The Party. The Hang Over. Now...THE RECESSION...

[Confucius]

Originally Posted by RaggedyAnn

Sorry to crash your forum, but this is a topic that really interests me. My husband and I did some research on this and starting unplugging things like the microwave and coffee maker. Anything with a clock basically gets unplugged.

I am going to try this...I have about 5 appliances with digital clocks in my APARTMENT!! LOL...

SummerChild...myself like so many people have become spoiled! I don't really need HBO esp since Netflix is $5 a month! And most of the cable channels are useless (think of how many times we flip 100+ plus channels, only to say - There is nothing good on). Most people only watch certain programs anyway.

But I am looking to save. I am not going to assume that my job is safe or that I don't need to save...I am going to try to stop these bad habits.

[SummerChild]

Here's an article from MSN.com today - "50 Ways to Trim Your Budget"

50 ways to trim your budget
You don't have to give up the things you love to save money. You just have to be willing to look hard. Start with your fixed expenses, then review your discretionary costs.

Lou knows his family is in a vicious cycle with credit cards. He's just not sure how to get out.

Bills and credit card payments eat up most of the Mansfield, Ohio, family's income, leaving them little left over to pay for groceries and other basics. So they wind up charging more.

"My family has about $12,000 in debt to credit card companies," Lou wrote in an e-mail. "We want to stop using these cards and get this fixed. But we are 'bridging the gap' with credit."

Talk back: Do you and your spouse clash over budgets?
Like many families, Lou's clan already has trimmed some of the obvious expenses, such as eating in restaurants. But really getting your budget in line may require rethinking just about everything on which you spend money.

Look at the biggies first
The biggest savings often lie in the areas where you spend the most money: housing, transportation, food, insurance, health care and clothing. Here are some ideas for places to look for savings.

Average household spending
Average income (before taxes)
$82,195
% of expenditures

Average annual expenditures
$62,503
N/A

Housing
$20,283
32%

Transportation
$11,338
18%

Food
$7,920
13%

Personal insurance and pensions
$7,383
12%

Other
$6,250
10%

Health care
$3,713
6%

Entertainment
$3,124
5%

Apparel and services
$2,381
4%



Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Survey 2006

Housing and utilities
If you're struggling with an unaffordable mortgage or rent payment, moving to a cheaper place or getting a roommate may be options. Otherwise, some ways to lower your housing costs include:

Refinance your mortgage to get a lower rate or switch from a 15-year mortgage to a 30-year loan.
Raise your deductibles on your homeowners or renters insurance.
Challenge your property-tax assessment.

More from MSN Money
The best financial advice ever
5 steps to fix a broken budget
Get ahead in a starter city
Save big with the flashback budget
Money trouble? It's your own fault


Eliminate premium channels from your cable or satellite TV service.
Drop the pay TV services altogether.
Reduce phone extras such as call forwarding or call waiting.
Cancel your land line in favor of cell service (or vice versa).
Seek a cheaper long-distance carrier (try SaveonPhone.com or LowerMyBills.com ) or switch to Internet calling if you have high-speed service.
Investigate whether bundled service (phone, high-speed Internet and cable television) might save you money.
Wash only full loads of dishes or clothes.
Use a clothesline and use your dryer just to soften air-dried clothes.
Use shades, blinds and drapes to regulate your home temperature: Keep them open in the winter to let in light and drawn in the summer to block the sun's rays.
Install a programmable thermostat so your home is heated or cooled only when you're actually there.
Don a sweater in winter and shorts in the summer so you're not overheating or cooling your house.
Switch to compact-fluorescent bulbs, and turn them off when not needed. Turn off TVs, computers and other electronics when not in use. Rob Seiss of Pearl River, N.Y., said he's constantly nagging his family to turn off the lights and TV. He also turns down the thermostat at night and when his family is on vacation.

"Now, I don't just sound like my father," Seiss said. "I am my father."

Transportation
Buying used cars and driving them for years is a great way to reduce your lifetime transportation expenditures. But there are other, more immediate ways to save, as well:

Raise the deductibles on your auto-insurance policy.
Get all the discounts you deserve, such as good-driver, good-student and multiple-car discounts.
If you're driving less, tell your insurer; you may get a cheaper rate.
Cancel collision and comprehensive insurance on cars older than five to seven years.
Investigate carpools and public transportation. Cities often have online trip planners to help you figure out the system. See if your employer offers any subsidies. Look into car sharing.
Bike or walk as often as possible.
Avoid repair bills by maintaining your vehicles properly with regular oil and filter changes.
Group your errands and, if you have more than one car, use the vehicle with better gas mileage. "Just because you have a gas-guzzling SUV," said Kevin Schilling of Kansas City, Mo., "does not mean that you have to drive it to the store to pick up a gallon of milk." You'll find more ideas in MSN Money's Save on a Car Decision Center.

