Hellobee Boards

I think the first step is actually sitting down and listing your expenses. Then- give yourself cash for spending each, groceries, and gas. I made an excel spreadsheet (happy to send a template to anyone who wants it, or search my blog- link in profile- as I shared this and my tips) that shows each payday for the month. I then look at the list of expenses and "plug" them in where they fit based on due date. So then I have a clear view of our month, where we're short, where we have excess, what problem weeks might be, etc. My husband is paid hourly so I just put the bare minimum pay for him (weekly) and then mine (monthly.) There's a formula in there so when I know what our pay was, I change the estimate to the real. The bills under work in the formula, so if payday is $1,000, and bills are $80, $120, and $500, then it will show positive $300 on the bottom. I could go on about this for hours. Seriously happy to help anyone who needs it, I actually LOVE payday and paying bills now, it has saved us and our relationship and our sanity, 100%%%!!!!!!!

Haha, I always laugh when I see the best tip as cutting cable out, ummmm no. I haven't watched TV in 6 months for a variety of reasons and this TV-a-holic is getting back in the game.

My tip is don't spend money on dry cleaning! If your husband wears dress shirts, get the $17 ones at Costco and wash and line dry them. Just a quick run with the iron and they are good to go. I also line dry everything and put it in the dryer with a fabric sheet just to soften them up.

I use mint.com to aggregate all of our income and spending and it REALLY helps. both of us do much better when we see all of our expenses in one place and it categorizes everything and tells us when we are getting close to our monthly budget in a particular area (used to be restaurants/bars but now it's groceries!)

@regberadaisy: agreed on the cable! we could never give up sports!

We sit down and go over our budget every so often too - it helps to keep us on track and see where/if we can cut. One thing we're planning to cut down is our cell phone bill. We're paying for a lot more data than we use, so for us it's silly not to cut it down.

@Freckles: love it! I am thinking about getting one of those sleeve boards as well...I used to iron some of my husband's shirts inside out and he complained that the crease was the wrong way around, bless his little heart!

@kjpugs: I'd like the spreadsheet too!

@LindsayInNY: same! so helpful.
@zippylef: same! it's like we don't even know we get it! it's a great way to save.

You Need A Budget (YNAB). This software has really opened my eyes on where our money goes.

Also, take yearly expenses or things that don't pop up every month and put money aside every month for those expenses. things like car maintenance (oil changes, etc), car registration, medical, home maintenance, If you track all your money, you'll slowly see what these kinds of expenses are and better prepare for when they pop up.

Meal planning has really helped us cut our grocery budget. And making big meals and eating a lot of leftovers helps too.

Not sure what you're spending you're money on? Trying to cut down on expenses? Use all cash. Write down every penny you spend. That's my best tip.

Oh and direct deposit savings or saving during repayments.

Example - we pay daycare 6 months in advance from our big savings account. We only remove money from this account for daycare. We pay early so we can get a 20% discount. We pay our savings account back each month as if we were paying daycare. But, we don't pay just what it would have cost each month. We pay what we would have paid for the infant room without a discount. We end up saving about $2200 over 6 months. Easy savings.

Oh and we just made up our own spreadsheet for our budget in Google Docs (Drive). That made more sense to us than using a spreadsheet that worked for someone else.

I would've said everything @mrskc: said! Ynab helped with itemizing too like @kjpugs: suggested, and meal planning made a huge difference for us too since food (groceries + eating out) made up a huge chunk of our expenses.

We also separate our categories into fixed expenses (utilities, mortgage), monthly expenses (groceries, personal money, eating out), wants/nice to haves (gifts, saving up for a laptop, house renovations), and yearly expenses (like property tax, AAA bill)

Ynab has made it so easy to allocate money in these various areas and give us a snapshot of where our money is going.

@regberadaisy: I am such a huge fan that I feel like their unofficial spokesperson. Their iPhone app is now free too (it used to be $4.99)! It has completely changed the way we budget.

We haven't put anything on a credit card in 3 years. The last thing I did was wedding stuff if we can't afford it in cash, we don't need it. We generally live frugally though, DH is not someone who buys things and now that I'm the one making money/figuring up bills that's changed me. We are awful about setting an actual budget so hopefully we can do that after our lives settle down!

We use YNAB. I read @Mrs. High Heel's recommendation & my husband heard about it from a blog he reads around the same time. He is the numbers person so he takes care of entering all the info. But it has helped us so much! We are currently able to live off last month's income which has changed our outlook completely. No stress about when bills need to be paid, etc.

We cut out our wifi device and we just use our smartphones as a personal hotspot for our laptops.

I occasionally call utility companies and see if there are sny ways we can cut costs. The odd time they find a better package for us a save us a few bucks here and there.

@regberadaisy: im not clear on your question, sorry!