homesteadmamma
10-30-2006, 04:01 PM
On our debt $11,392.00, all on an income of just under $25K. By the end of the year, it will be almost $15,000 towards debt. Here is how we've done it. These might help to see it can be done, although it takes a lot of hard work, struggles along the way and often a huge amount of tears (I'm the worse when it comes to the struggles and tears).
~for almost a year I had not bought any quilting material. In fact I had stayed out of quilting stores. On Sat. I did spend $113.69 on almost $400 worth of material. The lady was closing her store and gave me 50% off 100% cotton and 70% off flannel. I couldn't pass up that deal. By staying out of the quilting stores I saved a HUGE amount of money. This was a HUGE struggle for me and I fought many tears on this one. I've been using my stash to quilt. Dh made the same sacrifice in not purchasing any new lumber for his woodworking, instead using up his stash.
~the only meat we bought this year has been a couple turkey and a box of chicken every now and then. The remainder of meat we ate was deer meat, given to us by people in our small town. This past week, we were given more deer meat by 2 different people. From the deer meat, we have roasts, deer burger (which I grind up myself), ribs, the occasional steak and chops. We don't eat beef. I use the soup bones to make homemade soup.
~for the most part I ground up my own grain and baked bread, cookies & muffins. The past several weeks I've fallen in this area because of not feeling well.
~during the summer months we ate from our garden. I kept the grocery bill to the absolute minimum I could get away with.
~I cut back on the stockpiling once my stockpile was gone and instead bought mostly loss leaders and we ate around those.
~we didn't go on a long holiday, instead went on a small one. We did stay at a hotel, however we had coupons which we used to cut the cost.
~The biggest struggle (even bigger than the material) was in not working on decorating our home. We've gone close to 3 years now with it half finished and at times it drives me nuts. Just this past couple of weeks we decided to try to get as much as possible done in the kitchen. It isn't completely to my satisfaction, however for us getting rid of the debt is more important.
~We cut back on our trips to the city BIG TIME. Instead of 2-3 a week, we now make one every couple of weeks and often have gone a full 3 weeks without going to the city. When we were in the city, I combined everything we needed to do and although it made the day long, it saved us a huge amount of money.
~we used our a/c 6 days this summer rather than everyday. Instead we installed a fan in our kitchen (given to us) and used fans to keep cool. We were fortunate in that we had a beautiful summer with just the right temperatures. It was hard though not to use the a/c at times though because I don't like heat of any kind.
~when it came to clothing, we bought 2 new things this year. Two new winter parkas for 2 of the kids. Any other clothing item we bought was at the thrift store or was given to us.
~one of the biggest savings we made was not drinking any soda pop. Even dh stopped drinking Pepsi.
These are some of the things we've done over this past year. There have been days when I want to scream and say "forget it all". Yet has I've watched our debt amount creep down, I've been happy we have continued to work at getting this debt paid off. I am very fortunate in that dh thinks the same way I do when it comes to debt.
Our goal is to get the rest paid off in 2007. Because I quit the job I have at the post office at the end of August, our cash crunch has gotten a tad bit crunchier so it's going to be a bit harder in the coming months. We are determined though, as a family to get rid of the debt in 07. It's going to mean finding areas we can cut back on more, finding areas where we can bring in extra income and going without - yet it's going to be well worth it we think.
~for almost a year I had not bought any quilting material. In fact I had stayed out of quilting stores. On Sat. I did spend $113.69 on almost $400 worth of material. The lady was closing her store and gave me 50% off 100% cotton and 70% off flannel. I couldn't pass up that deal. By staying out of the quilting stores I saved a HUGE amount of money. This was a HUGE struggle for me and I fought many tears on this one. I've been using my stash to quilt. Dh made the same sacrifice in not purchasing any new lumber for his woodworking, instead using up his stash.
~the only meat we bought this year has been a couple turkey and a box of chicken every now and then. The remainder of meat we ate was deer meat, given to us by people in our small town. This past week, we were given more deer meat by 2 different people. From the deer meat, we have roasts, deer burger (which I grind up myself), ribs, the occasional steak and chops. We don't eat beef. I use the soup bones to make homemade soup.
~for the most part I ground up my own grain and baked bread, cookies & muffins. The past several weeks I've fallen in this area because of not feeling well.
~during the summer months we ate from our garden. I kept the grocery bill to the absolute minimum I could get away with.
~I cut back on the stockpiling once my stockpile was gone and instead bought mostly loss leaders and we ate around those.
~we didn't go on a long holiday, instead went on a small one. We did stay at a hotel, however we had coupons which we used to cut the cost.
~The biggest struggle (even bigger than the material) was in not working on decorating our home. We've gone close to 3 years now with it half finished and at times it drives me nuts. Just this past couple of weeks we decided to try to get as much as possible done in the kitchen. It isn't completely to my satisfaction, however for us getting rid of the debt is more important.
~We cut back on our trips to the city BIG TIME. Instead of 2-3 a week, we now make one every couple of weeks and often have gone a full 3 weeks without going to the city. When we were in the city, I combined everything we needed to do and although it made the day long, it saved us a huge amount of money.
~we used our a/c 6 days this summer rather than everyday. Instead we installed a fan in our kitchen (given to us) and used fans to keep cool. We were fortunate in that we had a beautiful summer with just the right temperatures. It was hard though not to use the a/c at times though because I don't like heat of any kind.
~when it came to clothing, we bought 2 new things this year. Two new winter parkas for 2 of the kids. Any other clothing item we bought was at the thrift store or was given to us.
~one of the biggest savings we made was not drinking any soda pop. Even dh stopped drinking Pepsi.
These are some of the things we've done over this past year. There have been days when I want to scream and say "forget it all". Yet has I've watched our debt amount creep down, I've been happy we have continued to work at getting this debt paid off. I am very fortunate in that dh thinks the same way I do when it comes to debt.
Our goal is to get the rest paid off in 2007. Because I quit the job I have at the post office at the end of August, our cash crunch has gotten a tad bit crunchier so it's going to be a bit harder in the coming months. We are determined though, as a family to get rid of the debt in 07. It's going to mean finding areas we can cut back on more, finding areas where we can bring in extra income and going without - yet it's going to be well worth it we think.