Here's my plan so far. Eliminate eating out and gas station snack runs, been doing it about a week. Ran calculations and we spent $1300 over the past three months on fast food and snacks from convenience stores. That kills us. My work will give me a cell phone to use for free. I plan on getting out of my Sprint contract and getting my wife a prepaid phone. Any suggestions? I think we spend too much on groceries. This past week I challenged my wife to only spend $20 for the whole week in groceries. Well, I was able to get it done with $23. I don't think we can do that each week as I extremely limited our menu, but I think $35-40 is within reason.
As for the credit card and loans, any ideas?
The first thing I would ask is how much you are actually putting into savings/investments right now. That's a very different number for most people than the number that "should" be left over. Do you have a 401k? If you have a good handle on how much you have left over, up your 401k contribution and use some of that extra money there. Since that's pre-tax money, the amount deposited into your 401k is more than you'd get in your paycheck on the same income.
The second thing I would ask is whether your wife is on board with this $20 a week in groceries plan. It sounds like you are very gung ho and excited to start making changes, but you are part of a team and your teammate needs to have her opinions taken into account too. I also see a lot of people who are very excited at first, and make a lot of cuts, and then backslide because the change is just too much all at once. From the budget you have given us, you are not living large now, so make sure you talk to your wife about these changes before you decide they're happening!
Few other questions:
Where did the cc debt come from? Is that recent?
Also, can you separate out the gas station runs from eating out - with a 22 mile commute, I am betting most of that is gas.
Do you feel like you waste money on groceries that you don't need or do you eat high quality foods which run up the grocery cost? $400 a month for 3 people isn't great but it isn't noticeably horrible either.