Frugality

Never has $8.00 in CVS Extra Care bucks made me so happy. My husband and I have decided to live frugally now that I am unemployed and off maternity leave. That means finding every way to save every penny we can and giving up our everyday luxuries. My buddy, Mrs. C, over on The Other Side of the Story is amazing at finding a deal, or two, or three. She's inspired me to give it a bigger effort. My husband and I were brainstorming tonight on how we can save money easily. Here's some things we came up with.

1. DIY oil changes. My husband could easily change our oil and filters instead of going to the local shop. Savings - $12 every three months.

2. Eat a cheap meal, twice a week. Dinner of spaghetti with sauce and some garlic bread would cost me $2.00 to make a night. Some nights, my hubs and I spend over $20.00 just on take out. Savings - $36.00 a week.

3. Coupon everything. We aren't the healthiest eaters. I am comfortable saying we eat processed foods and lots of sugary cereal. If I use my coupons better, and follow some fliers, I can get many things cheap. Lots of things free! Savings - endless.

4. Cut out the gym membership. We have an elliptical, bike and treadmill in our basement. My husband has a full weight bench/rack thing. I can do 30 minutes of step aerobics on Wii Fit plus. I can use my cable's OnDemand option to "Sweat it to the Oldies" with Richard Simmons. We can go for afternoon walks. We can work out without spending $39.98 a month at a gym that sees us once a week, at most. Savings - $39.98.

5. Cut back on giving. I spend way too much moolah on gifts. Instead of shelling out $100 for a little cousin's birthday this month, I am going to step back and give a more responsible gift. Let's be honest. This cousin's mom will never do that for Samuel, so why am I going to break my back over it? I hit up Carters.com today, and with some codes from Retail Me Not, I got her three outfits for $28.00. Yeah. THAT was awesome. Savings - $72.00 a month, if not more some months!

6. No weekly blow outs. I have impossible hair. Thick, kinky, crazy, curly, Portuguese frizzy hair. My long time stylist has been blowing it out for me every Saturday morning at 8AM since I was 18. A small expense weekly that feels entirely worth it, since it takes me up to 2.5 hours to do my hair BUT not necessary. Mike agreed to let me keep going once a month (on a weekend we have plans) to get it blown out. Savings - $60 a month.

7. Once a week golf, no more. If I have to cut out my blow outs, Mike can't be golfing on every Saturday morning. Instead, he'll join my brother for golf once a month and they will go to a public course. Long gone is the country club membership from last year. Savings - huge $$$ I am embarrassed to admit.

If you look at that, it's $5000 savings a year. It's small things we're talking about here. The impact is not that great of a change to our quality of life. That much money is enough to buy me a new Macbook and iPad and... to put in the bank. I hope I can keep myself accountable. I'll check in often on my progress.