Saving Series Part 5: Dressed and back to school for under $50

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This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Bealls for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Included in our big financial plans each year, alongside Christmas and Birthdays, is the dreaded and often exciting Back to school shopping! Since my large and in charge son decided to grow so darn fast, we are now completely out of hand me down bags! Since I now need to dress 5, we'll need a new shopping plan! Fashionista Princess Luci, and Rockstar Giovanna, are still excited despite my frugality :)

Saving Series Part 4: Feed a family of 5 on $80/week

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I think you will agree, that the grocery bill is one of the most flexible expenses in the average family. When the budget goes over, the extra usually gets pulled from pocket money, and grocery money, and we get by! Taking this into account, here is a way to modify your grocery shopping habits to save a BUNDLE!

Change how you make grocery lists!

As with everything, it is all in the planning! First, you will need a collection of go-to recipes. We all have these meals, that we go to every week because they actually get eaten! You will additionally need a group of recipes for variety.

There are three key concepts in grocery saving

• Meal planning to allow rolling leftovers into new meals
• Stocking up on coupon items and BULK buying
• Home-made items sometimes cost less, sometimes NOT!

Keeping that in mind, my list process has three parts. 

• Inventory what we have
• List the weeks meals, then ingredients
• Separate the list into appropriate stores
  

Here is this weeks list, crossed out if we have that ingredient leftover!

Cable, internet and home phone- Maximize your mullah

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Saving Series Part 3

If you missed the first post, Save some cash, Preggo discusses the fact that a new babies first year costs $10,398.00....Whoa! Below is the series schedule, to help Momma find that extra $866 per month!

1. Saturday July 30- Cut your cell phone bill in half
2. Sunday August 7- Cable, internet and home phone- Maximize your mullah
3. Friday August 12- How to feed a family of 5 on $80/week
4. Thursday August 18- Dressed and back to school for under $50
5. Tuesday August 23- Managing your pocket

Cable, internet and home phone is a huge area of flexibility, although many people much like cell phone plans, get comfortable and don't like change. Take a look at what our family did to save XXXX per year!

Current Cable/ internet/ home phone bundle monthly bill: $189
     This includes HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Wi Fi, Home phone with unlimited everything, voice mail, and all sorts of channels.

Switches:
Home phone
We moved to MagicJack- From my experience, it was easy to use, (really you just plug it in) and for my home phone needs, I noticed no difference in the quality. I paid $59.99 for 5 years of service. (After a 30 day free trial) Which breaks down to $1.00 per month.

Cable
Instead of switching providers, we fine tuned our bill. Previously, each month we were spending around $11.00 on movies, $42 on premium channels, $9 on two random kid channels I don't remember adding...hmmm...Just cutting out movies, 2/3 premium channels, and randoms saves us $588 per year! Instead, we are using Redbox and still only spending around $4 per week!

Internet
Without much technical knowledge, other than how to USE computers, I was unaware of the options for going wireless. I simply had the local cable guy come install the modem... then it worked :) But then I heard of Tethering.

Tethering, in case you aren't familiar with the term, is using your Android phone like a wireless modem: You connect your phone to a computer, then harness its 3G or 4G connection to surf the Web on your PC. I found a tutorial HERE!

My NEW total Cable/Internet/Home Phone monthly bill? $74.79
TOTAL Savings: $114.00/ month
OR $1368/year

Check out YOUR options!

Saving Series Part 2: Cut your cell phone bill in half!

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This post brought to you by Straight Talk. All opinions are 100% mine.

Unlike your mortgage, car payments, and household utilities, your cell phone bill is a flexible expense! Many people find themselves sitting comfortably in their contract for years, or worse still, waiting a contract out and simply renewing instead of taking the time to shop around. My husband is one of those people, and we spent too many years allowing this to happen, paying upwards of $83 per month!

Momma there is another option, and I will save you the shopping around. The amount of money you could save will pay for the new babies diapers, REALLY! That's what got me, hook, line and sinker. Straight Talk, is a cell phone company whose service you can purchase right at Walmart. (Now everyone has a Walmart :)

You can choose the "All you need" unlimited plan for just $45! Now that alone is awesome, but I like to get technical. Last month, I used 209 minutes on my cell phone. (I know, I am just not a teenager anymore. BUT that was way back when teenagers actually USED the phone for talking!)

