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Trying to lower monthly bills

November 11th, 2008 at 03:05 pm

I'm going through all of our bills today. I'm trying to see if I can lower or eliminate my bills.

So far, I switched to digital phone with our Internet provider. We'll be saving $14.34 a month, and we will be getting free unlimited long distance with that. (We had no long distance on our other phone, and paid more.)

I am at a loss about what else to cut, though. We do pay $11 a month for curbside recycling, but I don't think the hubby will give that up. we could just drop off our recyclables once a week at the Home Depot, but it is convenient to just drop stuff in the bin and put it out once a week.

Any thoughts?

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

11 Responses to “Trying to lower monthly bills”

  1. disneysteve Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 03:18 pm 1226416730
    1226416730

    I'm amazed that some towns charge for recycling when it saves them so much money. Our town does everything they can to encourage recycling. We even got the RecycleBank program this year that pays us rewards based on how much we recycle. It is saving the township millions in landfill fees, which saves us money and keeps taxes lower.

    I think if we had to pay to recycle, I'd probably drop it off myself.

    What else to cut? Have you gotten fresh quotes on all of your insurance policies like auto, home and life? Switching providers could save some money there.

  2. mooshocker Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 03:34 pm 1226417648
    1226417648

    On another note, your progress report is very inspiring.

  3. thriftorama Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 04:19 pm 1226420341
    1226420341

    switching insurers wouldn't save enough to make it worth it, I tried that already, but thanks!

  4. lizajane Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 04:54 pm 1226422462
    1226422462

    If Home Depot is on your way to somewhere, I would do the drop off and save the $11. If you'd have to make a special trip, it's probably not worth it.

  5. Dawn Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 07:53 pm 1226433214
    1226433214

    Have you switched some (or all) of your light bulbs to cfls? I cut my electric bill in half that way.

  6. thriftorama Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 08:03 pm 1226433831
    1226433831

    Most of my lightbulbs are CFLs. see? I feel like I'm running out of things to do!

  7. disneysteve Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 10:44 pm 1226443459
    1226443459

    Unrelated to your question, but I notice on your sidebar that you are funding a 529 but not maxing your husband's Roth. I would suggest reconsidering that plan. If necessary, you could always take money out of the Roth to use toward college and if not needed, it would still be growing tax-free for retirement. Better to put the money in the Roth. That way you can use it for retirement or college.

  8. my english castle Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 11:51 pm 1226447512
    1226447512

    I feel your pain. I read all these budget tips in magazines or elsewhere and can rarely find something we don't do. How about your hot water heater? Is it up too high? I just cut out the daily newspaper since there are always free papers at the university.

    How about insulation? Draft stoppers? If you come up with a winner, let us all know!

  9. whitestripe Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 03:22 am 1226460134
    1226460134

    i feel the same, all these 'saving money' tips are already things that i do anyway!

  10. Alice K Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 11:46 am 1226490374
    1226490374

    If you gave up your full time job you have already saved money by not driving as much, not having to wear and buy work clothes, not paying for day care and being able to spend time penny pinching. Second hand stores, garage sales and Goodwill stores are chock full of the things you need for your home. Also I have found that eating a whole foods diet actually cut our food costs. I buy fresh fruits and vegetables that are in season and my husband buys all the meat and it has to be on sale. It is amazing how eating healthier has cut the food bill and it is stable. There are expenses with working that very few see and it costs alot of money to have 2 people working. Also if money is a great concern, don't spend $6000 on a vacation, use it to buy the car. Just my thoughts

  11. thriftorama Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 04:12 pm 1226506347
    1226506347

    It's true that we don't miss my full-time salary as much as we thought we would .Sure, the savings account doesn't grow by leaps and bounds automatically every two weeks anymore, but if we had to pay for daycare, it wouldn't anyway. And, I do eat home more, don't have to buy office clothes, and don't eat out every day for lunch, or go on two coffee runs a day (I was bad...). But, I just wanted to get our monthly recurring bills down to as low a level as possible. Why pay more than you have to?

    My monthly recurring bills are
    Home phone (just switched to lower cost plan)
    Cell phone (One more year left on contract, so I'm sticking it out because we use this phone often.)
    Internet (Just combined with home phone to save $14 a month)
    Electricity (I could do better, with vampire electricity)
    Gas (Low. Only hot water is on this and for most of the year, our geothermal heating system heats some of the hot water.)
    Water (once every three months)
    The insurance for car and home have been shopped for rates in the last three months and are on the low end for the coverage we need.

    My credit card bill is the biggest expense, because we put all of our purchases on there for the rewards and pay it off every month. We are tackling this this month by seriously reigning in spending.

    As for food,
    We belong to a farm coop, so we get fresh local organic veggies for about $10 a week from May to October. We also plant a large garden, but we lost most of this year's stash due to a week-long electricity outage in late September.

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