Living on Less Than $28,000 A Year: How our family of six survives (and even thrives) on an income that is less than half the national median income, and what the government calls “below the poverty line” (less than $29,990 annually) for our family size. [Read other posts in this series here.]
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We all want to have fun ( I wanted to write “need” to have fun, but I don’t think it is necessarily a life or death issue like water is. 🙂 )
You might think that responsibly living on less means that we never have fun, but we have found that restricting ourselves in that way means we eventually have big, irresponsible spending blow outs. To live on less for the long term, we need to make our budget realistic, and it’s just not realistic to say we will never enjoy any form of entertainment.
We do, however, try to have fun in proportion with our income level. Because the entertainment budget can only be a small percentage of our spending, we carefully consider the value of the entertainment money we spend. Here are some of our family’s real-life examples:
The Carnival
Last week there was a carnival in town that the kids wanted to attend, but we found out that the rides were $4.00 each, or $20 for an unlimited wrist band. For our family to attend it would have cost $100 for the unlimited ride wrist bands, or $80 if my husband and I just let the kids ride.
So we had a little family meeting and talked about the issue and the alternatives:
*don’t go and save the money
This would be wise because it’s always good to save money, but the carnival will only be here for a few days and it would be a missed opportunity (some of my kids have never ridden a Ferris Wheel).
*spend the money
Spending the money might be fun, but it would have to come from another budget category, because we didn’t have that much entertainment money. If we spent it, would we miss out on other opportunities later? Was the value of the fun we would have comparable to the amount of money we would spend?
*an alternative
Then during the discussion one of my children had the idea to go and ride one ride, which would cost $4 or $16 for the four of them. They all agreed that was a better alternative than missing the carnival altogether, so they went with my husband, each rode their favorite ride and returned home to watch a movie together.
This would not be acceptable for some children, but I was glad it worked out for our family.
Dinner Out
There is an amazing Brazilian Steak House in our town–the kind where they bring meat to your table on huge skewers. The only problem is that dinner for my husband and I costs about $125 including tax and tip. We were able to get a Buy One Get One coupon, which is an amazing deal, basically $50 off. So, our alternatives were:
*spend the money It was so tempting to celebrate my birthday by going to this restaurant. We have only been once (a work perk) and we knew that the food was amazing. We rationalized that we would probably not have this coupon again and it was 50% off. Of course we should do it!
*don’t spend the money Then I thought about the fact that it would still cost us $60-$70. While the experience would be wonderful, it was not worth $60, which is about 2/3’s of my weekly grocery budget.
*an alternative Someone gave us gift certificates for a nice chain restaurant. We could still go out, but pay only the tip. We could still eat steak, it just wouldn’t be served on a skewer, but then I would probably feel better eating one steak rather than 4 plates full of steak.
If we had not had gift certificates, we probably would have eaten at a cheaper restaurant that offers free birthday meals. We would still be going out, but not spending too much in proportion to our income.
Cable and Satellite Television
I like television. I like it so much that I can watch House Hunters, Food Network and Myth Busters for hours on end. The only way to see those shows is to pay for television, but with a tight budget it’s hard to decide if that’s a wise choice so we discussed the alternatives:
*spend the money In the past cable t.v. cost $60 a month or more, but now companies are combining the t.v. into packages with internet and phone services and you can pay as little as $20 a month for all that wonderfully educational and inspirational entertainment. We could sacrifice something else in the budget and make that work, then we would have no need to spend money on movies or other outside entertainment.
*don’t spend the money There are plenty of shows available to watch for free with regular t.v. programming or on the internet, and it would probably make more sense to not pay for “special” television considering our budget constraints.
*an alternative We decided not only to ditch the cable television, we ditched t.v. programming altogether. We check out dvds from the library and watch them together, but we have no television programming coming into our house whatsoever. If you turn on the t.v., you just get static.
Some of you (especially the sports fans) may be thinking I’ve gone too far, but let me tell you what we have gained from eliminating our television viewing:
- better communication We talk to each other a lot more and there is no shouting to get someone’s attention while they are zoned out in front of the television.
- peace There is not constant noise in our house, nor is there the constant flow of information that may not be beneficial to my children.
- increased creativity My children create board games, videos and animation. They write stories, songs and text messages (oh wait, maybe that doesn’t fall into the creative category!). My entrepreneurial daughter created sets of hand painted stationery that she sells as a business.
- increase productivity The average American watches 37 hours of television a week. That is almost two entire days of your life lost every seven days. I have found that limiting our entertainment time has enabled us to do more of what really matters.
If these ideas seem too radical for you, try choosing some cheaper entertainment alternatives every couple of weeks. Here are some ideas to get you started:
CHEAP FUN
Watch a movie at the $1.00 theater.
Have a family picnic in the park.
Walk in a quaint downtown area and buy ice cream.
Borrow a movie from the library, pop homemade popcorn with special toppings.
Have a dollar icecream from a fast food restaurant.
Eat icecream at home.
Host a board or card game night with friends.
Invite another family (or families) over for a “potluck” dinner or dessert.
Have a homemade pizza night with friends.
Play baseball with the neighbors.
Go hiking at a National Park.
How to you save on entertainment? Leave a comment.
next post: 3 Months to Financial Change
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You can also use a web site called couchtuner.eu to watch most tv shows. I love the posts. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the tip Leann – I have not heard of that before.
