Ways to have a FULL Life But Save Money

So yesterday I posted about how we are debt free and I wanted to share a little bit more about how we did that…. Or maybe what we did NOT do to do that.

 

Our biggest household expense was groceries.  As you all clearly know, I’ve been trying to keep our family eating 80% healthy, 20% treats.  Which can get really expensive and can be difficult do on a budget.  So here are a few things that I did to decrease costs:
 

1      I planned what we were going to eat every week.  This helped in two ways- one, I was able to plan if we could have a meal that took a long time to cook because Mike was off or if I needed a quick, easy meal because it would be just me and Lucas cooking.  You all remember what happened when I let Lucas cook eggs with me right?  The second thing it does was keep us from running out to eat at a restaurant because we were out of food.

      When we do go out to eat, we picked places that had $5 specials (thank you Dairy Queen!) or we ate at Costco.  Our family of 3 can eat there for under $10.  I can’t tell you the last time we went to a nicer restaurant as a family if someone else wasn’t paying for it…. Maybe when we were on vacation last summer?  It’s just not something that we DID.  It was a short-term sacrifice that we made to have long-term financial success.
 

3    We aren’t just stopping at Costco to eat…we are stopping there to SHOP.  Yes, it is a 45 minute drive for me but it is worth it to get fresh, organic produce and foods to stock up on.  Their prices are amazing and the quantity of food often lasts us 1-2 weeks, depending on what it is.

But what about activities… did you just sit in the house all day and stare at each other?  Of course not!  But we planned out what we would do.
 

1.   We bought passes to the Butterfly House and Sioux Falls Zoo.

     For the price of what it would have cost us to go twice, we were able to go multiple times and can continue to go for the entire year.  This is so nice with a toddler because his interest can last 30 minutes or it can last hours and I never have to worry about wasted money.

    I make different things at home for Lucas to do using supplies from the Dollar Store.  You can check out the full post on this HERE.

3.       I plan, plan, plan what I am going to buy Lucas for birthday/Christmas.  I spent more time than I would like to admit planning out our Black Friday shopping.  But I was able to get Lucas twice as much as what I could at any other time of the year.

4.      I buy toys that he will enjoy NOW and in the future.  We don’t have a lot of plastic Fisher Price stuff because I know he won’t use it a few months from now.  We have blocks and magnets and things that require him (and us!) to use our imagination.  I’m not saying he doesn’t have ANY of it, but I would say 75% of his toys are ones he will continue to use for the next 2-3 years. 

5.       We go to FREE local events.  Our Community Ed program doesn’t do nearly as much with Lucas’ age as I would like, but when they do something, we are THERE.  I also pay for Lucas to go to the Early Childhood Family Education program (which has a sliding fee scale) so we can do that one time a week.  If the library has something that I can take Lucas to, we go.  Actually, we usually go one time a week to let him run around in a new environment and check out some new books.  In the summer, we go to all of their events!   We are big readers in our house! 

6.       We went on vacations that were close.  For Mike’s 30^th birthday, we rode tripped to Yellowstone and back.  We packed groceries, made our meals, and had a set budget.  

When we went to Omaha, we did the same thing.

 

And to be honest, when we do our family vacation this summer (Location TBD), we will probably STILL do that.  Old habits die hard!

I can’t look back on any one thing and say I regretted not doing that because we were trying to save money.   Lucas is a healthy eater and most of what we buy for him is organic.  Although the below was a total FAIL on my part… poor kid. 

It tastes like dirt. Please do not feed to your child. 

We have all had great experiences and made fun family memories!  And now that we are debt free, we get to continue to make fun family memories without the stress of debt on our minds!  If you're looking for other ways to better manage your money or help with savings for retirement, head over to Personal Capital's web site.  They have some great free financial tools that can help you!