I swear, I've asked my 16 year old step son a million times if it would just be easier to just call a friend, rather than text so much, but the fact remains that we just don't need unlimited talk time. Luckily for stingy girls like me, there is an even better option at Straight Talk. Their $30 plan gives you 1000 minutes of talk, 1000 texts, and 30 MB of web, without fees like 411 charges, or activation and termination fees. That is a savings of $50 per month! (Do the math if $50 doesn't sound like much these days, that's $600 a year!) Walmart's Parents Choice 252 count newborn diapers: $40. ROCK ON saving Momma!
 

 
It still took some convincing to get my husband to make the switch. He was worried about coverage, and his pretty phone! Let me tell you, after looking at the coverage map HERE, and zooming, (and zooming), and imagining everywhere he MAY want to go someday, (LOL we don't go far with 4 kiddos!) the case was closed! Straight Talk truly does have excellent nationwide coverage!

As for the phones? They offer major brands like LG, Motorola, Kyocera, Nokia and Samsung, with features like voice navigation, camera, video recorder, music player, instant messaging, and Bluetooth®. There are even reconditioned phones for the 16 year old texter, that start at only $10! Momma won that battle too! (Momma always wins ;-)

The moral of the story? You can get everything you need for your family, without a contract! (Feel free to ground him from the cell phone without paying for it) This Cute-Ecake saving tip alone, will pay for your babies diapers!

Save some cash, Preggo!

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Your babies first year will cost $10,398, which breaks down to a whopping $866.50 per month.

Don't worry kid! Mommy's GOT this!

This, is according to an awesome calculator that I found HERE on BabyCenter.com, which allows you to enter in the value of everything from diapers and wipes, to formula, to toys and clothing. You will begin with their estimate, and can customize the figures to your actual usage, or estimated usage if you are still preggers!
Well for my family at least, another child would require another week in the month of Daddy working! Since that is not going to happen, (and neither will another child for just that reason), I've decided to throw out some money saving tips that have helped us get through, and shrink that number significantly!

Step #1: Write down your budget
If you haven't done so already, it is necessary to see where your money is going each month! Determine which expenses you can change, and which you cannot. I found that approximately 80% of my budget is unchangeable. (Mortgage, utility, car payments, etc) BUT there are areas that we can adjust, and those are the ones you will need to play with!

Step #2: LEARN to coupon!
Not everyone has to be a crazy lady like the TLC show, Extreme Couponing. But I will tell you this- 3 months into couponing (I consider myself a newbie) and no longer have to purchase non food items.

I no longer have to purchase NON food items! It was like a revelation when I realized how it was done, and I will save you the research and learning.

• Get a binder and some baseball card inserts
• Buy two newspapers (each week) and clip all of the coupons. I do not care if you don't need those items. Clip them all, organize to your liking into the inserts.
• Go to the following websites, where they have prepared specific shopping lists and the coupons you will need to get your items nearly free. HONESTLY!
  1. Addicted to Saving
  2. Fabulous Deals and Steals
  3. Thrifty Texas Penny

Basically how it works, is you will purchase only sale items that you have a coupon for, whether you need it or not. Drug stores such as Rite Aid, Walgreens, and CVS will offer you reward 'bucks' on specific items. The correct combination in the right order, makes everything free, you just pay tax. Getting things that you don't need yet, for free before you need them, will build a lifetime supply of toothpaste, shampoo, and laundry detergent before you know it!

Step #3: Cut your expenses
My 'changeable' expenses are- Cable, internet, and home phone, cell phones, grocery, pocket money, clothing, and extra-curriculars. Momma's got a plan for all of these, prompting a special 'Saving' series. Each week I will detail how to cut each expense in half. YES in half! Here's the schedule, in case you had a particular area of concern ;-)

1. Saturday July 30- Cut your cell phone bill in half
2. Sunday August 7- Cable, internet and home phone- Maximize your mullah
3. Friday August 12- How to feed a family of 5 on $80/week
4. Thursday August 18- Dressed and back to school for under $50
5. Tuesday August 23- Managing your pocket