Took me a year to convince hubby to get rid of direct T.V. Added up yearly cost for nothing special. As I am a TV / movie junkie and home all summer in 115 degree weather we needed something. Netflix is 8. We have antennea T.V. for free. We do redbox, but you must sign up for email and texts. I get many free and half off coupons for red box. Almost one a month. Hubby and my mom get them too, so between us three we get lots for free. We also check a lot out from the library. One other cheap way to go is android TV. It streams through your tablet current shows from HBO, showtime. 4.00 a month. FYI I don’t pay anything extra for my tablets since we have WiFi in the house and I have a free WiFi app on my android phone so When I go out I can use tablet(Mostly for my grocery lists) for free.
Around 2 1/2 years ago my husband and I also made the decision to ditch cable. Everyone thought we were crazy for doing it. Although finances played a part of our decision, we also did not like many of the shows our children were watching. In place of the cable that was costing over $60/month, we opted for $7.99 Netflix subscription. Not only have we saved tons of money ($624/year) but we have more control over what is being watched. Honestly we haven’t even missed the cable. If we want to see local news or weather or anything like that we just pull it up online.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Carmen. I think more and more people are opting for dumping the cable. $624 is a lot of money!
My children loved when their cousins came into town for a long weekend. (they lived about 2 hours away from us). They also loved to go to the local bowling alley (1.5 miles away) and bowl and eat pizza. Unfortunately, my budget at the time just wouldn’t handle these expenses. (My four, plus 3 more at about $10 a head for 3 games, pizza and soda was $70 more a day than either my sister or I could swing. So they brainstormed together and decided that all 7 would go door to door to the local subdivision asking for soda cans they could turn in and get the deposit back. In NY state that’s 5 cents a can/bottle. They were honest with their reasons = our Moms can’t afford to pay for us to go bowling and eat pizza. They then asked the local Big M manger if they could rinse the cans they collected out there before turning them in. They always went bowling at least once during that long weekend, and often twice! I have to say that it taught them a lot about cooperation, work ethic, and working towards a financial goal. Today all our kids are amazingly good about their finances (barring my soon to be divorced daughter who is still getting her feet under her from a cheating husband who walked out.) Not bad.
I just love that you discuss all these things as a family and I got teary when I read that your kids came up with just each riding one ride each and still having fun. That’s so amazing that they are thinking and finding ways to do what they want just on a budget! You and your husband sound like you’re doing a great job with them 🙂 I have a budget but not one so tight where going out to eat a couple times a week breaks us. I honestly will just cut from the main grocery budget if I go out too much because why spend so much if I’m not cooking all the days? I’m a stay at home mom to a three year old and I need to learn more cheap and fun things to do with him versus just going out to eat and shopping! This blog is great and I love your honesty and practical application. It’s easy to read a budget but not seeing it in action doesn’t always work on me. Thanks!!
Welcome Brie! Thanks for your encouragement. I really love to hear that what I am sharing is helping others. 🙂
We subscribe to Netflix for movies, and also Amazon Prime has a deal where you get free shipping on numerous items, along with free streaming of many movies and shows, for about the same price a year as Netflix. The Amazon Prime deal is especially great because you can split the shipping advantage (Not the free movie streaming though) with other people and they can pay you a small sum a year for that, which helps to lower the overall cost. We live in NYC, so we can catch about 11 channels for free, which would include the news and some other shows. Also the NYC Public Library has an amazing deal of “inter-library loan” (from any library in all of NYC) where you do not need to pay anything to put a hold on almost any and every movie you want to watch, even some of the newest ones. I know this doesn’t work for everyone, but for those living in cities this is a great way to get entertainment free.
Thanks for the tip about free streaming with Amazon Prime Sara. I was not aware of that benefit.
free or inexpensive activities I do with my daughter
-free day at the museum
-$1 movie theatre night
-library/bookstore (read to her, look at art books together)
-wildlife sanctuary
-free mommy & me classes
-free yoga
-farmers market
-hiking/biking nature trails
-craft store classes $1-$5
-kids eat free with purchase at some chain restaurants
-advance purchase hotel deals (I paid $89) & bring my daughter & 2 of her friends for a one night stay in a nice hotel, including 2 days at a huge resort of roller coasters, waterpark rides etc.
-shop at the dollar store, make your own laundry detergents etc.
-research & make your own skin care instead of buying the expensive stuff that rarely works anyway
-be crafty at home. if you see something you love, try to think up how you could make it yourself.
-work part time where you will benefit as an employee (for me it’s the salon) I get free waxing, hair services, massages, mani/pedi etc. which saves me hundreds a month.
-also, if you’re REALLY good about paying off your cc on time EVERY month, find one with no fees & the highest rewards, & use it for everything including bills. my cc company sends me a check every month for using the card.
find your local community listings
my daughter has no idea we live so inexpensively, but this is how mommy gets to be with her instead of working 24/7 🙂
All great ideas Sarah. Thanks for sharing them!
So glad I came across your website! My boyfriend and I make plenty of money for the two of us (in addition to the two dogs) but somehow we always feel like we’re scrambling for money two days before our paychecks… we both really enjoy shooting and go at least once a week. (Our guns are .22 which is a very very cheap bullet to buy and we have month-to-month memberships that pay for itself in 2 trips). Unfortunately, we’re both fairly young (20 and 27) and our rent just got chucked up almost TRIPLED! Our main problem is that we like to eat out all of the time. I recently bought Lemon Wallet, an app for spendings, and discovered that we spent almost 1/3 of all of my earnings towards eating out!! We were both looking at one another thinking “how could this be?!” Unfortunately, he hatessss healthy food like veggies and fruits which would be hood for his overall health and wallet. We aren’t married or engaged and no kids on the way or planned so I would like us to start implementing some better habits sooner than later..any suggestions?
