Two cars both fairly recent, only one car payment which is about 350 a month. Its zero interest so not in a rush paying it down.
The housing costs are mostly the deck, painted a few rooms during covid, needed a door fixed and then some random garden and diy projects.
Obviously it is the food budget we need to look at. Restaurants is nothing fancy, it would be like earls. But basically are house is pretty much no red meat besides the odd steak i get myself. Many chicken and salmon, it doesnt seem like we buy expensive stuff trying to get a lot of bulk-ish superstore stuff. One thing we noticed that we are working on is buying too much produce at one time and having waste.
This one I have a tip for that works in my house. We cut up all of our vegetables when we get home from the store and put them in Tupperware in the fridge. It's so much more convenient to eat vegetables once they're already in snack form. Because of this, we go through them faster and never have waste. If say the cauliflower is on its last legs, just dump it into the pot to steam it for a side with supper. If it was still in the head you may not bother, but as it's already prepped it's so easy.
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A simple trick not mentioned: make mortgage Payment Weekly or at least bi-weekly rather than monthly. It makes a big difference in the amount of interest paid.
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House 16.5 seems high. That doesn't include mortgage or utilities, so is that all renos and furniture?
Travel 4.25 seems high as well. If you're looking to reduce costs, cutting airplane vacations is low hanging fruit.
Once Tiger said the "house" included things like a new deck and since other household costs are accounted for elsewhere, I read that it was so high due to large one-time expenditures and could be trimmed to near zero if needed...
If you're looking to save, I'd defer anything that isn't a definite "need" (sounds like the new deck was more of a want).
don't forget to add your cable bill and phone plan costs in there, unless that's under entertainment.
Cables is in there, phones luckily are paid by work.
Just some background never been too concerned about money hence why it is likely high spending. But with all going on just wanted to do a deep dive. I am really in a position of being fortunate with having a good paying job, but currently hate it and am willing to take a job I like for less but would need to cut costs if I take in less, on top of the cuts to salary now.
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
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Cables is in there, phones luckily are paid by work.
Just some background never been too concerned about money hence why it is likely high spending. But with all going on just wanted to do a deep dive. I am really in a position of being fortunate with having a good paying job, but currently hate it and am willing to take a job I like for less but would need to cut costs if I take in less, on top of the cuts to salary now.
Not the advice you're asking for, but with how things are right now, I would buckle down and wring out everything I could from a higher paying job while I could... Make hay and all that... It might be a good opportunity to budget for lower income and you could try to live off that lower amount, while saving the balance for investments, rainy day fund, etc.
Not the advice you're asking for, but with how things are right now, I would buckle down and wring out everything I could from a higher paying job while I could... Make hay and all that... It might be a good opportunity to budget for lower income and you could try to live off that lower amount, while saving the balance for investments, rainy day fund, etc.
That advice is well worth repeating- a quick trip to retirement.
Easy areas to cut costs this week that pay forward:
- home internet / phone / cable. Many options to reduce this. Highly negotiable.
- Cell bills... don't go with a primary provider, go with a secondary, and take advantage of promotions and such. No reason to always have latest phone, nor mega gig plans
- insurance... re-examine what you actually need for home, vehicle (driving much since Covid), personal, health, etc...
- Consumables... (excluding food stuffs). Can do well watching for sales and appropriate stocking up
- Clothing... don't need latest/greatest, nor trendy. plus majority of clothing lasts a long time. Kids go through stuff so fast no point buying lots of good stuff, just buy 2-3 favorites. Oddly enough Value Village and Goodwill often have brand new clothing/never worn for fraction of new costs. My kids like nothing more than to be given a $20 and told to go buy what they want there... plus it's entertaining as heck.
- Prioritize savings / investments. Don't invest in stupid stuff, high MER, or GIC's.
- Vacations... don't need to always have deluxe ones, often a fun domestic road trip can be 1/5 of that trip to Hawaii or even Mexico. Or camping.
- Use coupons, groupon, and deals whenever/wherever possible.
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Semi-related question: how has the pandemic impacted your spending? Working from home means a lot less money spent on lunches, no eating out, and we generally haven't ordered takeout as much either. Also haven't taken a trip since this all started, which means our travel expenses have basically been zero.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geraldsh
A simple trick not mentioned: make mortgage Payment Weekly or at least bi-weekly rather than monthly. It makes a big difference in the amount of interest paid.
Not a bad tip, but if the OP is concerned with where his money is going, this doesn't help in terms of monthly cashflow. Agreed it will cut down on total interest paid though.
Semi-related question: how has the pandemic impacted your spending? Working from home means a lot less money spent on lunches, no eating out, and we generally haven't ordered takeout as much either. Also haven't taken a trip since this all started, which means our travel expenses have basically been zero.
Not a bad tip, but if the OP is concerned with where his money is going, this doesn't help in terms of monthly cashflow. Agreed it will cut down on total interest paid though.
For the Pandemic, it has definitely affected certain areas
Groceries: home more and trying new recipes and likely leading to increases
Fast food: probably a little more just to get out.
Resturants: Felt like there was a duty to order in from restaurants more because we were more fortunate
Gas/Car payments: Did have a vehicle allowance and gas allowance... now I don't
Online shopping: definitely up with all this, hand sanitizers and masks way up year over year
Books: way up because of libraries being closed
Jogging pants: slightly up
Travel: is way down, plus some of that budget is prepaying a hotel for an upincoming trip (that is fully cancellable)
The data is definitely changed because of 2020, it would be interesting to look at 2019 and see how it changed but that would be a lot of work.
As for the mortgage already accelerated biweekly, but unfortunately recently renewed last summer for 5 years which is too bad... should have stayed open
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- Aristotle
