Planning

Last week (or was it the week before?), I spent several days cleaning out boxes of junk. Now, I have to spend time clearing out my list of auto-payments from my bank account so that I can move those to my husband's account, close mine for good, and deposit my savings in a joint account with him.

The biggest thing weighing on our minds is, how can we easily go from a 2-person, 2-income family to a 3-person, 1-income family? Where can costs be cut??

Let's take a look (and hopefully, this will help someone reevaluate their "needs"):

Mortgage
Homeowner's insurance
Car insurance
Car payment (technically, my student loan--almost paid off)
Credit Card #1
Credit Card #2
Credit Card #3 (all the credit cards are in my name, and they all need to be paid off. Interest rates are a killer!)
Cable/internet/phone
Cell phones

Those are all of our fixed expenses. Once the car is paid off, I can apply those monthly payments to a credit card and accelerate the paying off of each of them, one at a time. After that? Keep them open with a tiny, tiny balance so that our debt-to-credit ratio looks way better than it does now and we'll be more likely to be approved for a home loan so we can flee the 'hood.

The cable/internet/phone bill is outrageous, and frankly, we don't need cable. That right there would be about $60 a month in savings if I were to cancel just the cable.

And the cell phones? Ugh. What need do I really have for a smartphone with a data plan? It's somewhere between $10-$20 a month just for the data, but I stay at home! I have access to the internet on my computer and I have a landline. I don't need a fancy cell phone!

Once all this is out of the way, we're hoping we can buy a new(er) vehicle for me to cart the baby around. Mine is 7 years old and has nearly 150,000 miles on it...and like an old person, systems are slowly failing. It won't be long before I have to lay Old Blue to rest. If we can budget for a new one now, it'll be easy to sock the payments away before we even buy it so that we're not slammed with huge adjustments when we DO get a new one.

As for flexible payments, like the utilities, those can be easily manipulated. I don't have to leave the light on above the stove at night. I don't have to run the attic air conditioning unit all day. I don't have to  use the dryer--I have clothespins and clotheslines in my basement. I don't have to have the A/C set to 72 degrees when Wade isn't home. Those adjustments there would save roughly $40 a month.

The water bill only comes quarterly, so that isn't so bad. Our bill for 3 months was $117. not great, but I've seen worse. Divided up over 3 months, that's only about $37 a month. If we can be more mindful when doing dishes, showering, brushing teeth, doing, laundry, etc, we can knock that down probably to $100 or less for the quarter. It doesn't sound like it would save tons, but over time, it adds up. It always adds up, whether it's money going out or money coming in (or staying put).

I just hope The Plan works as well in practice as it does in theory.