Also, I love this post because I have a huge tv, blu-ray player, xbox, and tivo which all rack up the costs at my parents house. My boyfriend had long lost cable and tv all together before I even met him so we rent a movie once a week from redbox (use codes from being texted randomly or use “retailmenot” as an app to find past codes that still work! We usually get free/half off nightly rentals and make it a point to return them asap. The amount of communication between us is incredible and also helped to build our bond earlier in our dating stages. The thing is that he and I keep our financials separate and plan to throughout of lives so we have to do two separate logs…right now we do alternating dinners/entertainment and goes half and half on bills like rent and utilities. Phones and car insurance are completely separate and arent spoken about….wow this got long. Okay well I love your blog and thanks so much for being so helpful and honest!
Hi Melissa! The one thing that helps me to stay out of restaurants is making a weekly menu plan. Even if you only write down your dinner plans and make sure that you have the ingredients on hand, you will increase your chances of actually cooking dinner. 🙂 You can also cook some meals ahead of time on the weekends, so that you just have to heat them up during the week. One of our favorite ways to make quick dinners is to make a big salad and grill some chicken. We can then make salads, chicken salad, grilled chicken and veggies, chicken quesadillas, etc. Hope this helps!
Loved reading this post, it was good and loved everyones comments. We really don’t have kids in the house anymore (just a senior and we are done) so don’t have to deal with some of the decisions you all have to make (been there done that) One thing we won’t give up is cable. I like my 30 minute tv shows but most of all I like watching the variety of news stations (I know I am weird) Movies I could live without so no movie theatre here.. One once in a while is fine with me. We as a family (grown kids out of the house) do like our Sunday/Monday football and its always a great time to get together and potluck and cheer on our Broncos… So it is something we do pay for even tho it is a bit more……
Your blog is very encouraging and I especially LOVE that someone has chosen their family over the “money and success” the world seems to drive at us. Specifically on this topic, my husband and I got rid of our DISH network the moment our 2 year contract was up. It was costing us upwards of $90/mo., we weren’t even home enough to justify it, and we wasted to much time in front of it when we were home. We now have Netflix for $8/mo., use the RedBox for movie rentals (you can find coupon codes online for free movies), and most importantly, we got an antenna. It cost about $65, one time cost. We can get a few local channels which provides us with local news, weather alerts, tv programming, and most importantly SPORTS! Just an idea if you are missing some form of tv. We also hook our laptop up to the tv and stream tv shows that we cannot get with our antenna directly on to our tv. The best of both worlds without any monthly cost!
We never go to the movie theatre, and when we take the kids places, we try to find free or very cheap things (they’re still young so this is easy). We also eat at cheaper restaurants or save up if we want to go to a fancy place (sometimes we’ll ask for money or gift cards for our anniversary so we can do this).
However, the cable is one thing I’m having a hard time with. We didn’t have it for years, but got it last year because Comcast was offering a deal I couldn’t pass up. Now, Comcast upped our price and hubby doesn’t want to get rid of the cable because of his football. I would be fine getting rid of it because I watch Netflix and Hulu most of the time anyway. I’m hoping that after football season is over I can cancel the cable and hopefully save a little money that way.
I know lots of women who’s husbands don’t want to give up the sports on tv. I think that if it is really important to him, cut the budget in other areas and don’t worry about it. Everybody needs to have something in the budget that they can call their own.
On the other hand, if he is unwilling to give up anything at all in order to make the budget work, it may be time to get some financial or marriage counseling, but it doesn’t sound like that is your situation.
Thanks Kimberlee! He’s definitely willing to cut in other areas, so I guess I’ll just have to let this one slide. 🙂
If you guys have a PS3, you can get NFL Sunday ticket for a one time cost of about $300 for the season (or about $25 a month).
Your husband can watch football and baseball by purchasing monthly or season passes via NFL.com and MLB.com. This is still cheaper than a monthly cable bill. In addition, you can get an antenna (they’re very small now) for your tv to pick up local stations and the games and programming that show on them.
Thanks for the tip Gail!
In the past we ditched tv programming for Netflix (which we still have, since it’s much cheaper than our previous 3 movies per week at Redbox habit) now we have a bundle (saving $60 a month). We see movies on discount Tuesdays every few months when you can see 3d movies for $6. We get “museum passes” at our local library (which you can also check out any in your “network” for museums, zoos, parks etc. I’m a college student/mom so we use student discounts when we can also. We only eat out when it’s kids eat free or .99 cent or off the 2 for $20 meals (unless there is extra “fun money”).
I have 2 children, 9 and 12, and am a single Mom. My son has Asperger’s and my daughter is in gifted, which comes with it’s own expenses. I work full time, so in the evenings we love having tv/movie nights, but the cable bill was getting too high.
I cancelled the cable switched to a company that was having a special on a higher speed internet with wi-fi. We have Amazon Prime, (well worth the $75 a year in free shipping and auto delivery discounts of gluten free foods, vitamins, supplements, etc), which offers free movies and tv shows that can be streamed through the Playstation 3. We also have a Wii that allows Netflix and Hulu.
I went from over $150 a month to about $60, and that includes teh price breakdown of the Amazon Prime per month over the year. Just about every show we watch, is available on Hulu, and we have weekly movie nights.
If you don’t have a Wii or Playstation, there are the Roku’s which you can find at Target, (they also have other brands, one is currently on clearance for under $50), and then there is the Boxee, which I plan on purchasing for our main tv. http://www.boxee.tv/#home A friend of ours uses this, and they absolutely love it.
