My brilliant idea for budgeting this year is to SPEND LESS MONEY. The alternative, EARN MORE MONEY, has its appeal, but H and I are both too pigheaded (Read: Creative) to pursue full-time jobs.
So far, I have canceled my old Earthlink account ($3.95/mo) and resolved to eat more legumes.
But CABLE? Can't cut that. Cell phones with tremendous DATA PLANS? Obviously we need those. HAIRCUTS? Duh. And we only lasted a couple of months sharing a car…
(Photo by Carlotta Manaigo via TOBACCO&LEATHER)
Haha, legumes. Such an official sounding word.
ReplyDeleteI now just go to the library and borrow books/magazines instead of buy them like bananas. I think that should be saving me some money. And I buy less disposable clothes. How mature of me!
dude...netflix saved us MASSIVE amounts of money - we used to buy movies and seasons like it was already out of style...wait...
ReplyDeleteanyways. we pay $8/month and cut the cable and what not...it helps. just a thought.
let me know what you have success with too...we're trying to figure something out here that involves keeping both the water...and the bridge at the same level...impossible?
Ha, we still have cable, but it's for my husband. Well, in fairness, I lobbied for the DVR. However, I'd be happy to cut the cable and watch shows on Netflix and Hulu. He, however, is a sports fan, and that is the primary (if not only) reason we have cable. I would miss the Yankees, I'll admit.
ReplyDeletecookies, creatives can have full-times as well, you know. (cough)
ReplyDeleteI never thought I could cut cable, but I did and got Netflix, mostly because I am SO over giving my money to Comcast. Internet I still have, but cable I have learned to live without. You'd be surprised that you can too.
ReplyDeleteEffing money.
ReplyDeleteYou can call your cable and cell phone providers and tell them you're cutting costs, ask if they can cut you (a loyal customer ;) ) a deal. They will, I promise.
ReplyDeleteWe've never had cable, so we've found other ways to watch shows and sports. For sports, we usually head to the local bar and watch the game there. It's more fun than sitting alone in your living room anyways. They give out free shots when the Packers score.
ReplyDeleteYou can totally live without cable. You miss it at first, but after a while you realize how much TIME you have now that you're not addicted to Jersey Shore and it feels great.
High-five for trying to figure out how to survive on less. So many of our peers spend their every waking second trying to figure out how to make more money so they can have all the typical things that 20 and 30-somethings are supposed to have, like an SUV and 4 kids and an annual skiing trip out west.
I think that's so backwards...we should be trying to figure out how to make less money and need less money. Enjoying the important things in life, and all that, instead of working our lives away. We only get one, you know. And even if we get more than one, you never know, you could come back as a snail or a cockroach, so...
that's about how it's going for us;
ReplyDeleteThank you for being pro-tv and specifically pro-cable, I'm incredibly sick of people who don't have time for insipitudes.
ReplyDeleteWhat k_darling said.
ReplyDeleteyou guys, esb *needs* cable... it ties in with her "creative".
ReplyDeleteesb, i have no answers for you. i am like the dumb 50's housewife (but with a job) that doesn't keep track of her household's finances. i just ask questions like, "do we have money for...", "will we be homeless if i buy...". it's pathetic, but if i had any control, we probably would be homeless.
that being said, try shopping around for cable. when we were in LA, we switched from charter to u-verse and saved about $30 a month. doesn't seem like a lot, but little things like that add up. also, i think you probably already do this, but eat more meals at home. we started doing this and have been saving shit tons. also, unless you can pay them off each month, don't use credit cards! they are the most evil of all. what else... oh yeah, if you can pay off your car insurance in one swoop, major savings.
i guess i did have some answers. huh.
ReplyDeletealso, try my gypsies trick. super-handy.
ReplyDeleteWe dropped our cable bill $20/month by getting rid of On Demand. Kind of hard to get used to, but every little bit adds up. At the same time, I'm now pushing for DVR. $10/month.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Mouse. Effing money.
I second Celia.
ReplyDeleteI asked for cookbooks for Christmas (good ones, not those ones with ridiculous ingredients like saffron which costs $20/gram) and cook 6 days out of the week and bring my lunch in a brown paper bag like I'm in 3rd grade. This has saved me and my guy over $400 each month (I live in Chicago, there are too many tempting restaurants).
For those of you that already do this... I got nothing.
@lauren I knew I would get nailed for that.
ReplyDelete@celia ♥
Yeah, that's our overall goal as well. But we cannot resolve to cut cable and replace it with Netflix. Because we have both cable and Netflix and we NEED both of them. Sometimes we talk about getting rid of Showtime but that only saves $15 a month and Californication starts soon. We are spoiled. We can't make decisions.
ReplyDeleteI've resolved to buy less stuff, specifically less crappy stuff that I don't really need. We'll see how that goes.
I'd say cutting back on the booze. We buy wine around here like it's the apocalypse. If you can do it, power to you. But me and my wine are ride or die.
ReplyDelete