find 43 ways to decrease monthly expenses

In the past we wasted quite a bit of food each week. We have made a few changes so we stopped wasting certain foods and it’s helping our food budget.

Cheese: We still buy the same brand of cheeses but now grate and freeze about 2/3 of a loaf of cheese or wedge of Parmesan as soon as we open a new package.

Breads: My husband loves bread more than I do and always wants an assortment of bread each week. We still buy the variety but freeze part of it right away or use it to make bread crumbs or croutons.

Produce: Instead of shopping weekly for fruits and vegetables, we buy them every few days and no longer throwing as many away. If we have more fruit than we are going to eat, I often freeze them to use for smoothies.

Desserts: I bake for the weekly family gatherings and usually make two or three different desserts so I don’t have to avoid certain ingredients like chocolate, nuts or coconut. The variety was good, but usually had a lot of leftovers most of the time. I started baking two smaller desserts instead of full size and freezing one for later. I am not using as many baking ingredients each month since I started freezing the smaller desserts.

Leftovers: We are making more of an effort to eat leftovers before they get lost in the back of the refrigerator.

It really wasn’t that difficult for us to make these changes once we realized how much food was being wasted.

We are going to more free/low cost weekend events and limiting the more expensive ones to once a month or less.

The brand of hair products I buy for my type of hair is $25 per 8 oz bottle of shampoo, conditioner and leave-in conditioner. I also buy styling products and it adds up quickly.

I am trying out more natural products and most are $10 or less. I think I can also cut back a little on skin care products or at least stop buying the ones I never use.

Yearly savings: $240+

I have a couple domain names I have had over 10 years but haven’t used in over 5 years. I won’t renew them again. The savings is only a small amount but there’s no reason to keep them any longer.

Yearly savings: $30

In the past I always renewed memberships as soon as they were due. This year I have let things like GNC, Amazon Prime and online website memberships lapse until they are needed. I am saving a little money by not having the membership for 3-6 months and realized I wasn’t using all the memberships enough to justify the annual costs so I am only renewing the accounts I still use.

I am switching my mailbox from a UPS store to a post office.

Yearly savings: $143

We have a gardener and not willing to cut his weekly visits out of our budget. In our effort to cut back expenses, we have scaled back on the work our gardeners do every fall. Last year, we only had our grass cut back and reseeded, plus the trimming the taller palm trees. We aren’t planning on getting our grass reseeded this year because it requires watering a couple times a day and not possible with the current local water restrictions. We will prune the shrubs, and trim some of the plants again this year.

This is only temporary. Our gardeners do a much better job and doing it ourselves makes my husband cranky.

Yearly savings: $400-$800.

Our health insurance has always had a high deductible and with the HSA we will pay medical bills with pre-tax money. I’m not sure why we waited so long to set up this account.

We don’t use a lot of bottled water and have it delivered to both the house and office. By merging the two accounts, we save $1.50 per bottle for water delivered to our home and avoid a second fuel surcharge.

Monthly savings: $5+. Yearly savings: $60+.

This is the time of year that our health insurance increases. The last couple years the increase has been over $2,000 a year. Last year our health insurance broker sent over 600 pages for us to look over and find a new plan. This year we have a new broker and will hopefully find something that will work for us.

Yearly savings: $6,000