#27 Money Madness

We don't make tons of money.  But, we make too much to be living paycheck to paycheck.  That's what we've been doing.  So....I've begun to take control of our finances.

I have watched one of the Dave Ramsey videos to start with.  We started using a version of the envelope system.  I used to use that myself before getting married, and loved it.  I have us on a weekly allowance for random purchases (fast food, random things I "have" to have at Target).

But, the biggie is that we have to reduce our bills.  So, I took a look at what we pay for, and what we really need.  Here's what I've done.  I'm so excited about it. 

*Granted, we don't need tv, but I really like it.  So, as I posted earlier, I canceled our sattelite and we got basic cable. 

*I also canceled our home phone.  We use it to call our cell phone if we've lost it, or people (family) will call it if we don't answer our cell phones.  Other than that, we use it to give out instead of our cell number for people that will probably try to market to us.  That's it.  And for a $10 phone line, that ended up costing us $25 after all the fees, not worth it.  But, I'm already frustrated when I call Brandon and know he's home, but he doesn't have his phone on him.  I also am a little scared about the whole 911 thing, as they can't locate you as easily if you call from a cell phone.  I figure if I'm gonna call 911, it would probably be from my cell anyway, though.  And if I can't tell them where I am, I probably can't get up and walk in the kitchen to get the home phone.  But, I'm thinking about getting Magic Jack.  It's 40 bucks initially, and then just 20 bucks a year.  That would be worth the extra phone, to me.

*We switched our internet.  Our phone company requires a home phone in order to get internet, so we switched to the cable company on that, as well.  I was paying $75 a month for home phone and internet and $35 a month for sattelite.  Now that we have TV and internet through the cable company, I am paying $46 a month.  That is a savings of $64 a month and $768 a year!  If we used the Magic Jack, it would be 748 a year of savings.

*I love my recycling.  But, I didn't love paying for it, when I could just drive to the recycling center.  So, I called my garbage company to cancel the recycling.  But, the guy was so nice, he just let me keep the recycling for free!

I'm still working to do some more to reduce our bills, but that sure is a start!