Suprabhat, Sravuri2710: (or Kahli vanakum, or whatever your local dialect is) Namaste! All the best to you, your wife, and family in India. I’m originally from the South… (Alabama) where family is also a strong tie-that-binds-for-life.
Good work so far - but there is more you can / should do. Comments here have (correctly) focused on the debt - a Hair-On-Fire-Debt-Emergency - make no mistake. But after a month, you might see the light at the end of the HOFDE tunnel.
Sounds like your 'stashe is starting to GROW... Congratulations!
I hope by now you're:
1) 'Brown Bagging' your lunch EVERY DAY. (saving $50/week - assuming $10/day)
2) Taking public transit or riding your bike, or driving a used car to work. (now that the car has been sold - congrats!)
3) Selling excess junk / things you haven’t used in 6 months on CraigsList/Ebay.
Now for the face punches:
You're still spending too much on monthly bills. People have been focused on the Credit Card debt - correctly - but there's room for savings in the routine stuff. You may already be doing some-or-most of this. If so… GREAT! If not, here are some ideas to help you (and other lurkers who are in the same situation but don't want to admit it).
Electric bill:
LED lights - cost $4/bulb Amazon, 60w/800 lumens - each saves $11.07/year vs incandescent. The old advice was move to CFL's (Compact Fluorescents), but CFL's save only 20% over incandescent, and are currently MORE EXPENSIVE than similar cost LED bulbs. Concentrate on 'color' and LUMENS when bulb shopping - a display at your local home store shows bulbs compared.
Start small - try out bulbs, 1-per-week until you find a bulb/brightness you like, eventually replacing all the bulbs in the house. If you get 1-2 that you don't like, put them in the garage, or outdoors where they're not used that often.
Power Strips - 'vampire power' is the trickle of power that's used every minute of every day by devices waiting to be used, or laptop transformers constantly converting 120v into 12v for laptops even when the laptops are OFF. Switch OFF power strips to computers, TV's, everything but the refrigerator (and perhaps DVR) at night, and when not at home. You may lose a few seconds of 'instant on' for the TV, but you'll save on power as most laptops, computers, monitors, etc. use some small amount of 'vampire power'.
Make it a game - Set A Goal: get your power bill down to $30/month.
Kill-A-Watt P3 - a handy device to measure each plug-in-device's power consumption watts/hour to find your 'power hogs'. (Refrigerator, dryer/washer, dishwasher) There are expensive kill-a-watt power strips, but you can plug any strip into a Kill-A-Watt, and measure them that way until you understand how much power draw you've got.
Wash dishes BY HAND: Saves on both water AND electricity. Best to wash-as-you-go, and don't let them pile up in the sink.
Natural Gas Bill:
Thermostat timer - you don't mention this, so you may already have a timer on your thermostat, it's a basic thing, but you never know. Here are my settings: (your hours may vary)
Winter: turn heat UP to 65@ 6am. DOWN to 50 @8am, UP to 65 @ 5pm, DOWN @10pm to 60@ night.
Summer: OFF - use window fans, vent hot air to attic. (but I'm in the NW, not AT ALL familiar with Vermont).
Hot Water: set your hot water heater at 120-degrees. Investigate getting a water heater timer (easy for electric hot water, not so easy - but doable - for gas).
Laundry: Dry clothing on a drying rack or outdoor clothes line instead of using the dryer.
Phone Bill:
I'm in the same situation as you - I'm a senior website management consultant with a 24hr potential on-call capacity, and make extensive use of conference bridge calls. For this, I extensively use...
Skype - $3/month for unlimited US calling. You can set Skype's callerID to show as your cell number.
I'm unsure of the calling plans for Skype to India, but I'm sure it's cheaper than the cellular carriers.
Use Skype from both your laptop, and your cell phone. I'm assuming you have access to WIFI at home, and WIFI at the office. If you're currently taking public transit, you *may* have wifi access there also. For everything else...
Google Voice: FREE. WIFI calling, like Skype, and this may work for you - I use it infrequently but I’m willing to pay the $3/month for Skype.
AirVoice wireless - $10/month pre-paid plan. This is a 'workable if you get accustomed to it' plan. 2˘/text, 4˘/min. voice calling, 6˘/Mb data. I've been on this plan since Sept 2014. You can pre-pay more at any time. Start with $10, add $10 more if you need it. It seemed hard at first, but now that I learned to TURN OFF 'cellular data' on the iPhone, and use WIFI almost exclusively, I don't miss it at all. I use a FreedomPop free 500Mb WIFI hotspot for travel ($45 on eBay).
Or, if AirVoice seems harsh, use...
Republic Wireless. A little more per month, but less than you’re paying today. And can seem like less of a 'sacrifice'.
My thinking on cellular data / cell phone plans... it's not sacrifice, it's breaking an ADDICTION.
We lived almost our entire lives WITHOUT cellular data. Why are we paying thru the nose for cellular data today? Because we *can*, and habits are hard to break.
[Disclaimer: my day job is in the 'cellular industry']
Bottom line: Keep at it, and all the best. And please UPDATE your original post (OP), or create a new post, and update your OP to say - see current numbers from May 1st - to show your CURRENT budget / usage. Have a great weekend - find something new & free to do this weekend (street fair, movie showing, etc.)