I just have to say that I was not posting here about "wanting more money" that is not it at all. I am frustrated at the fact that both dh and I work full time and still feel strapped. This is a sentiment so many share and I just needed to get some things out. DH and I went through our finances and it is no wonder we feel this way. Everything has gone up in the past twelve months: our property taxes, cost of food, heat, electricity,etc.
And, yes, I realize on many levels how lucky I am. I am nowhere near destitute, I know my children are fed, and I have a roof over my head. I grew up in a very different situation than i am providing for my girls and I have grave paranoia of being financially irresponsible.
I just wanted to clarify. Thanks for all your responses.
You must live, not simply exist.

all the mamacita's rock, everyone is doing what they can.

i recently read "creating money", and i would reccommend it to anyone who is interested.

i'm learning to manifest and channel and it helped me to reconsider my views on money, etc.

i'm in a pinch, but getting out of it one step at a time.

try not to come down on yourself about your finances. all the people who come to this board are hard working and good hearted.

the propaganda behind the guilt really hurts my feelings, the governement would like us to feel overwhelmed and undervalued. and it's just not true!

here's to green grass and abundance.

there's enough for all of us!

love,
dc

or just another asian woman in seattle handling her biz!

a fire breathing/green scaled mistress production!

My two sides:

These are things I do that save me money:
~Drive efficiently (less accelleration and decelleration...)
~Cloth diaper
~No cable
~Sponge internet
~Bring lunch every day, eat breakfast at home.
~GENERALLY no sodas. I don't drink coffee.
~Vegetarian
~Food pantry...does that count?
~I'm not a shopper. Like, if I need something specific, I go buy that specific thing, and then I'm done and out.
~My potential house is DEFINITELY within biking distance of work, so I hope to do that. And I'll be line-drying and gardening there.
~Homemade cleaning solutions.
~Starting to do homemade bread. Saves like $2/loaf.
~Eat (and buy) as low and unprocessed on the food chain as possible. Dry beans instead of canned, etc.
~Our grocery store does coupons for 1 cent off per gallon of gas per $10 you spend, and you can stack the coupons and use three at a time. So I do groceries 2-3 times per month, spend about $50 at a shot, and save the coupons to use. Last time, I got 13 cents off per gallon. Getting a full tank, that put me at like $3 I saved.
~Selling clutter on my work's classifieds page. (Just sold the infant car seat today! Yay!)

These are the things I've been slacking on lately that are costing me money:
~Soda, because I'm tired. It's been 1-2/week lately.
~T*rg*t! Gah! Buying things there out of convenience instead of posting for them on Freecycle or my work's classifieds page. Most recent money-leakage was an iron & countertop ironing board. Totally could have gotten those used.
~Buying things I don't need. I used to be WAY poorer than I am now, so I got good at just getting by without "splurging." Lately, I've been splurging because I had excuses (birthday, Mother's day, etc) and windfalls. But I need to clamp down, now.

I just wanted to say that I think I'm going to print this whole blog out and save it and go back to it for inspiration when I move. Great ideas and info!

BleuRoo Handcrafted Sweetness
http://bleuroo.etsy.com

we can't afford our kids tuition to the only school and 2nd family they've ever known and there is a good chance that they will get kicked out, which of course will rock our world (not in a good way)... so this is on my mind. Not to mention that I work with food and watch the price rise weekly because of the rising gas costs. This is what we do/have done:

- got rid of cable. we get netflix and free library movies instead. we do not ever go to the video store because it will inevitably be overdue and end up costing us $7-$8 for us to watch one movie, if we get to watch it without falling asleep.
- I work at a co-op and get a 20% discount. still, I (usually) only buy items on sale and I use coupons whenever we have them. we sell these bags of cookies that were $.99, were on sale for $.79, had a coupon for $.50 off and with my discount ended up being $.16 a bag. these are the deals that I look for, and since I run the front end and watch all of the groceries and prices come through, I am good at this. I will always stock up on a good deal to save later.
- we have 2 cars and will always drive the one with better gas mileage whenever we can and/or don't have the whole family to cart around. I also go to this site: http://autos.msn.com/everyday/GasStations.aspx?m=1&l=1&zip=01230&x=0&y=0
to find out the cheapest place to buy gas in my town and wherever I plan on traveling.
- I now make sure that I redeem all beer bottles and use that money toward the next alcohol purchase that I make. I need to start doing this for all of the spritzers and izzies that we drink though.
- we buy in bulk. anything that we can, but these are the biggest ones for us - brown rice, oats, maple syrup, tamari, cashews, raw sugar, popcorn (which is, by the way, cheap and healthy snack #1 in my book).
- we use cloth diapers, but I have done this for all 3 of my kids... HOWEVER, ds has a nice rash from all of his never ending teething so we have been rotating loads with seventh generation disposables and my god! they cost money AND generate the most disgusting amount of trash ever. I am hoping to go back to cloth exclusively soon... but for 2 full time working parents, disposables sure are convenient and easy - what trap.

