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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Trimming the fat

No I'm not talking about the fat on my body. I'm talking about my very overweight budget.

Let's start at the beginning. You may remember one of my last posts where I was complaining about Obamacare and the outrageous price of health insurance. Actually we should go back a little farther.

I love to listen to Dave Ramsey. His big slogan is "Live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else.". I'm not sure what has gotten into me, other than I'm tired of giving my hard earned money away just to be "cool".

Starting with cell phones. Seriously how bad do I need to talk to someone? $100 per month??? No, try talking to the tune of $200 per month!!!

What about my very nice car...do I need a car that has a nasty payment? I drive about 10 miles a day, that includes taking my child to school work picking him up and going home. I could use a bicycle for that...except its too cold.

So I've been looking At where our money goes and the first thing I did was cut back...way back on eating out. It was crazy how much of our money we were eating! Now I'm thinking about the cell phones....I want to keep more of our money. I want to scale back.

Do any of you use a pay as you go phone? If so which one and please tell me about it.
<3 Kelly

6 comments:

Tire Swing Mom said...

A very long time ago I used a Trac Phone and I didn't care too much for it. Of course, that's been a while and they are better now I'm sure. Our cell bill (2 phones) runs $90 per month. We have unlimited text but have blocked everything else after our teen daughter ran the bill up a couple months with downloads, etc.

My nephew and his wife (and two sons) did away with their cable/satellite and just watch local channels and dvds of old t.v. series. It seems to work for them.

Good luck. We could all cut back more I'm sure and be the better for it.

Amber said...

I've been taking a hard look at our budget lately too and I've trimmed about $300 out of our monthly bills. Switched insurance companies, cut back the cable bill, and bundles up our phone bill with Steven's mom so it was cut in half. Crazy how quickly you can save money if you just try and make a few sacrifices!

Jessica said...

I wanted to get a pay-as-go phone, but my husband thought it would be impractical.

I am also trying to save more money (especially since I am now a stay at home mom). Some of the ways that I am trying to save are to 1)cook more, 2) avoid unnecessary trips/combine trips (to avoid gas), 3) use my home phone more than my cell phone before 9 pm.

I wish you the best of luck in your efforts to "trim the fat" in your budget.

Rachel said...

Well, we just saved something like $60 a month because we gave up my phone plan. Before you laugh and wonder why a deaf person needs a cell phone - I can tell you that the cell phone company made it sound like the best deal was to package it up with my husband's cell.

It wasn't. Now I have a basic cell phone, an unlimited text message plan, and pre-paid $10 monthly calling minutes in case someone else needs to use my phone in an emergency. So it's working well - the phone displays the amount of dollars and minutes on the front screen, so it's pretty easy for us. I'd run by Verizon and see what they can offer you?

Rachel said...

And kudos on the tough budgeting! We are doing similar things right now!

Beth Zimmerman said...

We are seriously addicted to our cell phones and going to Androids has upped the price because now we all "need" web access! But I totally agree with you on needing to cut back the eating out budget! It's way out of control!