Looking to save a little extra money each month?

Well, I have managed to cut $250+ off of our regular monthly budget by simply making a few changes! Here’s how I did it:

1. My biggest saver is keeping up with the promotions from my cable/phone/Internet provider. These companies are forever advertising and offering deals. I have a printable to keep track of all of my promotion expiration dates and stipulations if there is any. This helps me stay on top of any price increases and make changes before they hit. My last call saved me $55 a month and I  was able to get more channels than I originally had! You can’t complain about that!

2. Looking into my cell phone provider I noticed that I was paying for more data than our family was using and had some extra features like navigation active that we didn’t need. They also had some package changes since my last evaluation that fit our needs better. Making those changes saved us $35 a month!

3. Looking around my house I realized that I was running a freezer in the garage that had one container of ice cream in it! It had been turned on over the summer and then pretty much forgotten about. Turning this off took nearly $40 off my electric bill as it was an older model and not energy-efficient by any stretch of the imagination!. It may sound silly but making sure electronic chargers are unplugged, lights and TV’s are turned off when not being used and turning down the hot water tank saved me another $10 a month off of my electric bill and $20 off of my gas bill.

4. Now I don’t know about your family but mine eats a lot! Our grocery bill seemed out of control for our family of four. I decided to try buying some store brand items in replace of our usual brand name items to see what we could save. Well, it was mind-blowing! No, I didn’t go hog-wild and buy everything store brand but rather the things we didn’t necessarily have a favorite brand for. Doing this saved me over $100 a month! I’m trying more and more each month and increase our savings without sacrificing flavor and quality.

Bonus tip: I called my electric and gas company and signed up for their year-round budget plan. These allow me to pay a set price every month regardless of how much I use. It not only takes the surprises out of my bills in high use months but also lets my monthly budget stay consistent year round. Doing this saved me the  $100 between the two during high use months!

Extra Bonus Tip: Yes bonus tip two:) I started using Amazon subscriptions for all of our family’s baby, paper and cleaning products. It not only is delivered right to our door but is also discounted significantly. I am able to set up the auto delivery schedule how I choose and not think about it again! This saves us time and money which typically adds up to be about $450 quarterly!

And there you have it!

I saved $250+ a month and didn’t have to give up a darn thing! The only effort it required was a close look at a few regular bills and a little bit of time reminding my family we don’t have a money tree out back:)