Hello, my name is Melissa (24 yrs) and I am married to my high school sweetheart Jeremy (23 yrs) We have two kids together, Isaiah (6 yrs) and Ameerah (1 yr) We don't really have a budget right now and seem to be getting far into debt because of it. My DH works full time and I am a SAHM. We owe $8,000 on our car still and have $4,000 is credit card debt. I'm not sure if you can help but I am going to tell you what our bills are like so you know what we are working with.

DH makes $1,700 a month

Rent $569.00 (We are on HUD)

Power $100.00 (usually)

Cable/Internet $105.00

Home phone $7.00

Cell phone $40.00

Car payment $158.00

Car Insurance $140.00 (2 cars)

Credit card payment $100.00

We are on Medical with no share of cost (so that's free)

We get WIC and also Indian commods (which helps SO much) Even though we get so much food from these I still spend so much on food, like $400 or more...Of course alot of that I think is eating out which isn't good. I try to budget $200 for food, $100 on gas and $100 on household things we need. We go way over on most of those.

By the way the foods that we get from the Indian commods are: 4 beef roasts, 8 lbs of hamburger, 2 whole chickens, fresh veggies and fruit, 20 cans of fruit, 20 cans of veggies, milk, dry beans, rice and other stuff that I don't rememeber right now. So as you can tell that helps alot!

Also something that is very bad is that we charge around $100 a month on our credit card for things we need like food and gas when all the money is gone.

So that's pretty much it so if anyone can help or has advice it would be greatly appreciated!!!

 Hi Melissa, welcome to the forums. I have a few thoughts, but I'm sure others will chime in. 

It looks like you have a little less than $500 left after the bills are paid. I think you answered part of your question yourself. You said " alot of that I think is eating out which isn't good." How often do you eat out and why? If you can figure out why, maybe you can find ways to cut back on that. Food is so much cheaper when cooked at home. Even convenience foods are cheaper, as a rule, than going out to eat. 

Then, look at what you eat. Snack foods are expensive if you buy them. Brand name foods are more expensive than generic and often, not any better quality. If you're spending $400 or more on food and getting commodities too, that's a lot of food. Are you including cleaning supplies with that? It sounds as if the food you get should last awhile. There are a lot of specific ways to stretch food, to buy it cheaper and to keep from wasting it.

Do away with disposables as much as possible. Paper towels, paper napkins, plastic wrap, etc. 

Use coupons on things that you would buy any way. Search for the coupons and try to match them with sales. 

Buy generic when you can. Try a little of anything you buy... some you'll like, some you won't. 

Shop by yourself and shop with a list. Don't let the displays at the store sway you into making purchases you don't need. 

Stock up when you can, but be disciplined about it. Allow yourself a set amount - say $20 a month for sales. 

Carry only cash when you shop for groceries. Don't bring your checkbook or your credit card. 

When you make a list, double check it to see if it's a "need" or just a "want." If it's a "want," try putting it off for a month and see if you still want it. 

Do you cook from scratch? Bake your own bread? The Food forums are full of good recipes, methods and ideas. 

Make deals with yourself. Tell yourself that when your credit card balance gets to $3000 you'll do something special (not a thousand dollars worth of special!). Tell yourself that you're not going to spend any money today - just for today. Do the same thing tomorrow. 

Ok, I said a few thoughts! You've made the first step in asking, so just keep at it. You'll get lots of good advice and encouragement here. 

Dear Melissa, Since I get help with grocery/meals deliveries from Jewish Famillly & Children's Services,which is like the Indian Commodities Program that you describe getting food from, I have a suggestion.  I waait until AFTER I get a delivery to make up my grocery shopping list.  That way, I don't duplicate & waste what has been brought to me, & don't spend excess SNAP/Food Stamps, cash in your case it seems.  Yours in Him, Deb

It sounds like the credit cards are trouble and eating out doesn't help. If you can't cut the cards up and throw them away, place them in a ziplock bag of water and freeze. You still have them but you can't use them (unless you have a long time to defrost the bag! You said you are putting gas and food on the credit cards. I know you may need gas to get to and from work. But once you use up your $400 food budget (and I would try and cut that down to $300, then $250, etc) then you can't use credit and need to rely on the commodities you are receiving each month. Think of it as a challenge.

My husband and I got into debt by buying things on the credit card that we didn't have at the end of the month: food and gas. Once you eat it, it's gone. Once you drive, the gas is gone. So I was paying credit card bills on things I didn't have anymore and that made a difference in helping me stop. Using credit to pay for a meal that will be eaten in 20 minutes and then paying for it a month later opened my eyes.  What did I have to show for it? Nothing!