Video on MSN Money
When to look for a financial adviser

Financial planner Linda Lubitz Boone discusses when you should look for an adviser and what one can do for you.
Food
Dining out consumes about half the average family's food expenditures, so eating in more often is one of the fastest ways to trim your budget. (But first, read "Big night out, small price tag.") Other ways to control costs include:

Bring lunches and snacks to work.
Cook once, eat twice: Double whatever you're making and freeze the excess for a later meal.
Make at least one or two meatless meals each week.
Avoid overpackaged, overprocessed and highly advertised foods. The closer a food is to its natural state, the less it tends to cost.
Buy fruits and vegetables in season. Also check out your local farmer's market.
Cruise through your fridge daily to use items before they go bad.
Give up a vice (smoking, drinking, soda, salty snack foods).
Use the weekly grocery store circulars to see what's on sale and plan meals accordingly. John and Carla Robertson of Denton, Texas, have turned meal planning into a family affair, soliciting input from their three young kids.

"Every weekend we sit down and make out the next week's menu," John Robertson wrote. "We refer to old menus for meals that we enjoyed, and we put together a lunch and dinner menu for the entire week. We also plan on cooking extra at some meals so that the leftovers can be used for lunches a day or two later."

Marcia Spires of New York City has another tip: Avoid recipes that require you to buy exotic ingredients you're unlikely to use again. "I'm a lazy cook on a budget," Spires declared. "I look at the elaborate recipes in magazines and count the ingredients (are they capital intensive?) and the number of verbs in the instructions (are they labor intensive?). Too high a score and I skip to the next page."


Personal insurance and retirement
You might be tempted to cut back on your 401(k) contributions to pay off debt, but that's not a good idea, if you can avoid it. Most companies with 401(k)s offer matching funds, so failing to contribute means you lose that free money. You also don't want to drop disability insurance, which protects you should illness or accident prevent you from working. Here are better areas to look for savings:

Consider "refinancing" your term life insurance; rates have dropped in the past decade, so you might be able to qualify for a lower premium.
If you have a long-term disability policy, investigate the savings if you opt for a longer waiting period to reduce premiums (if you have an emergency fund or other income to bridge the gap).
Suspend contributions to annuities and other accounts that don't offer matching funds or tax breaks.
Make sure you got proper tax credit for last year's retirement contributions if your adjusted gross income was less than $25,000 (for singles) or $50,000 (for couples). The retirement tax credit of up to $1,000 for lower earners is one of the most overlooked tax breaks, said MSN tax columnist Jeff Schnepper in "10 big deductions too many people miss." If you deserved this break but didn't take it, it's worth amending your return.

More from MSN Money
The best financial advice ever
5 steps to fix a broken budget
Get ahead in a starter city
Save big with the flashback budget
Money trouble? It's your own fault

Health care
Medical costs are rising at a rate much higher than general inflation, while employers are asking their workers to shoulder a bigger share of the expense. You can fight back if you:

Buy generic drugs.
Look for free and low-cost clinics.
Use urgent-care clinics rather than emergency rooms whenever possible.
Ask for discounts when you pay cash.
Carefully review hospital bills for errors.
Monitor insurance claims to make sure they get paid.
You'll find more information in MSN Money's Health Insurance Decision Center.

Video on MSN Money
When to look for a financial adviser

Financial planner Linda Lubitz Boone discusses when you should look for an adviser and what one can do for you.
Clothing and services
Professional organizers say most people wear just a fraction of the clothes they own. If that describes you, consider selling stuff you don't wear and being more careful when you shop. You can also trim what you spend on personal care and other services. For example:

Find out what looks good on you and stick to classic styles that won't look weird next season.
Inventory your wardrobe and buy pieces that work with what you already own.
Avoid dry-clean-only clothing.
Make hair appointments at beauty schools rather than full-priced salons.
Drop your health club and form a walking or jogging group with friends.
Hold a clothing swap with friends.
Ask friends and relatives for hand-me-downs.
Give kids a clothing allowance or offer "matching funds" for what they want to buy.
Check out consignment and thrift stores for lightly used items. "I always go once a month to a thrift store not far from my neighborhood," said Rebecca Kelly of Holiday, Fla.

