Cutting Down on Weekly Spending

Because we’ve decided to buy a house, there are some changes we need to make to our spending patterns.

While we’ve never been extravagant (we’ve never had much to be extravagant with), I figure there must still be ways in which we can shave our spending down a bit more and make paying off a house easier.

Our first goal is to cut our spending by $280 a week.

There are several ways in which we’ll be doing that:

• Holiday savings go straight into the mortgage ($100pwk)
• Preschool ($93pwk) ~ We’re paid up until the end of the year, as I’ve been paying extra each week.
• Fewer luxury foods ($40pwk)
• Less take-away ($30pwk)
• Clothes shopping at local “op shops” ($20pwk)
• Transfer income protection insurance to WH’s super ($11pwk)
• We likely will no longer have a fireplace ($8pwk)
• Summer means more cold meals & longer daylight hours, saving electricity ($5pwk)
• Reduce car usage ($5pwk)

If you counted carefully, you’ll see we’re actually trying to save $312 on our weekly spending.

That way, if we overspend a little it won’t be the end of life-as-we-know-it.

In case you think I’m cutting out some necessities, this extreme frugality will only be in effect until just after Christmas.

We have a freezer full of meat and cupboards full of food.

I think we can manage to pull in our belts for three or four months.

From January things will be a bit easier, because one of our two remaining debts will be paid off, giving us an extra $200 a month to sock away into the mortgage.

I’ll be going into more detail in the future on how we go with our spending plan.

Believe me, you’ll be sure to hear about both our highs and lows.

And if I do go over budget, I do solemnly vow to confess all publicly.