the longer commute. I drive the Jeep but we are considering trading it in for a Subaru car to save gas mileage. Yes, I'd rather get another little car but, unfortunately, there are times we need 4WD to get out of our yard.... not often, but enough.
9. I'm planning to "shop" our insurance for our house and vehicles to see if I can get better rates... any suggestions??
10. I've already stopped changing the baby's diaper (kidding, geez, relax....) and Sweet Boy is aaaalllllmmmmmoooosssstttt potty trained. That will be a surprisingly big help.... (although I did drop $17 for a SINGING potty to, ahem,
encourage the situation..... please don't ask......)
11. I'll add things as you guys come up with brilliant suggestions......
