My Money Saving Game Plan

Let’s take a second and talk about money. Everybody loves talking about how they save it, make it, spend it and everything in between. It can sometimes feel like everyone’s favorite topic, except for me.

I have a complicated relationship with money. Spending it never makes me feel good, so I try to never spend it. The thing is, I know we don’t have money to spend, so even a 5 dollar coffee makes me feel bad. It’s a burden that sits on my shoulders, and the only way to fix it is to look in the bank account and make a plan. So that’s what I did.

In mid December, I said, “I’m gonna look in the bank account and make a plan!” because I love to declare things. Then I successfully managed to avoid doing so for two and a half months. When I don’t want to do things, I bring out my finest procrastination skills.

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links and other affiliate links. I will receive a small percentage of the sale, at no additional cost to you, if you purchase through my link. Thanks for your support!

Then our church announced they were offering Dave Ramsey’s financial peace university in March. I leaned over to my husband during announcements and said, “You know how much I hate everything to do with Dave Ramsey? Well if we don’t sit down and address this budget, I’m signing us up for that forsaken class.” That was the fire under our butts, and when we went home we finally took a peek…and I was pleasantly surprised! Instead of finding out we were breaking even every month, I saw we had 200 bucks a month left over after all the bills were paid!

Hope

Something about that 200 bucks gave me a sense of financial hope that I haven’t had since…ever! Now, here’s the facts about that 200 bucks. It’s based off a budget with zero “clothes” money, “fun” money, or “eat out” money. It’s just left after all the bills are paid, 600 is set aside for groceries, and 200 for miscellaneous.

With these kinds of numbers, I probably shouldn’t have been feeling outrageous hope…but it’s like something snapped in me and for some reason I feel renewed drive to pay off some debt. And thus a plan and a goal emerged: pay off 7,800 dollars of debt by mid-January 2021. Everything about this is random. I just picked a debt to go after, a time frame that seemed less depressing than a year, and this is where we landed.

If you are wondering, “How are you going to pay off 7,800 dollars of debt when 200 bucks left over each month for 10 months will only be 2,000 dollars?” The answer is simple: the Russians. Now I probably sound legit crazy, but the Russians are hard-core and I’ve always admired that about them.

In WWII, to defeat the Germans, the Russians used a strategy known as the “Scorched Earth Policy.” While they weren’t the inventors of this technique, they were the first ones I learned about using it, and it left an impression. This is the same policy I am going to apply to my budget. I will leave nothing on the table, I might even sell my table to reach my goal. This should get interesting.

The Plan

I refuse to get a job or have my husband, James, get a part-time job. There are a bunch of reasons for this, and today isn’t the day to explain it (I will soon). We have no subscriptions that we can cancel, except Spotify which I begrudgingly unsubscribed from Tuesday. With that in mind, the only way I can get more money is by bringing down the meager electric, water, and food bills.

Reducing the Electric and water Bills

I was raised to always turn lights off and to not have the water at full blast when doing dishes. As an adult I’ve gotten relaxed with it. To reduce the water bill, I will be more mindful of the amount of water we use. That means using the dishwasher once a day, timing the kid’s showers, using less water in their baths, and reducing our laundry.

The kids and I will work together to make sure the lights are off, chargers are unplugged, the outside doors get shut quickly, and the heat is on a lower temperature.

Eating at Home

When we decided to pay off an outrageous amount of debt with a little bit of money, we had a family meeting with the kids to explain we were all in this together. That means they will help keep those bills down. It’s good for them.

We also needed to make sure we absolutely do not spend any money in a restaurant. Which means James and I have to work as a team in the kitchen because it is too much for one person. (Especially because with homeschooling the kids eat all the meals at home, and I clean up after all those meals.) I told James if he would feed the kids breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday, and cook two dinners in the week, I would be able to keep us eating at home.

His help would be my break. James agreed to do that. I will plan the two meals he will cook because I’m a money saving champion in the kitchen, and I’ll make them simple for him.

Reducing the Grocery Bill

I will try to bring the cost of groceries down by reducing our meat consumption, limiting our dairy, and buying less organic items. For these next ten months I will only buy organic milk, bread, and hopefully all the items from the dirty dozen list. While I’d love to buy everything organic I simply can’t.

The good news is that since I am on an eternal diet, I’m hoping that the scarce amount of food available in the house will lead to weight loss success!

The other way to bring the grocery bill down is to start using Ibotta again. If you haven’t heard about Ibotta, it’s a free app you download on your phone that rebates money you spend on groceries. If you haven’t signed up for it yet, I’d appreciate if you would use my referral code and help me out. You know I need all the help I can get if you’ve made it this far in the post!

The Grocery Challenge

Saving money on the groceries is very hard, and it can be especially depressing. Then something amazing happened, my two best buds in town said they needed to save money and a challenge arose. We are all three competitive with similarly sized families with kids basically the same age so it will be even.

The challenge is simple: whoever spends the least money on groceries in March wins. It’s going to be fun, and the best part is we are working together to find the best buys in town. We all want to succeed, so it only makes sense to help each other. Currently we are putting together a price comparison chart for the two major grocery stores in town.

Side note about Dave Ramsey

I guess in a way I’m doing all this to spite Dave Ramsey. That smug little look on his face and that dumb gleam in his eye makes me unreasonably annoyed every time I see him on a video. I can’t stand the guy! Ironically, I feel like if I met him in person, we’d probably be friends. Friends who argued with eye rolls and yelling, but friends nonetheless. I’m complicated like that, and I think his skin is thick enough for someone like me.

The story of why I feel so strongly about a guy who is helping people, is a story for another day. Either way, Dave and I both win because he hates debt, and I’m gonna claw and scratch my way out of it.

Can I do this?

Time will tell if we can keep this up. Having the accountability of the blog and my friends will help. All I can say is, I sure hope so. It would be awesome to achieve this goal. Then I’ll brag about it the rest of my life, and people will finally respect me. I will strut around town like I’m better than people because I’m debt free. I learned how to do that from the best of the best: the graduates of the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University and ol’ Dave Ramsey himself.