Professional Lawncare – saving us $80/month
Although it was during the peak of the summer season this year, I opted to cancel our professional lawn service and take on the chore of mowing, weed whacking and edging on our own.
We were spending $80/month on professional lawn care service. But when our service professionals began to show up very irregularly, we started looking into doing our lawn care. Around that same time, my father happened to have an extra mower, blower and weed whacker he’d been given from a friend that moved out of town, so the universe seemed to be signaling to us that it was time to take the plunge.
It’s been three months now – and I need to take care of our lawn once a week – and I have to say that I’m actually taking a great deal of pride in doing our lawn. Mowing provides me with instant gratification; I love to watch our overgrown lawn turn into a neat, freshly cut lawn within a couple of hours.
For our family, cutting out professional lawn service has been a win-win on both the financial and personal development fronts.
I’m happy to have eliminated another monthly bill from our budget and I have found a rewarding hobby in the process.
Beauty Regimes
Call me vain – and perhaps I am – but I care a lot about looking my best. I simply feel better about myself when I like the way I look. As a woman in her mid-thirties, keeping up with this myriad of beauty products and services available to me is overwhelming.
About one year ago, I was spending the most money on beauty that I had at perhaps any other time in my life. I had . . . a spray tan membership, a regular teeth whitening regime, weekly wax appointments, regular false eyelashes, fresh manis & pedis, and even quarterly botox appointments, this is not to mention the everyday beauty products such as hair care, makeup, and body creams. Did I love having all of this pampering done? Of course!
But when I’m really honest with myself, all of this beauty care required me to live beyond my means. When I started to break it all down, it became blindingly obvious that I was spending money that could otherwise be invested more intelligently.
By simply cutting back on much of my beauty regime, I’ve unlocked hundreds of dollars in my budget to be put to better use. Yes, I still get the occasional pedicure and I sill use a professional hairstylist for my cut & color every 2-3 months, but I have sacrificed spray tans or waxing. I’ve gone “old school” and switched back to shaving and sun-bathing to achieve the same benefits these services provided me. I’ve tried to be much more mindful about the ways I spend money on beauty regimes and if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t miss these services all that much.
Mobile Protection Plan on my Smartphone
I think that a lot of people would label mobile protection plans as “smart” purchases; insuring against loss or damage gives people peace of mind, especially when the price of the item is high. Smartphones are high-priced, luxury items and yet, for most Americans, they are a necessary purchase.
Yet, after having listened to hours on end of personal finance podcasts, I’ve learned to look at the business side of extended warranties and insurance plans such as those offered for smartphones. Companies wouldn’t offer these plans if they weren’t profitable business. Thus, the companies make money off of these plans, I.e. they pay out less in claims than they earn in monthly fees from customers paying for them.
I’ve now joined the group of people who self-insure against potential losses or damage. I have saved up an emergency fund for exactly these types of occasions and I no longer pay money every month for the just “in case” such scenario. I have chosen to care for my SmartPhone as best I can and place money aside for maintenance and repair when it is needed. As a result, I’m saving myself nearly $150 on SmartPhone protection plans.
Subscription Boxes
Ugggghh. Subscription box advertising is soooo seductive. Right? I’m not alone in this.
Each and every time I see a subscription box advertised on TV or social media, dopamine from the pleasure center of my brain skyrockets. I want them all – FabFitFun, RocksBox, StitchFix, BirchBox, BlueApron, BarkBox . . . to name a few. They are posh, convenient and the surprise element is just plain fun. Subscription boxes have become a new kind of consumer status symbol.
I’ve bought into a number of these subscription boxes in the past and have had to learn the hard way that I don’t ultimately value these types of services (not for my current lifestyle anyway). Yet, I still find myself having to check myself each and every time that a new advertisement for subscription boxes appeal to me. I have to remind myself that this kind of shopping doesn’t align with the kind of intentional and mindful shopper that I want to be. I have to tell myself – “I want to shop local and for sustainable goods.” “I want to be more minimalist.” “I’m trying to minimize fast fashion purchases.” “I’m trying to eliminate impulse shopping and this requires that I touch, feel, and try-on these items to determine if these truly “spark joy” (Hey Marie Kondo!) before I swipe my card.”
Long story short, subscription boxes just don’t fit my lifestyle right now. By cutting these purchases from my budget, I’m saving myself about $150/month and saving myself from “surprise” charges to my bank account.
MOST Dining Out
My husband and I love to go out to eat. We used to do so at least 2-3 times/week, and oftentimes these trips tended to fall under the nicer/swankier restaurant category than not. I think that this habit was established early on in our dating story when we’d see each other only on weekends and the custom was to find a nice restaurant to go on Friday and Saturday nights and boozy brunches to finalize the weekend on Sundays. This carried into our lives when we moved in together and bought a home.
Fast-forward to when I started to track our budget. I was astonished by just how much we were spending each month on restaurants. In a given month, we were spending anywhere from $600 to $1000/month on eating out! This was more than our monthly mortgage payment! Think about what that same money could do if we put it to paying down our mortgage. Or car loans. Or investing.
Cutting back on this category has required us to make some sacrifices, which can be hard. We do allow ourselves some flexibility in that we haven’t banned all eating out altogether; we go out to eat 4- to 5- times/month now. This allows us special date nights together and for occasions when we meet friends out for dinner and family birthdays, so we aren’t deprived or socially ostracized.
An added benefit to this lifestyle change has been that we now cook together more often and we are more considerate of one another when we grocery shop for the week.
So, the quality of our lives has been by no means compromised and, if anything, we’ve added some creativity to our lives. AND… we’re saving ourselves hundreds each month!
Megan Case 