Sunday, October 12, 2008

Wake up and smell the savings

Oprah’s done it again! I just watched my TiVo’d (is that really even a verb?!?!) episode of Oprah from Wednesday 10/8 and I’m on a mission! In response to the country’s economic crisis, the episode featured “One of the thriftiest families in America” and one of my personal favorites, “The Coupon Mom” amongst other guests. After watching this show, I have decided to WAKE UP and become more conscious of our family’s spending. I have definitely said this before and tried to “budget”, but I’ve never really done it. I think mainly, because I’ve never really had a plan. Well, I’ve made a plan! Here are the first steps I’m going to take…starting TODAY!
1 – Find out where our money is going – I’m going to start keeping a journal of every penny we spend (Derek – start saving your receipts!) and I’m going to separate our spending into 2 columns; wants and needs
2 – Evaluate our spending end of the month
3 – Create a budget (for real!!!) based on this information

I’ve already realized a few things that we can change in order to save more money. Here are a few…
1 – Be more organized about clipping/using coupons (and plan meals according to those coupons)
2 – Curb my spending on things I can do myself - I actually started this morning…I’ve been wanting to get an eyebrow wax for a while now, and immediately after watching this show, realized I should just tweeze them myself and save about $20…baby steps, right! I plan on doing my toes later, which I also think will help me appreciate the occasional pedicure I’ll treat myself to (when we’ve saved for it, of course)!
3 – Make more things instead of buying them (ex…birthday cards)
4 – Cut off our home phone line – we don’t even use it and it costs $30/month!
5 - Dine out at restaurants that offer free kid's meals

I’m sure there are many more things I can add to this list, and I will…but hey, at least it’s a start! Plus, now that I’ve told this to all of you out there, I REALLY have to stick to it! I’ll keep you posted!

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