Cutting Corners

Since leaving work, I’ve had time to implement some cost saving measures and monitor finances a little more closely.  It has become one of those challenges that I’m probably a little too fanatical about. Here are some of my accomplishments.

• The easiest cost-savings came from the elimination of certain work-related expenses. Far less gas for the car, left-overs instead of lunch at the cafeteria, and wearing the same pair of yoga pants for a week at a time rather than buying/dry-cleaning clothes.  And I’m pretty sure this puts us in a lower tax bracket. (If I’m wrong about that, April is going to be ugly.)
• I did not get those solar panels , which I’m still very disappointed about especially given the dire warnings about electrical rates for this coming winter. However, our electrical usage has gone down by 2900 kWh compared with the same 7 month period last year for a savings of $277. And I got the first “good” ever on one of my National Grid report cards. Amazing what turning off lights and shutting down a fridge or two can do. The only month that has been higher is this past month because we didn’t get that silly pool closed. (Though we did open it on our own this past spring.)
• Rather than buying a new 40+ yards of mulch, I turned over the existing mulch myself. (I’ve created a monster with this yard.)
• Reducing our grocery budget is probably the biggest source of annoyance to other household members.  I am constantly hearing “There is no food in the house.” But when you know where to look and get a little creative, it is amazing how much food there actually is, and I manage to come up with some pretty good lunches and dinners despite a supposed lack of food. I have also become the Princess of Leftovers. (My mother is the Queen, and I’m not willing to do what is required to take over that title.)
• I’ve taken on various DIY projects. For instance, in the remodel of Meagan’s room, I’ve spent about $50 on a can of paint and $16 on fabric. Though all my DIY projects might be examples of you get what you pay for.
• I’ve made a couple of very small in-roads into the Verizon bill. All these years, we’ve been paying $7 a month for in-home phone line repair service. When is the last time anyone has ever needed in-home repair service on their phone lines? I also bit the bullet and signed up for a two year deal for a slightly lower rate even though two year contracts are against my principles. But it is still obscene how high our monthly Verizon bill is, and I keep pouring over it to find other ways to save. Do we really need 4 HD boxes? Alas, the answer is “yes” for now.
• I never worried about budgets before. We just spent. Now I check the budget every day using Mint. I don’t yet have the analytic data proving this saves us any money since it doesn’t stop us from blowing through the budget, but my situational awareness couldn’t be better.  A small aside – I started off using Quicken for the budget since that’s what I use to balance the checkbook. I did a quick Google search on Quicken versus Mint and found out that balancing a checkbook is passé and Quicken for budgeting is for old fogies (or people concerned with computer security, but that wouldn’t be me).  I still feel compelled to balance my checkbook.
• I called my credit card company asking for a better deal. And they gave it to me! It’s a cash back card, and they pretty much match what I earn because I have the cash go directly into an account I have with them. So we now use the credit card for EVERYTHING.
• For 30 or so years, we’ve pretty much used a head-in-the-sand approach to managing our retirement funds. Even though this has worked out quite well for us, we’ve been informed that our approach is only marginally better than the ever popular panic approach. Being inches away from the retirement end zone, it has been suggested that we rebalance our highly aggressive portfolio that is appropriate for 20-somethings to a portfolio more appropriate for 50-somethings. So, I’m having the professionals do that. For a fee, of course. I hope it’s worth it.
• The financial advisor also suggested we think about an umbrella policy since we have a teenager who might have a pool party when we are not home. And he hadn’t even seen that draft post I have not been given permission to publish. So, in a panic, I signed us up for an umbrella policy that day.  Next on my financial to do list is to get quotes from other insurance companies to make sure we got a reasonable price.