Income halved - how do I cut my budget?

[MudPuppy]

Ok?

[Cassie]

I agree IL!

[comicguy]

Have your utility company check your meter. These can go bad from time to time and show greater usage even when electricty usage is low. On my street they put in all new digital meters (so they can be read from the street and cut down on the time for checking usage thus saving the city payroll money in the long run) my usage actually dropped even though nothing in my house changed. When I called about it they stated that the old meters were ineffciaent and as a result showed greater usage at times.

Just something to consider??

[RetiredAt63]

If you were in Eastern Ontario I would take your cat.  Please talk with your local rescue people about listing her, being shut away all day is no life for her.

And I agree about the meter, something is really off with your electricity consumption.

[Roadrunner53]

I read thru the posts but not sure if you mentioned if you have a well or water from a water company. We have a well here and the pump in our well went bad years ago and kept running and running. Our electric bill went thru the roof. We ended up replacing the pump and the electricity bill went back to normal. Same could occur if you have a very old freezer. It could be running and running using more electricity.

I would also suggest you call your insurance company and see if they can reduce your car(s) and house insurance. We called ours and they promptly told us no, they could not do anything for us. We had been customers for probably 25 years. We went thru AARP and they were able to give us better policies and reduced our cost by about $800 a year. Later on when my husband retired, we called again and said we were putting on very minimal miles per month, they again were able to lower our insurance costs. You may not be eligible for AARP due to your age but I think at age 50 you might be. Still, try other insurance companies to compare costs.

Here in the Northeast we have oil heat. Each heating season we sign up for a locked in fixed price per gallon contract. Last year it was $2.89 a gallon. This year it dropped to $1.89 a gallon. I jumped on locking in. We use about 800 gallons a year for heat and hot water. So that will save us $800.

If I were you I would go thru all your bills and see if you can call your providers to see if they can lower anything for you. Or you can reduce amount of services. The one company I can never work with is our cable provider. I did lock into some kind of promotion for being a long term customer. That is due to expire soon.

I normally try to buy most of my stuff thru Walmart online. If you buy $35 or more you get free shipping. I do not pay Prime membership fees.

If you watch one streaming service more than another, cancel one of them. If FIL enjoys Netflix, I would not deny it as it is very cheap.

Have you considered selling your home for a less expensive one?

Glad to hear your hub is slowing down on the soda. Make an effort to get him to try the soda stream water and lemon. Like another poster said, the carbonation and bubbles might be the attraction of so much soda. I like to make sure the water is icy cold when I carbonate it.

[MrsSpendyPants]

I'll update on July once we're closer to the end (on budget thus far) but wanted to throw out the August budget to get some feedback before the month starts.  We did pay off our home in July so now we need to replenish the emergency fund and either fix the car or put money aside for a car.

8600   net after insurance and max 401k contributions
1300   - Property tax/house/car/life/disability insurance (this is set aside monthly)
1000    - Car, savings for a car or repairs for the car
1834    - savings - need to replenish emergency fund by the end of the year
600 - monthly 529 contribution, this is what we need to set aside monthly to be able to pay for our state school once our toddler is ready for college
120 - water
300 - electricity
389 -  tractor payment
141 - cell (3 month Straight Talk payment)
400  - animals (one cat needs a vet appointment)
375 - gas
200 - gifts (graduation party and baby shower)
19 - subscriptions
93 - internet
564 - daycare (3 days a week)
600 - food
100 - misc
400 - home repairs (found two small leaks on the property when we looked so need to get a plumber to help fix them, tried to fix ourselves and couldn't replace the right parts, does not include any additional work that will likely be needed like masonry)
165 - medical

I know the animal budget is still insane.  I had some help with food from the rescue we volunteer for last month but that's not guaranteed, we just had extra food donations.  I have asked around family to see if anyone may be interested in the one cat who isn't getting along with our toddler but it's not going to be instant since I do need to make sure the home is the appropriate one. 

As far as house repairs go, once we fix these leaks, which will hopefully help with some of the water bill, I plan on tackling the insulation to help with the electricity costs.

We have one last bonus check coming in September, ~10k after we max IRAs.  Would you pay off the tractor (0%), save for car, or purchase IBonds (they account for our bond allocation which we are short on)?

Thanks for your thoughts!  Feeling much less stressed about our cash flow already with all of the help on here.

For electricity costs, I am waiting to see the bill to see if any of the things we did helped (we shut off breakers to several areas of the house, brought the AC temp up). 

[Cassie]

We had 4 dogs and as they aged the vet bills and medications were expensive. We kept everyone but as they died we decided 2 were enough. I agree about finding a good home for the cat that can’t get along but being fussy about the home.

[Seahorse]

I have asked around family to see if anyone may be interested in the one cat who isn't getting along with our toddler but it's not going to be instant since I do need to make sure the home is the appropriate one. 

I'm all for helping animals, but this is an absolute deal breaker for me. You have a cat that's attacking your son?? And that son is a toddler?? And you still haven't got rid of that??

Your cat's got attachement issues? So what? Are you for real? Get rid of it now. Whatever happened to putting your own kids before animals :o

You realize that animal can get out of that room someday and attack your child when no one's looking?

A 8 month old child I know was attacked by their own pet dog and that child has to live lifelong with that trauma and a huge scar on her face. Please do something about the cat. Make this a priority than everything else.

[waltworks]

Yeah, when I was growing up, unprovoked attacks on a child by an animal was an instant death sentence.

OP is *really* into cats, though. So it is what it is, I guess.

-W

[JestJes]

I'm wondering if you can cut some of your grocery bill by growing and making more things at home?

If you have a tractor it shouldn't be that tough to till up a portion of land and plant some potatoes and greens. I'm assuming you got this tractor for hauling animal feed? Would it be possible to sell this and get a cheap pickup truck instead? It may not be viable but I had that thought.

It seems to me that your animals are a very important part of your life. I totally respect that. Who am I to say the $400 that you spend is wrong if it makes you happy and you can afford it? But you will likely have to cut in other areas like taking 5-10 hours a week working in the garden or making you own pita bread. Its all about balance.

In a unrelated note: Current Jes has promised future Jes that is she ever makes 150k and has a property that would be appropriate, she can get a peacock.

[myrrh]

Jes I read that as "Pain in the ass" bread and I was thinking, "how do you make that? Is there a recipe?" and then I realized you meant actual pita bread. lol.
And good luck with the peacock thing. I would never get one because they are SO loud. But to each their own!

MrsSpendyPants, what is your plan for school? Are you in the current house long term or are you planning on moving to a better school district? If the plan is to move, I'd start decluttering and cutting down on animals now because it is a long process to get to a place where you are ready to settle into a new house. I'm also wondering how much there is currently in the 529 and if you are really planning on putting over $100k in there for your kid's college years.

[lutorm]

We are an all-electric house as well and we just switched to a heat pump water heater, which uses about 1/3 the power of the old one. The gain will be less if you live in a climate where it's cold part of the year or if you put it in a heated space, though. But worth looking into.

[AMandM]

I have asked around family to see if anyone may be interested in the one cat who isn't getting along with our toddler but it's not going to be instant since I do need to make sure the home is the appropriate one.

But given that this cat

attacks our kiddo and thus lives in a closed bedroom all day until the toddler goes to bed

, it seems to me that you can already be sure your home is not the appropriate one. The alternative doesn't have to be perfect to be a huge improvement. Don't let the best be the enemy of the good.