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 30th 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!
