Frugality: Fails and Accomplishments

Another week has passed in our family's journey toward increasing our frugality and paying off our debt.  As we have so often been reminded on this long journey, there are ups and downs and what works for others may not work for us and vice versa.

We might as well start with the positives.  Accomplishments:

• no daycare for the week: didn't have much control over this with the snow, but savings: $38

• Camdyn made homemade birthday cards for two birthday parties on Saturday: so much cuter and special, savings: about $3

• I ate leftovers for lunch all week: savings: about $15

• We ate PBJ sandwiches instead of going through the drive-through Wednesday after church: savings: about $15

Fails:

Friday the hubby and I spent the day in town after his doctor's appointment.  I was so excited to spend some coupons I had received in the mail. Two coupons were for $10 off of $10 spent at JCPenny and then I had $15 in rewards at Rack Room.  The plan was to only spend $20 at JCP and then essentially spend nothing out of pocket.  Then I had expected to spend a little more than $15 at Rack Room because I had my doubts that I would find a decent pair of shoes for less than $15.  I don't mind to spend a little extra on sandals because I wear them FOREVER and need them to last.  I was planning on spending no more than $20 out of pocket for all of this.  But, that didn't work out.  

The JCP coupons had to be used in 2 separate transactions and what I had picked out was more than $10, so I over spent there.  Then, I couldn't stand to not use the other one and ended up picking up 2 little casual shirts so that I could use the coupon--overspent there as well.  At Rack Room the shoes were $35, so I spent $20 out of pocket.  To make a longer story, even longer, I spent $47 for 3 shirts and a pair of sandals. Not too bad, but I wish it would have been less.

All in all, not too bad of a week.  We keep reminding ourselves to stay focused and all of our hard work will pay off in the end.  Also, we are learning to give ourselves grace and allowing ourselves to spend a little money here or there so we don't indulge all at once when we feel frustrated.  While I might not have gotten as good of deals as I had hoped for when I went shopping, I sure can't wait to wear those new clothes!!!

*Linking up with Works For Me Wednesdays*

A few minutes of my time saved me $522!

Sometimes I feel like we can barely hold our noses above water when it comes to our bills.  Am I alone here?  We have been on the road to trying to get out of debt for a long time.  I feel like we finally have our grocery budget in check (more on that in a later post) and have cut out a lot of unnecessary spending, but I feel like I can always do more!

While living in the middle of nowhere has its perks--the kids can play outside in their pajamas and no one can really see them or maybe that was me in the garden... Anyways, we seem to pay a crazy amount for our internet and somehow our part of the country hasn't reached the 21st century in terms of cell phone technology, so we still have a landline.  Sometimes I just stare at the spreadsheet and hope some answers will magically appear...  So, in my trance I decided it was a good idea to work on our landline phone and internet bills.  (I wonder if this same trance will work if I stare in the mirror. Will I find the answer to melting away fat and still eating cake? Maybe it's worth a shot...)  Here's how I managed to save us some money:

 1st call: Telephone Company
  I called customer service and told them I needed to reduce my bill as much as possible.  We get good enough cell service that I can use my cell phone most of the time, but we really do need to hang on to this line for emergencies.  The guy on the other end was so helpful!  He put us on a new plan, which saved us $15 a month.  Then, he said he could bundle our phone services with our already existing satelite TV service and save us another $6 a month.  Total savings: $21/month  Total length of call: 16 minutes

2nd call: Satelite Internet Company
  I HATE satelite internet.  While I suppose I should be grateful we can get any internet service at all, satelite service isn't my favorite.  Maybe hate is too strong of a word, but I really really dislike it.  We pay $70 a month and we also have a cap on our usage.  A huge expense in our already tight budget.  I finally convinced the hubby to cancel it.  When I called I was discouraged to hear that it was a $297 penalty for getting out of our contract early--ugh!  But I didn't give up, the guy on the other end said he would offer us $15 off for 10 months for being longtime customers and put us on a lower package for another $10/month savings.  Total savings: $25/month  Total length of call: 22 minutes

Here's my advice to you:
  1.  Look over your budget and see what might have some flexibility.
  2.  Call those companies, even if you don't want to get rid of the service the cost could be lowered.
  3.  Beg, plead, gravel, swallow your pride and ask for a discount.
  4.  If that doesn't work, threaten to completely cancel your service.

38 minutes saved us $46/month and $522 for the year.  I'll take that hourly rate any day!