(I received a year of Hulu as a gift, it’s only $8 a month, and I plan to keep it. Netflix can be viewed on multiple tv’s, so my sister and I share a subscrition between households. If you do not want to purchase/do not have a Wii, Playstation, X-Box, Roku, Boxee, etc, you can purchase an adapter to hook your computer up to your tv, to view the content on Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime also allows you to rent movies, purchase tv seasons and movies, on top of the free content).
Great ideas Kay–thanks for sharing. 🙂
I have been reading all of your posts most of the day and love them! You have inspired me that it is possible! While eliminating tv would be ideal for our household to save money, my husband refuses. But we have been using the “mint.com” app for three months now and I could not believe the amount of money we are wasting!! I am going to print all of your blogs off to share with my husband tonight and hopefully start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for you advice and encouragement.
Hi Amanda! I am glad that you have been inspired. Not all of the things we do are for everyone, and it’s important that your husband doesn’t feel deprived. Happy hubby, happy life–LOL! Communication is a good thing though, so I hope your chat goes well. Just don’t let my name become a bad word in your household–haha!
I agree with happy hubby happy household! Our chat was very successful and we are starting a freedom fund tomorrow! Yay! And I am not going to overwhelm our finances with a huge overhaul but slowly I hope to be debt free and living completely with in our means. Thanks again! You and dave Ramsey are changing our lives!
I love this post. I pay for television programming either. I love to watch dvds of series I enjoy that I get from the second hand store. The best part is I can watch an entire season of something without commercials. Sometimes I regret my decision to eliminate television from my life, like when the girls at work talk about The Bachelor, but I love coming home to a quite house. 🙂
We recently cancelled our satellite tv. It was a hard decision because we had grown so used to having it, but we have found that most of the shows we like to watch are free on the tv channel’s website every week. We also subscribed to Netflix. It is about $8 per month, so for my husband and I to have a date night at home once in a while, it’s cheaper than renting movies. We do need to have WiFi to do this, but I make extra money on the side by being a Scentsy Consultant, which requires the use of the internet. The money I make from doing it pays for the internet, so it works for us. It also allows me to sell stuff on Ebay and make extra money. Even if I didn’t make that extra money, having the internet and Netflix combined is $38 per month, whereas we were paying $110 per month for Directv. It is definitely improvement!
Here’s what it took to convince my husband that we should ditch cable: NFL Sunday ticket is available through his PS3, and we got a digital antenna so we still get network shows. All-in-all, these 2 purchases came out to about $30 a month (plus $35 we pay each month for internet), which is half of what we used to pay for cable and Internet.
Thanks Caitlin!
I love all your tips, thanks so much for being so open. One issue that I run into is that I have teenage boys. I can convince them to go to the $$ movie but what do you do when all their friends are going to a football game or going to the
regular movie? Also I try at school time to buy clothes on sale and get them ri sell there old clothes to buy new ones but they feel like its our job as a parent to keep them clothed. Do you have any suggestions?
Well I believe it is your responsibility as a parent to provide the basic necessities for your children, but that does not mean entertainment or designer clothes. One option is to come up with a reasonable budget for clothing and entertainment and let them choose how to spend it. If the entertainment budget is $20 a month per child and they blow it in one weekend, then they stay home or do something free the next 3 weekends. My teens choose to shop at thrift stores and discount shops because they know the money is limited and they can get more clothing if they spend less on each item.
I think giving teens more responsibility enables them to be wiser adults and takes some of the pressure off of you. Hope that helps! 🙂
I have a few friends with whom I share a passion for food. We all love going to new restaurants, checking out experimental chefs, and eating exotically, but that can be VERY expensive. So, we have a dinner club. We get together about once a month for a themed dinner party. We’re all pretty amazing cooks ourselves, so each person makes a dish and we have a foodie’s dinner party. WAY cheaper than eating at the latest restaurant and still gourmet quality food! Even if we spend a hefty amount on specialty ingredients, it’s still cheaper than paying for a full meal out. Plus, the wine is cheaper, we can stay all night around the table, and we don’t have to shout at each other to be heard.
That is a really terrific idea Jill–thanks for sharing it!
I just found this series and I love it! I’ve been researching for awhile how to cut back on our cable/internet service, and found some ways to reduce ….. but not without losing those sports channels my husband doesn’t want to lose. Any ideas you may have come across on how to see those sports games over the internet? He mainly watches the Angels and UCLA football, but he likes to destress sometimes zoning out watching other games. Thanks!
I don’t know but I will ask the readers for you. 🙂
Here are the replies from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepeacefulmom/posts/10151113629632798?notif_t=feed_comment
I love your blog 🙂 it’s so great to have. My husband and I are in our early 20s and in school and still trying to figure out money matters. It’s hard when you were never taught and we given everything you ever wanted until a rings on. That sounded super spoiled lol. I don’t act it but it does make learning how to handle hard. We don’t have cable either and we use the cheapest Internet. My hubby LOVES sports too but we found that so does every guy in our church. The elders quorum (I’m lds) takes turns hosting sports and video game nights. 🙂 It works out great for having the whole male bonding thing and saving money. Love it.
That is a really great idea Megan. Love it!
Your children must be so awesome to have come up with that solution! *Hugs* to all of them!
Thanks Amanda–I like them. 🙂
I forgot to mention how much we love Redbox. We can rent a DVD for just over $1
We have a cheap theater that even runs brand new movies!