From your email, it sounds like the eating out is a habit you could break. Do you like to cook? I know it's hard with small children. If you are getting the free food but don't know how to best prepare it and how to best make the meals strech, there are tons of resources on this forum for recipes and ideas.

Good luck! When your kiddos or husband want to eat out, remind them you are trying to pay down debt and once you pay down X amount, you will go out for a meal/treat to reward yourself. Small steps to big gains. Hope you continue to read the forum ideas!

 Welcome!

How are you using the meat you get? If you're eating it just as meat, you could start eating it in casserole instead, with beans, rice, potatoes, pasta - or just leave out the meat altogether and combine your grains and legumes so as to make complete proteins.

Maybe you could sit down and make a meal plan, price each meal, and see where you can substitute or elminate. Keep an itemized list of every penny you spend for a month or two, see where you can cut back.]

As the others have said, eating out is a low priority. Instead, you can make meals in advance and freeze them.

I have found that often the inexpensive foods are very healthy. Not packaged, processed foods, but whole oatmeal, grits, corn meal, beans of every sort, peanut butter, whole wheat products. Vegetables and fruits in season. And I agree about the credit cards - if you can't get it for cash, don't get it.

I've found it useful not only to have no credit cards, but never to carry much cash with me. So many times, I want to get something (not need!) and would probably buy it if I had the money with me.

 

I second the thought on putting the credit cards in a ziplock bag and freezing it. This is a simple mechanism to force yourself to take the time to think about using a cc before using it. Using a cc for normal purchases like food and gasoline should always be a last resort just before starvation. Try to imagine life without a credit card bill to deal with at the end of the month!

Take Suze Orman's thought: "If you can't pay cash you can't afford it!"

Eating out is expensive and there's no way out of that. You're paying someone else to buy, prepare, and serve the food. There is no reason you cannot do that yourself and in effect "pay yourself" for doing that. I've gone years at a time without eating out. Admittedly that was a while back but it can be done.

There are people near you with incomes less than yours. Look at what they do to make ends meet and copy what you can.

Do you really need cable TV? What do you think people did before there was cable TV? I'm old enough to remember when not even having a TV was normal. Dumping that and getting a library card would save you nearly $1,000 a year. I'm not going to suggest going without Internet though, since if you have kids they will need that for school.

Is the cell phone a "need" or a "want"? Again, I remember a time when cell phones did not exist. We got along fine without them. That's $480/year right there. Or, to make the number bigger, that's $4,800 in ten years, cash in your pocket. If you feel you need a cell phone for emergency use, get one of the prepaid ones and use it only for true emergencies (i.e., the car broke down on a dark back road). That will at least cut your cell phone bill by more than half.

Also, try keeping track for two or three months of every cent you spend. Literally. Write down every little thing you spend money on, even a pack of chewing gum. Then look at your list of purchases - you will be surprised (and yes, I've done that too). I can just about promise that you will find expenditures that you will decide you can do without in order to spend on more important things.

The idea here is to first make yourself aware of what you are actually doing with your money. When DW and I did that - keeping track of every penny - there were some surprises and we did make some changes. They didn't hurt either.

 There are many ways to stretch out what you already have: 

1. use a smaller amount of toothpaste on your brush. You only need a small pea-sized drop of toothpaste.  You can also brush with baking soda. 

2.  Shampoo: add water to it.  Empty the bottle into a bowl and add 2 bottles of water to it and stir it up. Fill the bottle and save the rest in a canning jar or other container.  Now you have 3 bottles of shampoo where you had only one before. 

3.  Make your own cleaners.  On the Dollar Stretcher Home page in the topic library there are many suggestions for using things like vinegar and baking soda to clean you house with, instead of buying commercial cleaners. Making your own laundry soap is another idea. 

4.  Don't use things like the Swiffer mop or anything that uses a disposable pad or brush. Buy a mop with a head that can be washed, like a string mop, and a good sturdy bucket. Those replacement pads can get expensive to use for cleaning. If you already have the Swiffer floor duster, use an old wash cloth or rag in the head to do your dusting instead of the pads.

5. Anything that is disposable cost money to replace it. Think of ways to replace disposables with washable items or reusable items, including personal items. Use an electric shaver instead of disposable razor, learn to make and use your own sanitary pads of cloth, instead of store-bought. 

6. Like Pat said learn to make your own bread and bread products.  There are some very good tutorials on Youtube. Flatbread is one very easy item to learn to make and it gets made up quickly. Yeast bread is not difficult to learn. If primitive cultures made it for centuries over an open fire, so can you make it in an oven. 

