Friday, January 21, 2011

Advice please

Throughout Brandt and my relationship when it comes to money it has been either feast or famine. It seems like we'll be doing pretty well, then we are the poorest of poor without much explanation. I blame Brandt for this because he fessed up and said it's been that way his whole life. This issue, bad service when going out, and bad drivers. All of these are clearly evident if you spend much time with him. When we were blessed to have two babies at once it forced me to stay home from work. I sort of think that my Heavenly Father knew that if he didn't send me two babies I would have kept working. Things worked out with Brandt getting his job with the Post Office right before us getting pregnant and with a few adjustments we've made our ends meet. Occasionally though, we go into freak-out mode and wonder how we are going to keep it up. To put it mildly, we're freaking out. It drives me bonkers because I'm the one at home not pulling my "income" weight (I know, I do a lot here on the home front raising 3 little ones, you know what I mean). I need to just gather it all back together and re-focus and cut corners a little sharper. That's where I want some advice. We're pretty good about little things and I try to be smart about purchases but you can always improve. I guess it mostly is a matter of what we're willing to sacrifice. What are your secrets for this? Today my job is to look into a cheaper cable plan (we justify having cable since it is pretty much our form of entertainment once our babes are in bed and we have a moment to sit and do nothing) and I need to call the phone company to see if we can lessen our bill at all (I have issues with getting rid of my home phone completely). We need to watch our grocery spending again (is it me or has the price of food gone WAY up?). Really, I never buy clothes or frivilous stuff (look at me, haha) and I cut coupons and use them as much as I can. I hate the idea of starting up working a little bit, even if it is just a little bit. There is something knawing in my tummy when I think about it and I think that is a sign. That being said, I guess we just need to tighten the reigns again and regain a sense of priority and necessity. Please share (pending there is anyone what reads my rambling blog) any of the things you do to save a penny here and there.

2 comments:

salreem said...

Hey this is Sally here, and I love your blog. I never comment since I read blogs from my iPod and it's a pain to type. And I'm no frugal expert or anything. But I hear ya, having quit work for the first time when #2 was born, and it's hard on a number of levels, right? Anyway, one way i save on food that is fun too is Bountiful Baskets. You get a ton of produce for $16.50 each week. I still buy meat and dairy, etc at the store, but I plan my meals around it, and it goes a long way, plus it's fun to learn to cook stuff I never would have otherwise tried (eggplant, acorn squash, etc).

salreem said...

Oops, the info is at bountifulbaskets.org. Also we cut tv completely since we can find pretty much anything we like online these days. We also have netflix and rent movies for Dan at the library. Hope you'll post any other great tips you discover!