We also do a lot of family friend get togethers that are pot luck styled, so sometimes we host and other times we visit friends. We make part of the meal, they make the other part. So we’re not really spending more than if we made a whole meal. And it’s way better than spending money on going out somewhere for fun. Our kids love just running around playing with their friends and we get to have some adult conversations with our friends. 🙂
I just found your site through a friend and have been reading it all morning! So many good tips – we have been budgeting on and off for years, but have a hard time sticking to it. This has been so encouraging to me to keep at it!
First of all, let me just say, I’ve read just 7 or so posts and I’m in love with you. My husband and I have been married just over a year and have many similar ideas as you.
We haven’t had cable for the entire time we’ve been married and it is AMAZING. We do pay like $7 a month for instant Netflix and check movies (and TV series’) out from the library.
We are very blessed as my husband has a very good job as an engineer and makes good money. I am still in school and work minimal hours so I hardly make much. We are getting ready to start having kids, so your blog is going to help tremendously.
Not eating out and budgeting groceries is going to be the most difficult thing for us. Because we both work, we make the excuse that we don’t have time to cook very much. The truth is, we don’t make the time. I’m excited to use some of your tips to get started cooking more and eating out less.
Anyway. Thanks for blogging. I appreciate your advice and humble input. It is quite refreshing.
Thanks so much Amy! Welcome to the tribe. 🙂
We go to the lake at least once a week instead of paying my HOA $50 for access to the pool our subdivision has free lake access. As for entertainment budget we dont have one so on those months my husband gets paid 5 times we ussally splurdge. I also use that extra check to stock up on things. Another thing we do to save money is only have a house phone. I know this is like prehistoric to some people but it is cheaper to have 1 land line than for everyone to have a cell phone. To me a cell phone is a luxery. My husband and I grew up in 2 different worlds I came from a large family with a small income my mother taught me well to be frugal. My husband was spoiled rotten and I have had to train him to be frugal its a work inprogress but he is doin much better. I had to teach him just because you want something doesnt mean you get it. With my husband also being 40 before having his 1st child it has been a whole lifestyle chang for him and he laughed at me when I told him I was gonna start making all our household needs but now he sees I am not spending that $60 a week on things like Laundry detergent and body wash he is on board. I also have to tell you this funny about my husband our first Thanksgiving together I told him I cook for three days and make everything from scratch. At 38 he looked at me and said what do you mean from scratch he had never had anything cooked from scratch. Just had to share that like I said before 2 different worlds.
That’s funny! I’m glad you can introduce him to a whole new world. 🙂
When my husband and I go on dates, we have 2-3 restaurants we frequent. At one place we get a large platter of sandwiches and a pot of tea and split it…it’s plenty of food for 2 people for $19 total. We also love Qdoba, so we signed up for coupons and we go whenever they have a BOGO special–2 meals with drinks for about $10 total. If money is especially tight, we go to Barnes & Noble and get mochas then walk all over the store for hours. (It’s romantic since it was where we spent a majority of our time when we dated.) It’s a nice and always needed break from the home routine no matter where we go.
I found your blog through pinterest and read all of them. I’m planning on showing it to my husband and hopefully he’ll be on board. We struggle financially, living paycheck to paycheck. I know I’m equally at fault as he is. We’ve admitted we need to budget and I think your guidelines would be very helpful. We both have cars and payments that we got before we were together. So that’s out. But, i know there are other ways. He can brown-bag it for lunch, less fast food, meal planning, etc. I’ve been looking for guidelines such as this. Thank you!
Hi Nia! Just take one step at a time. You can do it!
I LOVE my Roku! I already spend $35/month on Internet so I bought our 1st Roku for $60 (we’ve recently upgraded to the $100 one) and could never consider getting cable again. There are SO many free channels available on the Roku. There are newschannels, cooking channels, free movie channels like Crackle, music channels like Pandora ALL for FREE. I watch Suze Orman every week on Nowhere TV channel. I can connect my facebook account and watch a slideshow of the photos in my news feed. And Netflix is available for $7.99 or even Hulu Plus… there is lots of cartoon channels and even the Disney channel that has short clips or trailers of their movies.
… and Myth Busters is on Netflix… commercial free with the ability to pause and fast forward 😀
Woohoo–we love Mythbusters! 🙂
We also ditched the cable. Actually, we technically have it right now becuase our internet is cheeper WITH TV! But we learned to live with out it and never installed the cable box! We own a PS3 and occsiannly buy a movie, or ask for them for birhtdays and christmas, and we do netflix! We LOVE netflix. We let our son watch one show a day and other than that TV is pretty much off, unless my husband and I sit down for a movie, or he is playing games after the LO goes to bed. I love the peace. We listen to a lot more music now!
My husband and I argue about giving up cable ($120/month), even temporarily, so we can get caught up and pay off a few debts. I even suggested parking one vehicle in the garage ($50/2 weeks) so only one would need continuous gas and maintenance, saving the parked vehicle for only life-death emergencies when the other was not available and for when we needed to haul the whole family to grandma’s house. He claims the difference isn’t worth it, and he is totally addicted to television. I think giving those two things up will make a significant difference financially, but he doesn’t agree. Please pray for us to reach a compromise and plan.
I do pray that you can come to an agreement. It helps in our marriage if I don’t talk about things that we disagree on and just pray. I don’t always remember that though–LOL!
Wow its so great how you taught your kids so well that they would compromise and ride one ride each. That is something I will want to instill in my kids when I have kids. We (my mom and I) just recently got rid of our cable television. I think for 3 months now. Since we still have the hookups and whatnot we are still able to watch tv (shhh… don’t tell anyone) but we don’t get the fancy channels we were getting before. We do get our favorite HGTV channel though. It has cut our cable/internet fees in half. At this point we don’t think it is wise to give up our internet.
