Hello frugal friends! I’m back! It’s been wild these past few months with the roof and Christmas and life. January is here and we’re diving in head first. I’m holding off on a frugal state of the union for the next little bit until after the tax returns come in and we have a better picture of balances etc.
So what are we doing to save money? EVERYTHING! No really, it’s crazy around here. Our goal is to pay roughly 50k off within the next 18 months which would put us on track to paying off all of the consumer debt and leave us with just our student loans and our home. I have big plans for what would happen at that point in time, but I’m holding off on sharing them until we get there.
In the mean time we’ve:
- Cancelled hulu
- Cancelled netflix
- Cancelled any extra subscriptions via the amazon prime app.
- Cancelled all of our subscribe and save via amazon.
- Will likely not auto- renew our prime membership this spring.
- Been hanging out all of our laundry (we have a woodstove in our basement so it gets nice and toasty and the wet clothes add needed moisture to the air).
- Trying a newish method with how we spend our cash every 2 weeks. It’s working pretty well so far, if we stick with it I’ll share.
- We’re taking the uber frugal month challenge over at frugalwoods.com
- We’re doing all of our normal frugal stuff and also working a ton!
This is not really frugal, but we’ve also as a family sworn off screens for the month of January (outside of work stuff). 3 days in and the youngest is having the hardest time, but it really hasn’t been that bad at all! Turns out we can all survive without screen time.
I may write a larger post about it, but I planned ahead and got the kids lots of board games and art supplies for Christmas so we’ve had plenty to do in the down time.
It’s been interesting and mentally exhausting challenging all of these ingrained behaviors, but I’m motivated to keep going. I feel a bit like it’s now or never and that we’re at a tipping point in which we could go in a really positive direction, or fall down a really deep hole. So we’re working hard to get over the hump.
I’ll be back soon with an update and some updated numbers as well. How have you all been doing?
sounds as if you are rockin’ it! great list! May your new year bring lots of smiles and financial rewards!
Thank you! That’s my hope 🙂
🙂 you’ve got this!
Thanks for the reminder about laundry, I need to throw some in today and forgot until now! 🙂
I love the idea of a screen-free month, but I don’t know that I could get the rest of the family on board. I have been trying to cut down my own screen time, so that’s at least something. 🙂
I felt prompted to start doing a social media fast for one week at the beginning of every month. We will see how it goes. It’s hard the first day to not pic up my phone and scroll aimlessly but by day 2 its much easier an I am focused on other things besides posting and reading what’s going in other people’s lives.
That’s a great idea! That could be really helpful for us to do too!
Absolutely! I think it’s been harder for me than it has been for the kids. They’re small though, so I would imagine it would be more difficult for older kids. I prepped them for a few weeks in advance and tried to point out times that they were doing an non-tv activity so that they could remember it as something to do when they’re “bored”.
Great post 😁
Thank you!
Good to hear things are moving along for you all. Do not be afraid to cut the Amazon Prime cord. You can always start it up again at a later date. Can’t wait to hear how much you have eliminated from your debts and how you got there. Keep up the great work. It is worth it in the end.
Any chance of an update on your progress? Hope you all are well.