How to stretch the budget?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
How to stretch the budget?
2
Sun, 04-03-2005 - 8:17pm

I started Dave Ramsey's baby steps about a week ago. So far I have $374 in my emergency fund. Almost half way to my $1000. Here is my question. How do I cut my budget more to get to my $1000 and then start to pay off my bills. After I pay all my minimum payments on everything and pay my utilities, I have $300 a month left. This has to cover gas, groceries, personal items, etc. Basically everything that is not a bill. I already called and cancelled my Sunday newspaper.. I called and raised my deductibles on my home and auto insurance, but i'm not sure what else to do. My two luxuries if you would call them that are my internet at 9.94 a month and my cable at $34 a month. I hate to cancel them because if i'm not going out and doing stuff that costs money, then I have to stay home and I need to do something while i'm there (surf the net, watch TV). I'm a huge reader and have already cut myself off from buying any new books. I will be getting them all from the library from this point forward. I'm planning a garage sale in May and have already started to gather stuff for that. Have I covered all my bases? Is there anything else I could do? I was thinking if I really tried, I could probably take $100 of the $300 and put that towards savings/debt, but then that only leaves me $100 every two weeks for groceries, gas, etc. Not alot. I guess I'm going to look at it as a personal challenge to try to live on that litle money.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Are there more drastic measures I should be taking?

Liz

Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 04-03-2005 - 9:17pm

Here is a Very Useful thread that we've maintained here on this board for some time now!


It's called "Trim the Budget Fat" - http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-mlsupport/?msg=9832.1


Hope you find some great ideas!

All my best,
Danni

Avatar for cherfer
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2003
Mon, 04-04-2005 - 7:45am
Don't be so hard on yourself! It sounds like you're doing alot already! i don't think you have to have your emergency fund fully funded so fast, you'll get there!