I love HGTV. If we had cable, I would get nothing else done–LOL!
I’ve mentioned before that we don’t do TV, either. We check for our favorite TV shows online (99% of the time, they’re online), and we’re considering Netflix for $8/month. We’re just not interested in TV, even though we can afford it! You’re absolutely correct in saying that living life without TV increases the communication and quality time with your family. My husband and I have a garden to tend, we spend time working out together, he plays his bass guitar or we listen to music together, we watch movies that he has on an external hard drive, we rent RedBox and have free codes!, we read our books, we cook food, we go on a walk, we feed the ducks at the pond, or we head to the beach that is 5 miles down the road.
Sounds like you have amazing children! So cute that they came up with a compromise and I bet they had a ton of fun with dad! We’ve never had tv either – until recently… the cable guy came to the door and offered me basic cable, I told him if it makes my bill cheaper I’ll get it, and sure enough he figured out a way to make it cheaper! So I saved a few bucks off my internet bill and get the basic cable free. Always pays to ask I guess 😀
It definitely pays to ask!
I am a wife and mother to 2 teen boys. We had very strong winds a couple of years ago take down our antennae and DH and I decided to not put it back up. Then we only had a couple of stations.
We can check out movies for free from the library to watch. There are movies you can watch for free on the internet. Our local theater has free movies once a month that we can take advantage of as well.
I agree with you on the benefits. We play more games together, talk more, etc. I am so glad we didn’t put the antennae back up. We live in a 100+ yr old home and it would have been too dangerous for DH to have gotten clear up there any way.
Enjoy hilarious Youtube videos and things like that that are free online. You don’t have to watch a full length movie or a tv program to have some fun family time. The other day my kids and I watched enough Tim Hawkins comedy to nearly kill ourselves laughing.
We had satelite and for years I was after hubs to get rid of it – finally he agreed if we could do something like Netflix or Hulu+ since we already had a Wii – it was a family Christmas gift – we now subscribe to Netflix(movies) and Hulu+ (current TV shows like myth busters, home impovement shows) the monthly cost for hulu is about $12, and Netflix is $8. We live in the country and have found this cheaper than driving to the library once or twice a week. Speaking of library – my mother bought each of our 3 boys a kindle for Christmas – so they check books out over the internet directly to the device. We went to the main library one time to set it up, now we save the hour drive, and $$ for gas, and check out all the books they can read – and with no late fees since the device automatically returns them =) One thing we really can’t do without is our internet connection – but we have bundled it with our phone to save a little bit and opted for a no frills package. Most people don’t know that when you sign up for internet and phone you may be on a plan with long distance (which carried a service charge even if we never used it) voice mail, call waiting and lots of other things. When we cancelled the satelite I called the phone company and threatened to cancel if they couldn’t lower my bill by about 20% – they came clean about all the things that were optional and we got the bill lowered significantly =)
That is a very good idea to check with your phone company to see if you can get a cheaper plan. Thanks Amanda!
I recently found your blog via pinterest and I’m really enjoying it! I love this post! One of our favorite things to do for free fun is take our 3 year old to parks. She loves it!
Also, my kids are smaller, so they are easier satisfied. For entertainment, we do the park, storytime at the library, and playdates. Every once in a while we splurge for the Bounce House (one of those indoor kid places with inflatables) which is about $15 for my 2 right now.
And, I think being satisfied with more or less is something that we impart to our children. You made the comment that your scenario may not work for all children, but I believe that our kids act on the habits that we instill. I can already see this and my kids are only 2 and 4. They are much easier satisfied with less than other kids their age and I think it’s because of our lifestyle.
I am NOT a sports fan, however I am married to one. I would LOVE to get rid of our satellite, have been begging for years in fact but hubby is dead against it.
Sometimes the extra money is worth keeping hubby happy! 🙂
Having fun reading through this series! We don’t have trouble paying bills, but would really like to save more money and I know we can if we rein in our spending!! Thanks for all the info!
I know most people are talking about TV, but I just wanted to comment about eating out. We live in a smaller town, but I am able to sign up at many of the restaurant websites that give me a free meal on my birthday. We also have another email account that is my husbands for his birthday. I just celebrated my birthday and we made a loop around our little town to pick up my free meals on the same day (or different days if you have a lot of restaurants). My family had free BIG burgers with fries and deli sandwiches. We get them all to-go and take them home. I love it! Some of the places even send our kids a coupon. Chuck-E-Cheese has amazing reward charts! After a child completes them, they get 10 tokens. This is perfect for us, because my small children like to go down the slide the most and they can each play 10 games. 🙂
We dropped cable and have Netflix, plus Amazon Prime (mostly for shipping). We both also have free codes for Redbox that we both get monthly. We rarely go out to eat, so that’s not a problem and we go if we have the money for it. Other than that we’ve both had to live well within our means so we’re used to it. We have fun doing things together, so we do free state parks within a couple hours of our house.
We also got rid of cable a long time ago. Right now, we’re subscribing to Netflix. It streams through the playstation onto our TV, and my son can watch it on his laptop while he’s away at college. I believe it’s about $10 a month and we can watch just about anything, including some cable TV series 🙂 The kids have been able to watch favorite TV series from our childhood that they couldn’t have otherwise seen. And there’s no end to the movies. It’s been a worthwhile expense 🙂
do you get your internet through your cable provider or are you on dial-up? and areound what does yours cost?