This is all I can think of right now and my time is up. If I think of more, I will let you know. In general, I am always conscious of prices and deals... my mom trained me well with that - my only problem is that I demand quality when it makes a difference, especially because better quality will pay off on the long run. And since this brings us right back to the beginning of my post about my children's education, I will end here.

You're not alone mama! Most people are really struggling right now...

Check out my daily photo journal:
http://ocim.livejournal.com/

Right now we are in negotiations with our local car co-op. We are hoping to sell our van to them and then become members of it. Research has told us that this will save us over $5000 (canadian) a year, if not more. I already walk or bike or bus everywhere and DH has started riding his bike to work as preparation for us to become a "car light" family.
What else...
I make most of our food from scratch and we eat out maybe once a week (usually thai take out or pizza). We try to buy our grains, flour and beans in bulk and stock up on staples when they are cheapest. We also garden both at home and at our community garden and are part of an organic CSA in the summer months as well
We don't buy much alcohol (dh makes fruit and grape wine at home) and don't have cable. We also don't have cell phones.
We go out to movies/entertainment type stuff maybe twice a year and are members of our local children's museum and a nearby science centre and the ROM (royal Ontario Museum).
Most of our clothes are second hand as our all of our books, videos and DVDs.

I know that we have a wicked thrift store/garage sale addiction and I'm wishing that we weren't so excited by stuff we find that is half price. I think it is a long, tough journey to a less consumerly frame of mind, especially in this consumer oriented society.
"I'm drowning and monkeys dressed as lifeguards are throwing me anvils"
Dilbert comic strip

Next month I will have 300 Euro less, because then i will get no education benefit any longer. And from the beginning of July the only money I will have of my own is the child benefit. So then there is no more chai latte to go, I have to be careful with clothes (no new ones every second month), body care and so on. Contraception is expansive, too, but we will not change that. I have a vaginal ring (like the Pill, but with less hormons) and that is great to me. I still have to pay for: loan, DDs children's dancing (so much fun), retirement provision. Every luxury I want (music from ITunes, cds, clothes) I have to save money for. Shit. I have to go to work as soon as I can.

well, yes and no. it depends on how much you want- and want and need are two very different things. the fact that this is posted on a strictly computer-accessed board is somewhat ironic, no? times are tough, relatively, but i think we are a generation that has come to expect a lot when it comes to its "needs." we've been exploring a lot more "voluntary simplicity" in this house and redefining our values in terms of money as life force spent. in terms of global wealth, i still don't think north americans have much to complain about.

I reuse everything I can (bread bags, plastic bags, paperbags, old sponges that aren't too nasty become floor scrubbers or for the bathroom, old toothbrushes get used for cleaning).

Now that the weather is nice I've been yard-saleing in my area to get thing we need. In the last 3 weeks I've found:

An electric, rechargeable drill for DH (with bits).
Fabric for $1 a yard
A book and patterns on how to sew
A webcam for $8 (we are going to get wired so the family can have video conferences with the kids so this saved us a bit of cash)
clothes for the kids (all 25 cents to 1.00).
5 books for 25 cents.
a really nice skirt for me for a quarter.

I reuse Dee's gently worn clothes for Baby K.

I've also recently taken advantage of the discount shelves at the local bookstore. They have 99 cent and 1.99 books and if you buy one of their reusable canvas bags you can fill it up for free. I got 40 books (mostly kids books) for $20.00, many of them new.

I belong to my local coop so I get discounts on some items and tend to stock up on them when they are on discount.

I buy rice milk in bulk and larger sizes (they have a 64 ounce size and I get 10% off a case)

Sometimes the bananas at the coop go half price because they are turning so I pick up a few pounds and freeze them for smoothies.

I buy all my diapers and wipes from Amazon.com or diapers.com because they are less than half the price of the regular store (I buy seventh generation chlorine free).

