Frugal Luxuries: Forcing My Own Hand

image source

I had a mild panic attack the other morning when I looked at the checking account and saw that there was a pretty darn low balance in there – as in not enough to cover the mortgage payment. Commence freak out.

Then I remembered that I had loaned my other checking account a big chunk of change for a couple of weeks and had just forgotten to pay back the first account. Silly me…

(We have two checking accounts at two banks – one bank is online and has the better features/rates/etc but also has no local branches, so we have a local bank as well.)

A hasty transfer later, the balances are back to normal and I can breathe again. But, as I was looking over our spending I realized that we had really slacked off. Lots of eating out is one of the major culprits, as well as random spending. Hubby likes to have a daily soda from the convenience store (almost $2 a pop), I like to browse garden centers, and we both like to get lunch from the cafeteria. Things that we just don’t need, but that we like to get. Mindless spending.

So with that wake up call, I’m determined to be better with my spending and hubby’s trying also. We’re making small changes that will have a significant impact on our wallet – my first, and biggest, change is cooking all of our meals. I used to cook all the time, but excuses abound resulting in a serious lack of cooking. Another change is to make the majority of Max’s clothing so we don’t have to purchase it, or when it’s cost effective buying used clothing. No new clothes for me or hubby either – if we need something we get it used, but that’s been the norm for a while.

This next week I’ll be going over some of the things that I’m doing to save a few bucks. What little (or large) things do you do to save money?