We have internet through our cable provider. Our bill for phone and high speed internet is $59–higher than we would like to pay, but the best price in our area and we need high speed for the blog.
We also do not pay for t.v. No cabel or Satalite. We do own a WII (a christmas gift a few years ago) so we pay $8/month for Netflix and stream it through the wii or watch online. We DO pay for internet. Also, for “fun” nights we occasionally do redbox, but I only do that if I have a coupon for a free rental and make sure I return it the next day. I occasionally by those little totinos pizzas ($1.30 at walmart) and only by them if they have a coupon for redbox inside. Fortunately the town we live in hosts a lot of free or very inexpensive things for kids and families so I watch for those events. We have a free street concert every thurs. through the summer, lots of parks, and home depot hosts a free workshop on the first sat of every month for kids…just to name a few!
We ditched cable several years ago too. We subscribe to Netflix just for streaming. Also, we purchased a DVR that does not require a monthly subscription fee and antenna. Now, we can record our favorite shows on the DVR and watch them at our leisure. Our old cable bill was $80/month. So, after paying ourselves back for the DVR we went from spending $960/year to $105/year for entertainment with almost no change in our viewing habits. Love it! I do miss Food Network but that’s so not worth paying an extra $800/year for.
So i am one of those people that has an “OK” income and it is just me, my husband and my pup, any income is great so i am not complaining, but we are a one income family while my husband is in school. First of all, your tips are great. One of the things we do in our house hold in place of date night out… is date night in. Say we were craving our favorite Mexican restaurant…. we think of what we would order and make it ourselves. I have found you can find copycat recipes online……. and we do the works! Last time we did chuys green salsa with chips and big as your face burritos and margaritas. Our trip to the grocery store was high but not near as high as our check would have been plus we already had some of the ingredients….AND LEFTOVERS!
That is a terrific idea Roxanne. Thanks!
Great idea Melissa. Thanks!
We ditched cable as well, we do however use netflix streaming for $7.99 a month.
I also canned my cell phone for quite a while, and opted for magic jack. This worked well for me being a stay at home mom. I did just get a new prepaid cell phone though, because my husband will be deploying next month and having to budget for that extra is worth not missing a phone call from daddy.
As far as other entertainment, it’s usually just taking the children (all 7 and under) to the park.
Thanks for your post. We got an ice cream maker at a second hand store (4$ whoot whoo!)
So we have Friday night Redbox movie night with ice cream.
I found a great ice milk recipe that calls for gelatin so it takes 3-4 cups of regular milk, with gelatin, some sweetener/sugar and vanilla. We have fun deciding what mix ins: peanut butter, cocoa, chocolate chips. It makes homemade healthier and cheaper! 🙂
Love that idea Bec. We had one before we moved and I was just thinking the other day that I would love to find an ice cream maker at the thrift store.
We go letterboxing. Its free and super fun. Its like a scavanger hunt. You have a log book and log stamps you find in the letterboxes. My husband do this as free dates. We go lots of fun places in our city and really enjoy the quality time of discovering something new. http://www.atlasquest.com
Great idea Melissa-thanks!
Kimberlee…love this series! Did you know you can make ice cream in ziploc baggies too? Google it! We’ve done it for kids’ birthdays too as an activity.
What a great idea! I’m now figuring an ice cream maker into our budget!
we haven’t had any t.v. reception in about 3 or 4 years, and we don’t miss it. i absolutely agree with your points on the benefits of eliminating t.v. viewing, and see that in our home too. my husband and i do watch some shows on the internet after kiddos sleep, and the kids sometimes watch snippets of videos via the internet, but we are intentional about watching a show or movie. like you, we check out dvds from the library ranging from movies to educational videos. they actually have a surprisingly vast collection of movies and programs.
I would love to ditch everything but Comcast’s “limited basic plan,” which for us would be the major networks (including PBS), Weather Channel, Hallmark Channel, WGN (Chicago) and one or two others for less than $20 per month. I would be perfectly content with this, especially since we also subscribe to the Netflix streaming package. But I can’t get the hubs on board — he loves his History Channel, ESPN and Comedy Central. If one of us were to be laid off, it would certainly be the first thing to go, but I’d like to be saving that money *now* rather than only doing it out of necessity later. *sigh*
I know the saying goes “Happy Wife, Happy Life”, but sometimes it’s worth it to pay a little extra to keep your husband happy. 🙂
We have a digital tuner for our TV – from back when they gave the rebates and they were free, so we get some local channels/the networks. I actually like to watch PBS now and then, and there are some shows there my daughter (six years old) enjoys, but we just don’t watch a lot of TV. Hubby gets a lot of DVDs from the library to watch cable series, movies, etc….and I watch some of those, but mostly I just don’t have time for it.
We go to the county fair every year. Wednesday is free day, so that’s when we go. I take a picnic lunch and we eat at the elementary school playground. If my daughter is well-behaved throughout the day (she always has been 🙂 ) then she can choose one carnival ride at the end of the day. This works out really well for us. Most years the only expense is the gas money and the carnival ride for her (last year I bought a nifty funnel that lets you get the last of the ketchup or whatever from the old bottle to the new bottle – $1 well spent!)
We like to go to nature centers and hiking trails – the ones around here are free – and we go to national parks on free days too. Days at a ‘playground park’ are popular too. We usually take something that encourages some group play – bubbles or sidewalk chalk, for example – and it’s a lot of fun. Pack a lunch or snack and we’re good to go.