7.  Make your own snacks.  Look for recipes and ideas on the internet. Snacks are a very expensive item to buy, the last I looked an average size of chips was about $4.00 at Walmart. That's a lot when you consider that one bag of chips by itself is approx. 1% of your discretionary money for each month. 

Edey

Isaiahsmom91302:

Hello, my name is Melissa (24 yrs) and I am married to my high school sweetheart Jeremy (23 yrs) We have two kids together, Isaiah (6 yrs) and Ameerah (1 yr) We don't really have a budget right now and seem to be getting far into debt because of it. My DH works full time and I am a SAHM. We owe $8,000 on our car still and have $4,000 is credit card debt. I'm not sure if you can help but I am going to tell you what our bills are like so you know what we are working with.

DH makes $1,700 a month

Rent $569.00 (We are on HUD)

Power $100.00 (usually)

Cable/Internet $105.00  Can this be eliminated? 

Home phone $7.00 

Cell phone $40.00  Can this be canceled?  You have a land line.

Car payment $158.00  What is the car worth?  What is owed?  Can it be sold and the loan paid off in full?  Car insurance indicates two cars. If the car with the payment is upside down in market value versus amount owed, can you sell the paid off car to pay off either the other car or the credit card?

Car Insurance $140.00 (2 cars) 

Credit card payment $100.00

We are on Medical with no share of cost (so that's free)

We get WIC and also Indian commods (which helps SO much) Even though we get so much food from these I still spend so much on food, like $400 or more...Of course alot of that I think is eating out which isn't good. I try to budget $200 for food, $100 on gas and $100 on household things we need. We go way over on most of those.

By the way the foods that we get from the Indian commods are: 4 beef roasts, 8 lbs of hamburger, 2 whole chickens, fresh veggies and fruit, 20 cans of fruit, 20 cans of veggies, milk, dry beans, rice and other stuff that I don't rememeber right now. So as you can tell that helps alot!

Also something that is very bad is that we charge around $100 a month on our credit card for things we need like food and gas when all the money is gone.

So that's pretty much it so if anyone can help or has advice it would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

I don't see anything budgeted for car repairs, clothing, or gifts. 

Step by step:

stop using the credit card

if you are behind on anything, get current

you need a written budget where every dollar is given a name and then stick to it

save $1000 for an emergency fund

Visit www.mytotalmoneymakeover.com and www.daveramsey.com

You can listen to the Dave Ramsey radio program 24/7 at the Dave Ramsey website

Go to you public library and check out the book "Total Money Makeover"

 

 

Budgeting involves understanding how much money you earn and spend over a period of time. When you create a budget, you are creating a plan for spending and saving money.U can used printable worksheets and budgetting lessons to teach real life..

____________________________________________

Cash advance, payday loan and payday advance.
 

 

 First I would look at a several different areas where you can cut your budget.

Stop buying extra crap like prepackaged food. 

I create a menu for 2 weeks with what I have on hand and Only by items really really needed say bread or Ketchup do this with your indian commods the purchase the extra stuff needed to go with meals.

Meal 1 beef roast plan to do with veggie night in oven or crockpot on day 1

Meal 2 second night do shredded beef sandwiches with the left over roast and if veggie are left use as a side dish  (Purchase only  2 packs of buns and BBQ sauce or make from YES scratch)

3rd meal 1lb of hamburger meat make it into tacos with Homemade Mexican rice and Homemade refried beans

4th meal whole chicken bake it or drop in crockpot serve with left over Homemade Mexican rice and Homemade refried beans

5th meal Homemade sloppy Joes using 1 lbs of hamburger and the leftover buns from night 1

6th meal Spaghetti with homemade meat balls us 1 lbs of hamburger

7th meal  Pancakes and sausage

8th meal Grilled Cheese and Soup

Does this give you an idea of what to do?? I do  OAMC meals ( once a month or every 2 weeks meals) basically the quickest explanitions is if you going to prop a meal for dinner tonight why not double the recipe and freeze one for Next week or 3 weeks from now) 

If your going to make 1 meat loaf make 4 bake them freeze them for later use. ( I reheat in the oven for 30 min after thawed) I also do this in 8 x 8 pans which will slide in gallon Ziploc bags and freeze flat in the freezer.

I make huge batch of spaghetti sauce with meat and noodles and freeze in gallon bags for later use. (Thaw bag in frig pour into oven safe pan I reheat in oven for 30 min topped with cheese)

If your going to stand and make pancakes make a double batch and freeze the quick breakfasts

 See a pattern? Ialso use the dollar stores to purchase alot of products as well

•  Soaps/ hair care/ tooth paste etc
• Canned soups/ noodles/ condiments sauces/ spices 
  

STOP USING THE CREDIT CARDS...