How Would You Trim $495 From Your Budget?

[forHISglory]

Ok....... Hubby and I wanted to attend my niece's wedding half way across the country. But the cost of airfare was way beyond our budget. While I don't worry about money or stress about money, I am careful with money (which is probably why I don't stress!!!).

Well, Southwest Airlines finally put tickets on sale today for $99 one way. With two way tickets, plus all the taxes and fees, it comes to $495 for the two of us. We talked it over and decided to buy the tickets.

Now I have to figure out how to carve that money out of our already tight budget.

How would you trim $495 from your budget?

[Daisygirl]

So this is just a temporary trim?

If I [I]had [I] to pull together money fast, I know the first couple of things I could cut would be groceries (live from the pantry/freezer) and gas (Stay home). At best that might get you $250 of it. You can't really run around slashing things like cable since this is a temporary cut. Go on a complete "no-spend" month aside from absolute necssities and you will probably find you blow a good amount of money every month (I find that for myself)

Good luck and enjoy the wedding.

[Holly]

In this house we'd be staying home.
There is no way...
Good Luck and Best wishes to the couple
getting married

[TheRootedNomad]

If I had to come up with the money this month I would:

~cut our personal allowances
($200.00 for the month)
~cut groceries to minimum
($150.00 for one month we could shave this much off our already lean grocery budget)
~cut gas as much as possible
($50.00 for the month ....maybe)
~hit my change jug
($95.00....I know there's a couple of hundred in there as we're saving for a real vacation)


If I had a couple of months I'd just
~scale back our allowence (which is basically our entertainment/extras money)
~shave money in the gas and grocery area (but much more minimally)

[joyofsix]

My suggestions seem to be repeats of the above
Groceries
gas
No extrasThe very occasional cup of coffee or kid meal at school or dh using the vending machine would be gone.
change jar
No long distance calls (canceling phone, cable etc would cost more in the end since it's a short term thing, unless you could leave them canceled)
Heat down, no lights, air dry clothes, short showers to bring down utilities.
Not sure if that will recoup it very quickly but over time it would.

[nodmicks]

I don't know if we could hit that number but I'd cut groceries way back. Beans anyone?
I'd also stop the auto draft 50 a week that goes into savings.
No eating out.
no extra trips

Do you have any items to ebay? Worst comes to worst someone could sell plasma.

[Momto2Boyz]

I think it would depend on how long you have to "find" the money.

I have a garage sale every year to get rid of "stuff" that has accumulated. I tend to do my cleaning out near x-mas & kid's b-days (which are in the winter), so if I needed quick cash, I would probably take a bunch of the stuff in my garage sale box in the garage and post it on Craigslist. So...if you have things you plan to get rid of anyways, now might be the time to do it.

Otherwise, I agree with all the posts above. Just cut out allowances, cut back on groceries and gas as much as you can and just save every penny!

[justpeachy92]

Other than trying to do the above I can't think of anything else. To be honest I am going to assume you have known about the wedding for a few months and I wouldn't have waited till the last minute to try and get the money around. When I found out about the money I would have looked at plane tickets then, and formulated an adjustment in my budget to set aside money, I would have continued to check on the prices and hoped I had saved enough when someone was offering a good rate.

[kittykatstrong]

I would love out of my pantry for a month. That would save us huge money. Also my change pig.

[mommy4ever]

Ok.

Call your optional expense places to see if you can put them on hold, stuff like cable/satelite, they are willing to put them on hold if you're are going away,meaning, you won't have them, or the bill, but there'll not be a reconnection fee when you get "back".

Groceries - cut back to basics and use your pantry.

Keep driving to a minimum, if I could get dh to do that, we'd save nearly $100/week that alone *sigh*.

Don't buy any extras, no clothes, gifts, etc until you reach your savings goal.

When your pay day comes in shave $100 off the top right away, pretend it isn't there. If you think you can get away with more, then do it.

We built an EF this way in 6 weeks. Just transferred before sitting down with the bills. Left less spend money, but all bills got paid.

[forHISglory]

Thanks for your help! We found out about the wedding at Christmas, but thought we couldn't go because of the expense. Now that the tickets are cheaper, we are glad that we can do the trip. We have a couple of months to gather the money, so we need to save a little over $200 a month. We think that by turning down the thermostat, cutting out any hobby/craft buying, and eliminating any driving except to work and church, we can swing it. Our food budget is already pretty low. You gave us some great ideas that spurred our thinking.

[Lady_V]

Not to stir the bucket any... but, where will you be staying? How will you get around town once at the wedding location?

You may want to put a little more aside for a hotel, food, car rental, parking fees at the airport...

I know The Old Man and I had planned a trip to Memphis, I knew we would be staying at his Mom's, and driving his brothers car, we knew the prices of all the attractions we were taking DD to, but we hadn't planned on things like food and gas... he assumed his Mom would feed us the 4 days we were there... it's a good thing I tucked an extra $200 away just in case.

[EmilyD]

In this house we'd be staying home.
There is no way...
Good Luck and Best wishes to the couple
getting married

Same here .. that is a third of our 2 week income. :surprise:

[stinkbug]

I haven't read all the posts, so I was wondering....is this something you could take from your emergency fund?

[Bethany]

I would challenge myself to no clothes dryer until the wedding came to pass. That would save about fifty bucks a month in my house.
I'd also cut out a luxury like no drive-thrus til after the wedding, that would save about thirty dollars a month in my house.