Get the latest from Liz Pulliam Weston. Sign up to receive her free weekly newsletter.
Preferred format:
HTMLPlain TextLearn more about newsletters"On Wednesdays, they have 50% off all the clothing. It takes a good two hours of time, but I've averaged (spending) about $30 per child, per season. If I were to buy the same clothes at a department store, I would be WAY out of my budget."

Liz Pulliam Weston's new book, "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life," is now available. Columns by Weston, the Web's most-read personal-finance writer and winner of the 2007 Clarion Award for online journalism, appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on the Your Money message board.

[SummerChild]

I understand (about being spoiled about different things). It just seems to me that if you only watch a fraction of what is on cable, what is the benefit that you are really being spoiled with ... other than spoiling yourself with the big bill each month. I mean, presumably, to be spoiled with something you have to relish in its benefits, right? Well...if folk watch the same few things all the time then it's really, at the end of the day, just a *perceived* benefit that may or may not really exist, in reality, yet the bill exists in reality, every single month.

Like you, I know so many people who watch the same few programs a week, yet they have channels from countries where the people speak languages that they don't even know! LOL.

Listen, I spend ridiculously too and am trying to stop that. I was just saying that cable is one thing that I can cut back on. Maybe for others, it will be something else that *they* can live w/out.

SC

Originally Posted by Confucius

I am going to try this...I have about 5 appliances with digital clocks in my APARTMENT!! LOL...

SummerChild...myself like so many people have become spoiled! I don't really need HBO esp since Netflix is $5 a month! And most of the cable channels are useless (think of how many times we flip 100+ plus channels, only to say - There is nothing good on). Most people only watch certain programs anyway.

But I am looking to save. I am not going to assume that my job is safe or that I don't need to save...I am going to try to stop these bad habits.

[mccoyred]

My husband keeps saying that we need to ditch the cable but I vehemently disagree. We have the bundled Verizon Fios with phone, cable TV and internet. We have a basic movie package but no premiums like HBO or Cinemax. I watch HGTV and Spike, my kids watch Nick, Disney and the like and my husband watches a lot of movies and non-mainstream channels. Our life would be very dull with just basic TV. I am in school and also work from home so I would be very upset with a dial up connection, especially without wireless.

This bundled package also includes on-demand. Although we mostly use our cell phones (we have a family plan that works well), we do have a landline with basic service in order to get the bundled package but also to use the fax which, along with email and online bill pay, saves us postage. We do have a postal box for security reasons but its inexpensive and right down the street from home.

So, I pretty much said that if we need to turn off the heat or cutback on food, we will NOT give up our telecom services. Life would be very miserable....

Originally Posted by SummerChild

I understand (about being spoiled about different things). It just seems to me that if you only watch a fraction of what is on cable, what is the benefit that you are really being spoiled with ... other than spoiling yourself with the big bill each month. I mean, presumably, to be spoiled with something you have to relish in its benefits, right? Well...if folk watch the same few things all the time then it's really, at the end of the day, just a *perceived* benefit that may or may not really exist, in reality, yet the bill exists in reality, every single month.

Like you, I know so many people who watch the same few programs a week, yet they have channels from countries where the people speak languages that they don't even know! LOL.

Listen, I spend ridiculously too and am trying to stop that. I was just saying that cable is one thing that I can cut back on. Maybe for others, it will be something else that *they* can live w/out.

SC

[SummerChild]

LOL. I hear you. Unfortunately, for me, I spend alot of time dining out with family and friends and that takes up the money I save on telecom. I'm too greedy. I'd rather eat and spa my money than watch it on tv. LOL. I guess we're all different.

My Mother cuts the heat waaaay down - even in the dead of winter. My sisters and I hate to spend the night over her house in the winter. LOL. Even my Dad can't stand it. I can't live w/out my food or my heat. Shoot, I run up my company's bill with a space heater that I use almost every day (yes, even in the summer) of the year.

SC

Originally Posted by mccoyred

So, I pretty much said that if we need to turn off the heat or cutback on food, we will NOT give up our telecom services. Life would be very miserable....