With our daughter on her way, we have a tighter-than-usual budget this year. In order to meet our saving goals, there are two things we can do: spending less or make more. We haven’t figured out how to increase income, but we have figured out four ways to cut expenses.
4 Tips to Cut Costs from your Budget
1. Cut the landline
Currently we use a voip home phone service which we’ve been meaning on cutting for a while now. The monthly fee does add up. Since either of us can end up working from home throughout the week, the landline has necessary for conference calls. We’ve tried using free online phone services, such as magic jack or Google Hangouts, but the quality of calls have been inconsistent; as they say, it works until it doesn’t. Having a reliable phone connection becomes less critical when I’m on maternity leave and we’ll probably cut the landline mid-year. On the flip side, Daniel will be looking into using the one time cost service Freephoneline.ca as our free home phone solution.
2. Spend more time outdoors
Once it gets warmer (and please let it be soon!), we intend to spend more time outdoors gardening, hiking or just soaking up vitamin D- all of which cost next to nothing!
Grow our own food – We had such a positive first gardening experience last summer that I can’t wait to garden again. I hope to learn from my mistakes and grow a bigger yield of food, and thereby cutting grocery expenses during the summer months. Gardening tips and resources are always welcome!
3. Cut back eating out
Eating out is the achilles heel of our budget and we find ourselves always spending more than we intend. I have tendencies to go “oh, I feel like pho tonight and even though there is perfectly good leftovers at home, let’s eat out!”. Not only does it cost a lot to satiate my cravings, it’s an unhealthy habit (think of all that sodium in pho and ramen and all the other delicious soup noodles I always crave). I am determined to change. I will shop and feed my family from my fridge more often and stay within the “Eating Out” budget. I will avoid eating out for convenience sake and adhere to my meal plans.
4. Work from home more often
My dad has been a full-time teleworker for over a decade and it has saved him so much money over the years. He rarely goes out for lunch- not tempted or pressured to when he sees coworkers eat out; and he has no commuting costs. Fortunately for Daniel and I, we have the flexibility to from home from time to time. Cutting back days in the office by even a mere 1 to 2 days will help us save in gas, auto maintenance and public transportation costs.
Any other suggestions? How do you plan on cutting back expenses to save more this year?
That’s a good list, at least Pho isn’t too expensive!
I’m cutting back my cell phone to PAYG (now that I’m a SAHM and don’t work from home anymore, we didn’t need the landline either), we cut eating out out this month and hopefully we don’t get back into the habit, just the occassional treat.
Eating out can clearly ruin one’s finances. Years ago a big chunk of my paycheck would be ‘gone’ like this. We’re cooking at home now and started being more frugal.