When I graduated from college, oh, a few years ago, my grandmother gifted me with the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class.
At the time, I thought it was a slightly lame gift since other gifts were money, money, diamond ring, James Avery jewelry, money and money. BUT, in retrospect, that class has been the wonderful gift that keeps on giving! As we've inched along into our eek! 30s, Daniel and I have gradually eased into attempting to be more financially responsible. As of late, we've put it into seriously high gear and attempted to get our act together, in order to make our salaries stretch as far as possible.
You may remember me making a big deal out of cutting my grocery budget here and here It was a big success, and I report back to you almost four months later and can say we are saving A LOT of money with our new system. No, it's not as convenient as running down to Wal-Mart once a month, but it's getting easier the more I do it. I don't even have to refer to my deal-spotter-spreadsheet very often because I've been able to memorize the prices and where the deals are. I don't venture out to other stores for weekly deals very often, but only when the prices can beat the deals I get at Sam's or Wal-Mart.
We took it a step further and are now reigning in the rest of our spending with a throwback to my Financial Peace University (FPU) class using the envelope system. Ramsey teaches that you should budget every dollar of income each month and assign it a location for spending or saving. Then, take all the money to be spent and distribute it into assigned spending envelopes for the month (i.e. gas, groceries, Daniel's personal, Steph's personal, kids, eating out, etc.), so as to have no need for check cards or, heaven forbid, credit cards. We've had a lot of success with this system in the past, but had not returned to it after our long move to Texas. Now, we're back on track. We're even more serious about it this time, and have the official FPU envelope instead of just a stack of loose envelopes clipped together and hanging on the fridge.
We've stuck to the system for a couple of months now, and we're giving ourselves a pat on the back for how well it's working. You don't realize how much all the unnecessary spending adds up at the end of the month until you see that you've spent all your money by the 15th! Our biggest spending addiction is eating out, and in May, we had spent all our eating out money by the middle of the month. Fortunately, we learned our lesson and have rationed it out much better this month and have plenty left to enjoy throughout the rest of the month!
Some of the new ways I've started saving money are:
1. Buy gift card at Wal-Mart with my monthly gas money. Wal-Mart gas is almost always the best deal around, and if you pay with a Wal-Mart card (credit or gift), it is five cents cheaper per gallon! With gas prices going up this summer, this is helping to stretch my gas budget.
2. We're trying to eat out at different places. We've traded Salt Grass Steak House for Jason's Deli.
3. I asked my doctor for a different prescription that would cost less than what she had been giving me. Not only did she give me a script for a less expensive product, but also a card from the drug company that acts as a coupon that certifies me for a lower price at CVS. This is saving me $33 per month!
Y'all had awesome suggestions about grocery shopping savings in March, now, I'm coming back to you for more tips! What are your favorite ways to save money? Where are the restaurants you eat (not out of an unhealthy brown bag) out at for less money? I can't wait to hear all your tips!!!
6 comments:
You've had great tips Stephanie and have inspired me to take a look at coupons. Your envelope system sounds like a good idea also, and I guess it would be the same as budgeting in Microsoft Money (which can be used on your mac as well). It allows you to budget every cent and shows you pie charts, spending trends, etc. It is incredibly easy to use it's awesome knowing how much you have down to the penny. I will say that having a credit card with rewards has been great for us. We charge absolutely everything on it (if it's over $15). All of our bills, gas, whatever. Some of those things earn double rewards. As long as you pay it off every month, which can be done automatically online, there are so many benefits. There is a yearly charge of around $32, but we've gotten over $1500 back from it just from redeeming our rewards as statement credit!
I haven't used Microsoft Money, but just use Excel. I'll look at MM because it sounds interesting.
Ramsey's whole idea behind the envelope system is that you spend much less money when you actually have to hand over cash instead of plastic. We have been using debit and check cards with rewards for a few years, but since going to cash only, we are spending almost $1000 per month less! I am amazed at how much we are controlling our spending by this new system.
That system is great. We were just talking last night, that we've got to get back on the program.
I'm praying that Al will get a takehome car soon so that we can cut our gas budget in half!!! Sheesh.
Hi Stephanie! We also love Dave Ramsey, we download his radio show daily and also follow his FPU online. We have be so amazed at how much his plan makes a huge difference! Congrats on sticking to his plan:)
Funny how this post got me thinking... I was laying in bed thinking about my reply about the credit card and then started thinking about going to target and paying cash for all of the things we've bought recently. Turns out, I probably wouldn't have bought a lot of those things if I didn't have the card. I guess I never really thought about it that way, but that would certainly make me stop and think before I bought something. I almost wish I wouldn't have read this post because I know that I'm going to have to do something about it!! :)
Allison - There is definitely a psychology behind how easy it is to swipe plastic than it is to fork over cash. I didn't buy into it that much when I first took the course, but I've found it to be strong truth as we've put it into action. It's difficult when you know the money is in the bank, but we just don't carry any of our cards with us. With only cash on us, it seriously limits our spending. We make different decisions no matter what the experience is. I get water at restaurants instead of tea, we've started using coupons constantly - even at restaurants, etc. I'm not going to lie, it takes a bit of fun and freedom out of life, but I've found that the rewards of having so much left over at the end of the month outweighs the fun of spending!
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