We were hit with a few large expenses this year that caused us to start thinking about cutting back on spending/bills. We called and renegotiated our cable bill, refinanced our new car to a lower rate, and didn't renew our cell phone contract when we paid off our phones (savings of $50 per month). We also opened up a Roth IRA and now contribute to that every month.
We are going to do a full review of our budget for next year including.
-shopping for new car and home insurance
-look to refinance our new home loan with a 20 year instead of 30 year length
-Give ourselves an allowance each month in cash so we can't overspend on extras
-Budget for eating out (never stuck to a budget for this)
-Cut back on Costco visits (we have no control in there
-Look to possibly buy new unlocked phones so we don't have to get into another contract
-Put away $100 month into vacation fund
-Any extra $$$ per month will go to our debt snowball which isn't much but the car payments have us drowning. Dh's car died this year and my car got hit and was considered a total loss. So we have 2 new car payments. We chose to buy new because we have been suffering from expensive car repairs for the last 2 years and was funneling money into cars that weren't worth it because of their ages. Didn't want to get into any sort of used cars lemons.
Anyone else thinking about new budgets for next year?? Would love to hear your ideas!
We are going to do a full review of our budget for next year including.
-shopping for new car and home insurance
-look to refinance our new home loan with a 20 year instead of 30 year length
-Give ourselves an allowance each month in cash so we can't overspend on extras
-Budget for eating out (never stuck to a budget for this)
-Cut back on Costco visits (we have no control in there
-Look to possibly buy new unlocked phones so we don't have to get into another contract
-Put away $100 month into vacation fund
-Any extra $$$ per month will go to our debt snowball which isn't much but the car payments have us drowning. Dh's car died this year and my car got hit and was considered a total loss. So we have 2 new car payments. We chose to buy new because we have been suffering from expensive car repairs for the last 2 years and was funneling money into cars that weren't worth it because of their ages. Didn't want to get into any sort of used cars lemons.
Anyone else thinking about new budgets for next year?? Would love to hear your ideas!