Six months ago (almost to the day) Melanie and I walked down the aisle separately and up the aisle together. We thought we had our finances all figured out. Although we had some school and credit card debt, we had a plan to pay it off, as well as the resources to do it (once I landed a job).
Fast forward six months and our debt has been reduced a little, but we feel as though we need to save more and spend less. We both like to think of ourselves as savers with the occasional unplanned purchase. Unfortunately, these unplanned purchases have been more frequent than we would have liked. Some purchases have been necessary (Melanie needed a new car when hers was totaled in an accident), and some haven’t (like an external hard drive I bought to back up our computers). I suppose the hard drive is debatable, but I bought a very nice laptop, but justified it because insurance money had paid for 90% of it.
This week, we decided to cut back our spending. With the help of Trent over at The Simple Dollar, I have used some of his tips and I feel as though we’re on our way.
One of the first things I did was look over our credit card bill to see what subscriptions were being charged monthly that we didn’t need any more. I was able to remove $17 worth of monthly subscriptions with visits to two websites and one phone call. One of the websites even credited back this month’s payment ($7.95).
I think the hardest thing for us will be thinking about every purchase, whether it is fifty dollars or fifty cents.
So here we go, and I hope you enjoy the trip with us.