I bought 6 cloth diapers that I use on weekends to save on disposables. It's working and transitioning us to cloth.

I buy frozen fruit and veggies instead of fresh unless i know I'm going to be able to use them right away (too often things have gone bad before I can get to them)...except apples and bananas which we eat everyday.

I got a library card to cut down on "having" to buy dvds, cds and books.

We don't have cable or a phone.

I lowered my cell phone plan because I don't use all my minutes, I have roll over minutes and my DH and best friend are on the plan and it's free to call them.

I try to cluster different errands by area so I don't have to go to the same area two different times.

My husband rideshares or rides his motorcycle to work so we only have one car.

I bought a crockpot so I can make homemade beans and rice because the Organic stuff i was buying for Dee was $3 a freaking can. Now I can make a whole pot for that and it's not only organic but I can add what I want and I know EXACTLY what's in it.

I line dry as much as I can, unfortunately I don't have a line (yet) so I have to use my very small rack but I fill it up just about every wash.

I try to make as many things from scratch as possible. (Right now that isn't much but I made made good hummus so when I do want some it cost 1/10th the price).

I found out that some Ta*get stores have Annie's Organic and Amy's Organic foods at a steep discount from the coop. We got a Amy's pizza for just over $5 and it's usually well over $7.

I use as many all natural products as possible. Vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, tea tree oil, etc. It cost a fraction of the price of "all natural" cleaners OR standard Chemical cleaners and works as well or better. It has the added benefit or lowering my medical bills as it doesn't make me or the kids sick or expose us to hazardous chemicals.

For those that use medications it's also worth getting those discount cards and/or asking for samples. I found out my copay on the one medication I do use was $50 a month! I told my doc and she gave me 6 months worth of samples. That's $300!

I got my student loan company to lower my payments without having to consolidate, since my interest rate is so low it's worth it.

I'm applying for a refinance on my 16% auto loan! We had to wait 6 months to show credit here after moving from the Netherlands but now we can try to get a lower rate.

We got a discount on our auto insurance after 6 months (we were paying over 250 a month for full coverage not it's under 100) and also hooked up the motorcycle and got renters insurance which is supposed to give us a discount for multiple policies.

I think there must be more but I can't remember.

I currently have pretty high interest and I remember seeing one mama here who said she went to the bank to consolidate?? would it make sense to get a bank loan, personal loan at a lower interest rate to pay the bills off and then pay that instead of the high interest credit card bills?

Just wanted to say that. My boy had it two weeks ago and holy heck- he was home for a week and didn't eat for three days of that week. Hope Lily has a milder case!

As for penny pinching....I'm a reformed lunch taker. Since I grocery shop, I know that sometimes 3 bucks at Taco B*ll is cheaper than the $4 salad I would bring to eat, however, at least 3x a week I've been bringin lunch. Sandwiches and leftovers are very cheap! I scaled back from St*rbucks coffee to 7/11 coffee to work coffee. Yuck. I'm tempted to start drinking sun tea instead now that it's hot.
My big penny pinching is in not buying clothes for me or my son. He doesn't need 20 shirts when 12 will do. I need to wear what I own and not try to feel better about myself in a new shirt or new shoes. I also round up in the checking account to automatically save and I've been buying a LOT more generic brands than I used to. Have I noticed any huge difference? Not really. But everytime I resist the urge to go to gymb*ree dot com and spend enough to earn gymbucks, I feel a little proud of myself. Working 2 jobs is hard enough-- spending so much that I need to work three is out of the question!

When Hal and I were pinching pennies we eliminated the cell phones and cable. I also did not go to the store for anything. Hal did ALL of the grocery shopping because he was able to spend under 100 bucks a week and I just don't have the discipline to do that. The other thing we had to look at was entertainment, outside of cable. For us, this meant simply NOT GOING OUT AT ALL. FOR ANYTHING. It took a while to get used to but once we did, it was not a big deal. Now, we have two incomes, only a few living expenses (mortgage, utilities, cable - yes we got it back when we could - one cell phone for 20 bucks a month, FPL, food, Netflix, and gas). If we needed to pare down again, we could do it. Getting rid of our credit card bills was priority #1, of-course. We started with the lowest bills first and worked our way through the higher ones. Every extra cent we had went towards paying off debt. Now, we are FINALLY comfortable. We know it won't last, only because eventually I will go back to work and bring in less money than my SSD because I won't work full-time for a while.

