Cutting down some useless bills

While preparing for a baby we asked ourselves where we could trim a few bills to save some extra money every month. The first bill we decided to cut was our cable bill. Let me first tell you that I am a sports fanatic. I coach a varsity basketball team and played multiple sports throughout my entire life. My wife and I also really enjoy relaxing and watching popular shows together. However, realizing that we were spending over $100.00 a month to sit and waste time we decided to trim the bill down. We first tried to cancel cable altogether and just keep our internet. Our plan was to use our Xbox with internet to access Netflix when we wanted to watch certain tv shows we really liked and buy a cheap antenna for our nice 55 inch flatscreen tv for basic channels such as nbc and abc. After calling Comcast we were able to get our price down to $40.00 a month which included the basic 10 channels or so and the same fast internet we had. This has been the best thing that could have happened. By having the basic channels we also have access to on demand so we can watch popular shows such as the Walking Dead the following day or whenever we want to and actually have the time. Also, a lot of important sport games are on the basic channels so I can still watch them. Now, you may be worried about your ESPN, ESPN, or if you like the NBA, the playoffs were on TNT all channels we do not get. Well if you have you comcast e-mail information you can download the espn free app and tnt app and as long as you have an e-mail and password you can access those channels on your tablet or phone. I was able to watch all of the NBA playoffs on the iPad while my wife watched her shows on tv. This added $60.00 a month has been nice as well as forced us to do other things such as house work when we would have normally watched tv. Now, there are many days where I wish I could just turn to HGTV and watch some of my favorite shows instead of watching the episodes available on Demand, however I ALWAYS think later while i am doing something productive, "Wow I'm glad we don't have those channels to distract us". I am so glad that we lowered our cable and have been accomplishing more in our home and saving money at the same time. Oh, I almost forgot about the antenna thing. So although we ended up not needing an antenna, I had bought one for $10.00 at Best Buy and put it on the tv in the guest bedroom. It actually got about 60 channels including all the ones I have on my tv downstairs in my Comcast package. Even if the guy at the store tells you it won't get a specific national channel such as abc or nbc, it will so don't believe them. If you want to accomplish more, save money, and also limit the tv your family watches I would challenge you to try this. You won't regret it. Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think!

Saving Hundreds by making breakfast and lunch

One of the easiest ways to save some money is by not spending money at your job. People all over the world plan their budgets and where they are going to spend their money, but buy their breakfast and lunch at Wawa every day. If you are spending $10.00 a day and working just 20 days a month, you are spending $200.00 a month from your earnings. Why waste this money on overpriced food. Also, carrying a sweet lunchbox around is cool nowadays! Now I know that you are going to have cravings for breakfast sandwiches, but these occasional cravings can be filled from your restaurant fund on the weekend or occasional day so trust me you can do this. Instead of buying out food everyday we make breakfast every day and bring our lunch. It doesn't take that much time or effort to do these two things and I think our lunches and breakfast is better and saves us money. For example during our grocery trip we buy a lb of ham ($3.50) and a lb of cheese ($4), 2 boxes of wheat thins ($5), 6 greek yogurt ($5) , 6 regular yogurt ($3) , 2 loaves of wheat bread($4) , 2 dozen eggs (3.50), a container of strawberries and one of blueberries ($4), a bunch of bananas ($4), a bag of apples ($2.50),  and a double package of Thomas English Muffin ($4). Also Maxwell coffee container ($7) and creamer  ($4). These costs total $53.50. I actually chose slightly higher prices for most things than what we spend at a local discount produce store, but wanted to overshoot. So for this $53.50 for 2 weeks you can make an egg with cheese on an english muffin every day for 2 people. Also brew your coffee in a typical coffee maker and use a to go mug to take to work. For lunch I typically make a ham and cheese sandwich, bag of wheat things, yogurt, and apple. My wife normally has peanut butter and jelly sandwich, greek yogurt, wheat things, and cut up strawberries and blueberries. This lunch has a variety of foods meanwhile we save almost $150.00 + that we would spend at Wawa or some other store every day by buying our food. I have seen many people spend $10.00 alone at lunch + $5.00 for breakfast totally $15.00 a day. Compared to these people by making our lunch which takes no more than 5 minutes in the morning and making our coffee and breakfast we would save about $250.00 a month by doing this. If you buy your breakfast or lunch out PLEASE DON'T! Try making these two meals and see how much extra money you see in your bank account at the end of the month. Little changes like these really add up. Leave me a comment below and let me know if you are going to try it or what you think!

How to manage your spending

One of the toughest tasks is trying to save money meanwhile still enjoying your life. In order to help us in this task we went back to an old spending limit system, the envelope system. We split all of typical categories of spending and set a limit for each month. We spend the money from the envelopes until it runs out. All of these categories are non bill related such as groceries, restaurants, haircuts, dry cleaners, home renovation projects, baby equipment (we are having a baby soon) etc. Let me backtrack a little and recommend that you first start with adding up your total monthly income. Next, calculate all of your required monthly bills. I recommend setting an amount you want to be able to save per month and add this into the required monthly bill category. A wise person once told me to pay yourself first each month. Otherwise you always end up saving whatever is left at the end of the month which normally isn't much. After subtracting all of your bills, categorize the rest of your spending to generate envelopes. Set an amount for each envelope that seems reasonable. Some examples of our envelopes are $300.00 a month for groceries, $200.00 for restaurants, $100.00 for gifts (it's always someones birthday, wedding, or any other reason to give a gift), $30.00 for haircuts, $20.00 for dry cleaners, and $100 for home renovation projects. We have more envelopes but these are just a few. As you begin to make envelopes you will realize that you have more expenses than you realize. After creating your monthly amounts for the envelopes you might be able to add more to your monthly savings or realize why it has been so difficult each month with your finances. Now, the whole envelope idea is that each month you take the money from your paycheck and divide it into the respective envelopes. During the month you take your cash from the envelopes and only make purchases with your envelope money. DO NOT USE YOUR DEBIT CARD. YOU DON'T NEED TO! Once the money in an envelope is gone, you have reached your budget limit. Spending this way makes sure that you aren't just spending money places because you think you have a little extra in your bank account for the month. If you have extra money in a category after a month you add the next months budget to it and continue to do this. Some expenses you might not use each month such as a haircut can be calculated keeping this in mind. We have been able to save a fairly high number every month while using this system and it has helped control our spending. It may seem like an inconvenience at first to remember to grab cash or you may be inconvenienced when you see a sale and really want to just swipe your credit card. I would say just don't buy it. You probably don't really need what you are tempted to buy and it will most likely limit how much money you can save. If you are trying to find ways to lower your monthly spending on specific categories I will talk about that later. Good luck! Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think! I'm a newbie so any feedback would be great!