Also, there is a theater here that’s $1 on Tuesdays, and the movies are a little older. We went for the first time a few weeks ago and took our daughter to see Puss in Boots, and it was a great experience. Even with the vat of popcorn my Hubby had to have it was 8.50 for the three of us. We might do that once a month – we’ll see.
I saw on a comment that you found a great deal on a beach condo. Do you have any suggestions for vacations spots or how to get deals? We really want to take our son to the beach and my parents are even going to go to split the costs, but we are both low income so we aren’t sure if that’s going to happen or not.
We have friends who look for well known vacation condo companies like Marriott and look on ebay or Craigslist for deals people are offering.They have been able to get a 2 bedroom condo in the Disney area for $300 for the entire week. The deal we were able to get was on the Gulf Coast after the hurricanes had come through and they were trying to get people to come back.
I would never have thought to look at Ebay or Craigslist. Thanks so much. I am absolutely loving this series. My problem has always getting my priorities in order and having more self control. But when I got a statement a couple of weeks ago that showed how much we had paid in overdraft charges year to date ( since January 1, 2012) and it equalled a whole paycheck for me. I wanted to throw up and have decided that for my husband and child we have to get straightened out. We actually make good money for our area, but we’ve got to get our spending under control and get our saving built up
Way to go Cristi for taking control! 🙂
We also ditched the cable! We purchased the Netflix instant streaming package for $7.99/month instead. So between internet and TV (Netflix), we pay $28/month total. The best part about Netflix, you can watch all of the premium (HBO, Showtime, etc) shows without paying hundreds for the cable packages.
Also, one of our favorite cheap entertainment things to “splurge” on in the warmer months is to pick up a pizza and go to the Drive In. We try to line it up where the first showing is a kid’s flick (for our toddler). Then, during intermission I put him in his carseat and read to him until he falls asleep. Then, when the second movie (a more adult movie for the hubs and I) comes on, we can sit back, relax, and enjoy. The perk…not having to pay a babysitter or worry about calling to check up on our baby! Between the pizza (Hungry Howie’s $7.99 large pizza and 2 movies (toddler is free, the hubs and I are $6 a piece). It’s a $20 family night! Usually you would spend twice that at a restaurant and even more at a movie theater. We usually rent $1 movies, so it’s nice to “splurge” and do that once in awhile!! 🙂
That sounds fun Katreena!
Just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying your blog/site! It’s so refreshing, and as for the living on $28k section… we make a lot more than that, but have a mountain of debt we are working on (never to go back to) and sometimes I feel like you are writing my story! Thank you for the upbeat, practical… the everything of your site! Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much Heather. I am so happy to hear you are enjoying it! 🙂
We don’t have cable either. We just have attenna tv, which we get about 20 channels. More than enough for us. We also found a great website that lets you watch some current tv shows for free: hulu.com. They also have movies and older shows too.
Also, instead of going out once a week like we use to, we now only go out about once a month. To make up for the other times we just make great supper that is about 5- 7 dollars for the meal. For instance we might get Burtolli pasta or digorno pizza. Still saving anywhere from 10-15 dollars a week. And its a great meal plus there is plently of leftovers.
Love your posts! I have to say that the carnivals in your area are crazy expensive- $4 for one ride seems like so much to me!! I’m looking forward to your next “look at your paycheck” for the week, it’s very helpful and inspiring.
Great post! I liked the options and alternatives you showed. I recently did a post about how we have fun on the cheap too. We get movies and books from the library a lot and have fun nights where we make our own pizza instead of getting takeout. We’re known for getting pretty creative with out homemade pizzas! Here’s my post if you want to check it out:
http://www.peachesandcheese.com/2012/02/money-saving-series-ways-to-have-fun-on-the-cheap/
Although some of the ‘rewards’ programs we rarely use…I still pull out the card at the places that offer points for it. (We’re in Canada so we have some different programs – but I’m sure there are similar in the US). Just in the past month I have redeemed airmiles for a movie night out for 2 and redeemed aeroplan for 4 adult admissions. This equals 3 cheap(er) date nights for my husband and I. (No $1 theatres here!)
We will also go geocaching together.
we have a similar budget, but chose to do netflix instant play. it’s only about $8 a month and is more practical for us than the library or rentals because we are in such a rural area.
Love your ideas!!
Thanks Amy!
I think this is a great example of really looking at all the options and thinking things though to avoid impulse spending.
We ditched our tv a while ago and haven’t missed it at all. We use our computer to watch dvds occasionally, and we watch some tv shows on hulu for free (not counting the internet bill). The other great thing about that is even though we take our down time watching, we’re not wasting tons of time because commercials are limited and once the shows over there isn’t the temptation of whatever comes on next because it’s just over.
I don’t know about the other shows you mentioned, but I watch House Hunters on hulu from time to time. 🙂
Oh no Mary, you should never have told me I can watch it on Hulu! 😉
This is us exactly. Our library doesn’t offer DVDs. Occasionally we take advantage of RedBox’s $1.28 movies, especially since they do a free nights rental once a month via text message. It’s quite convenient for us to do $8/mo Netflix, one free RedBox and one additional $1.28 RedBox.
We were able to install a TV antenna which receives the HD stations in our area. Through an internet search we found a man in our area that makes the antennas for $50, we installed it ourself connecting it to the old dish cables, and now we have about a dozen channels (including two Spanish channels which our high school kids learning Spanish really enjoy). We appreciate being able to watch the news and our younger children (we have nine all together) like PBS kids’ shows. Best of all, after the initial antenna purchase, we have more TV than we really need, all for FREE!