I had to look at all the luxuries and just cut them out. No pit stops for coffee. No trips to Target. Nothing. It was an excersize in self dicipline for me.

Now that we have extra money, I've slipped back into the careless spending. I really need to work on that. I buy all this extra gluten and wheat free stuff and that shit adds up. I also decided I DID CARE about how I was looking and wanted to wear something other than spandex when I went out.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)

We don't live as simply as we could; that said, I think we live modestly. Our big splurges are: satellite tv,wireless internet at home, netflix, and fresh fruits & veggies. We eat out maybe twice a month (this includes lunch,we both ALWAYS take our lunches from home) and that basically means pizza or chinese takeout, we buy in bulk (costco), we purchase our meats direct from local farmers (except poultry) or DH bowhunts for meat, we NEVER EVER go out. When we buy a bottle of wine for more than six or eight bucks (like, once a year) I feel like I'm having a panic attack. We are always short of cash. And it is going to get worse as you say.

I attribute our situation to the fact that we both worked for nonprofits for the first 15 years of our career, so our salaries were low as compared to our peers. DH racked up a shit ton of debt, twice, which set us back significantly, and we weren't able to save. DH also went back to school for 3 years so we lived on one income, and then immediately had DS, so there was no catchup time financially. We had kids late so we are in a very expensive time right now with them (both in daycare, one JUST out of diapers).

I feel like we will never, ever catch up.

Things we've done to try to reign it in:

checked our insurance and raised our deductibles to save on the premium

shopped for phone/internet/satellite bundle deals

season pass to the zoo so that we always have somewhere to go with the kids that is fresh, exciting, and free

meal planning that includes more affordable items whereas before, because we cook ourselves, we justified higher priced ingredients

We've cut off the heat and don't use AC - even on the hot days or cold nights (that will change in the Summer & Winter).
We try to buy in bulk (toilet paper, toothpaste, tuna fish, pasta, whatever is on sale and in a large quantity).
We try to do things outside instead of watch tv. Turn off all lights when a room is not in use.
Keep the shades all up during the day to utilize natural light.
I pay some bills in advance so we have a month to catch up if necessary (like we had enough money last month to pay the cable bill and then some so instead of sending them an $80 payment for our cable/internet, I paid $160).
I also round to our check book up to the nearest dollar whenever I deduct anything. If we went grocery shopping and the bill totalled $64.01, I subtract $65. It's a little thing, but it adds up and before I know it, we have over $100 more than expected in the bank.

I can/should be riding my bike to work, except on Wednesday (therapy day -- whee!) -- normally dh has been taking me and dropping me off and then driving back to the house...super wasteful, I know.... I checked online and it's about 7 miles and there is a way to do it +/- flat -- I think it would take 45 min or so at a leisurely pace?? I need to pick up a helmet and a good lock if I am going to do this. DH also has been meaning to trick his bike out for hauling the kid around --

coffee: coffee "out" needs to be pretty much verboten. like I can maybe have a treat 1x per week, but not one every day and certainly not *two a day* from the cafe downstairs. There is actually free coffee here for staff, it just kind of sucks. Maybe I'll take up green tea instead!

lunch: bringing my lunch -- enough said -- and I feel better/eat more healthfully when I bring something. For a while I was being very good about keeping snacks here at the office, like a thing of peanut butter and a loaf of bread, big thing of yogurt, big thing of miso paste, etc.

We've already been trying to cut back on eating out (successfully, I might add) and since I have cut way back on drinking, this actually has saved $$ (half a bottle of wine per day on average = a lot of wine!).

Tr*der J*e's is saving me -- things that are kind of luxurious, but that I feel like I want to get, like organic milk and butter, coffee, tea, and things like shower gel and whatnot are cheaper there than at, say, wh*le farts.

I don't have cable. I don't want to pay money to watch ads that are trying to convince me to spend more money.
I sidewalk dive, and I'm thinking about learning to go freegan.
I have a crappy beater car that gets incredible gas mileage.

But, the reality is that I live about as simply as I can in this world, without being ridiculous about it. And I squeak by. It can't just come from people like us tightening our belts, because there aren't really any holes left. It's going to have to come from the richie richie rich rich rich folks unclenching their fists a bit. Now, they're either going to do it by choice, or there will be a ton of suffering leading to revolution.
I, for one, am tired of fighting over crumbs.
Can't wait for 2012....

www.myspace.com/placentamusic