Things We've Been Doing to Save Money

Over the past couple of years, we've been trying to save money. All of our furniture has been hand-me-downs or purchased used- mostly on Craigslist. Also, we frequently clean closets and sell items on eBay or Craigslist. Unfortunately, we don't have many items left to sell, and since we've been trying to spend less for over 2 years, we actually don't have many possessions, other than second hand furniture. We decided that we will not be having any more children, so we did make a good amount of money by selling a lot of our daugther's baby items...and we usually donate or sell clothing as soon as she grows out of it.

We've had birthdays and other holidays where we buy one small gift or nothing at all to save money. We don't travel much, and only get a sitter and go out for a "date night" once every couple of months. We rent movies for $1 at the grocery store, we borrow library books, we attend free town events, and visit free museums and parks. We try to limit our spending to 3 locations- Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, and Target (since they are cheap and have just about everything). Dining out has been cut back, but it is still a work in progress. I make bi-monthly menus and only buy food on the grocery list, and usually only food on sale. Little steps like this should be saving us money, but getting caught up or getting ahead with debt repayment is still difficult.

My husband recently started his own business from home- so he'll work full-time at his regular job and do side jobs on nights and weekends. I will take over more of the childcare duties while he does this work. Hopefully this will get us the money we need to get out of debt, but of course we have to be concerned about taxes as well.

I have created a monthly budget, which I will probably post and discuss later. This does help, but we have been unable to stick to it because we always have unexpected events that end up putting us overbudget. We do keep track of every penny and have a calendar in the kitchen where we write down every purchase every day and how it was paid for. We try to stick to the debit card, but that is usually empty by the end of the month, and then we need to rely on credit cards.